University Spaces as Sites of Conscience

Abstract

In this article, I reflect on the idea of university spaces as potential sites of conscience. I explore how these spaces act not only as continuous reminders of past violence, marginalization, and exclusion, but as reminders also of ethical accountability and redress. The latter discloses opportunities and possibilities for a reinterpretation of such spaces, keeping in mind that the traces of the past will remain and that every attempt at erasure will be incomplete. The article considers how spaces or places that remain in the process of decolonization can be mobilized as sites of conscience. These sites/spaces/places manifest relationality also between materiality and symbol and between judgment and ethical accountability. The article focuses on issues surrounding the removal of a statue of the past president of the Republic of the Orange Free State, President M. T. Steyn at the University of the Free State (UFS) in Bloemfontein, South Africa. The university has a long and troubled history of exclusion, racism, and authoritarianism, among others. Since the early 1990s, many attempts have been made to transform, not all in vain. The statue itself was a site of contention at the UFS for many years and was removed over the last weekend in June 2020. I conclude that space that remains on the UFS campus is one of haunting that urges a certain sense of place and atmosphere that could forge learning, education, and transforming citizenship.