Figure 2: Students, staff and general UJ community members at a hybrid seminar by Felipe Bandeira Netto (Quilombola, Fotógrafo, Antropólogo Visual e Pesquisador Narrativo) a Brazilian PhD candidate based at the Federal University of Bahia, El Salvador at the Anthropology department. Netto generously volunteered to share his amazing and extensive knowledge and skills in the following areas: Photo-ethnography, participant observation, visual diaries, and compiling a short documentary “A system designed to support me?” A journey from lecture venues, mentorship to leadership While UJ is racially heterogeneous, there is no denying that our department attracts predominantly Black African students from South Africa and many other countries. As such, if we are a discipline with the colonial and apartheid history that we carry, a question arises as to what the entry of the previously marginalised and dehumanised has meant for the contemporary student in Anthropology and Development Studies at UJ. As Givens (2023: 16) notes, Black students carry the weight of the past with them. Givens (2023:16) continues: “Whether named or unnamed, the marks of this past function as resources - good, bad, or otherwise - that condition students’ developmental processes. They influence how black students come to know themselves as racialised learners - identities that are always historically situated”. A vignette from our co-author, Naledi, can further illuminate: The eve of my journey at the University of Johannesburg in 2018 was characterized by a sense of displacement as does that of anyone thrust into a world unknown. Prior to this I had encountered the well known UJ bridge, which can symbolically carry the idea of crossing over from the outside into the inner pith of a well of knowledge. Anchored by the faculty of my imagination, I would envisage myself crossing over to the other side. As the abstract gave way to the tangible, I was now on the other side, finding my bearings. The contents of Psychology, Philosophy and Anthropology lectures and the accompanying reading materials poured intomy eager and inquisitive mind. Because I couldn’t attend 62 A Journey of Innovation
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