I have not weighed in here on the controversy over the University if Cape Town decision to merge and thus downgrade the Centre for African Studies (CAS) with Anthropology, African Languages and Literature and Gender Studies. The best piece I have seen on the decision came from Africa is a Country a couple of months back. Anyone who has spent any time at CAS knows how valuable it has been to UCT, to South African academic life, and to African studies. I tend not to see malfeasance where I can find incompetence, so I’m assuming that this is a poorly thought out decision pushed by bean counters. Still, the optics are bad, and just because I’m willing to grant incompetence first doesn’t mean malfeasance doesn’t linger around the margins.
