Introduction Reflecting on the fifth anniversary of UJ, the then UJ Vice-Chancellor Professor Ihron Rensburg remarked that UJ was a “new generation university” (in Brink, 2010, p.1). While noting that the three legacy institutions constituting UJ (Rand Afrikaans University, Technikon Witwatersrand and Vista University) in their own ways “mined the rich vein of human capital that helped build” the South African nation and provided “quality education for its constituent community” - as racialised institutions, he argued - “they reinforced racial separation and exclusion” (Rensburg in Brink, 2010, p.1). As such, UJ needed to be “a unifying force for the future” (Rensburg in Brink, 2010, p.1). In this lens, “as a socially engaged institution with a progressive outlook”, UJ would need to mirror “the miracle transition of old to new in the remaking of the South African academic landscape” (Rensburg in Brink, 2010, p.1). In this reflective article, as students and staff, we reflect on the UJ Anthropology and Development Studies department on the 20th anniversary of UJ. Both the disciplines of Anthropology and Development Studies are deeply tainted with coloniality and the promotion of apartheid ideologies. In this reflection, we focus on three distinct and interrelated aspects. The first locates Anthropology and Development Studies in their historical context, focusing especially on their colonial and apartheid milieu. Secondly, we explore the contemporary context of our disciplines, offering modes and experiences of decoloniality, (re)humanisation and reparation. Lastly, we end with projections and directions for the future of our disciplines. We are especially interested in the contemporary situatedness of our disciplines and the transitory period through which, in both disciplines, the previously marginalised are now centred on our learning, teaching and the research topics that we grapple with. In both Anthropology and Development Studies in the past two decades, moves towards scholarship aimed at informing pragmatic transformation among the previously segregated and excluded have been made, although there is much that remains untransformed. Thus, we argue the contemporary trend in Anthropology and Development Studies of situating the disciplines in the social contexts it investigates is epistemologically reparative, intellectually productive, and socially transformative. This propels our disciplines towards reversing the legacies of epistemicide aimed at engineering conquered indigenous societies for the fulfilment of the Thus, we argue the contemporary trend in Anthropology and Development Studies of situating the disciplines in the social contexts it investigates is epistemologically reparative, intellectually productive, and socially transformative. 58 A Journey of Innovation
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