On 01 August 2024, Professor Nancy Odendaal assumed her role as Professor in Urban Studies at the African Centre for Cities (ACC). This is a five-year joint-professorship funded by the University of Basel as part of a collaborative programme with the University of Cape Town (UCT).
Nancy is no stranger to the ACC, having worked with the centre in 2009 and 2010 at the early stages of its formation. “This is my full circle in Cape Town and the ACC; I moved to Cape Town from Durban to join the ACC,” she explained. This is where she spearheaded the formation of the Association for African Planning School (AAPS), to advance the network of planning institutions on the continent.
Before joining UCT and moving through the ranks until she was most recently the Head of the School of Architecture, Planning and Geomatics, Nancy started her career as an assistant planner in Durban. She was bitten by the academic bug while pursuing her Master’s degree and working in the non-profit sector. “I happened to become an academic almost by accident. I don’t come from an academic family; I’m the first person in my family to get a degree and to me it was a world waiting to be discovered. What attracts me to this Basel job is the fact that it’s unusual and it’s the best of both worlds,” she said.
Prof Odendaal elaborated: “There’s a sort of an academic politics to it with regards to the fact that it’s about southern urbanism from the south and from a southern scholar. I believe in the job politically as well…I have to buy into something ideologically in order to give it my full attention.”
As part of the joint-professorship, Basel students in the Critical Urbanisms Master’s programme spend a semester at UCT, where they work closely with students in ACC’s MPhil in Southern Urbanism. This offers students from both programmes the opportunity to get to know urbanists from very different parts of the world and enrich the student experience on both courses.
“There is a history of extractive academic endeavours when it comes to Africa in particular, and we still come across it with northern scholars coming here to do research and doing very little to include local academics. This is a way of saying we’re equal; I’ll come up north and explore your very particular perspective and you bring your students here and we’ll explore together. It’s important that we see it as a collaboration.”
Nancy added that she’s looking forward to expanding her teaching into more of the critical urban studies space, after years of teaching applied planning. She will also teach and supervise Master’s and PhD students at the University of Basel and at UCT. According to her, one of the factors that set this role apart, and makes it both unusual and highly exciting, is the emphasis placed on collaboration between south-north scholars. “There is a history of extractive academic endeavours when it comes to Africa in particular, and we still come across it with northern scholars coming here to do research and doing very little to include local academics. This is a way of saying we’re equal; I’ll come up north and explore your very particular perspective and you bring your students here and we’ll explore together. It’s important that we see it as a collaboration,” Nancy remarked.
Prof Edgar Pieterse, Director of the ACC said he’s excited for Nancy’s return to ACC and that the collaboration is growing from strength to strength. “I am over-the-moon that we have Nancy back in the ACC fold proper to provide intellectual leadership, mentorship to our wonderful students and an ambassador for ACC and UCT in key academic spaces in the European context. Her cutting-edge work on smart urbanism that responds to contexts will add an important dimension to ACCs body of expertise,” Pieterse said.
Verbatim: excerpts of the interview with Prof. Odendaal
What attracted you about the Basel job?
One of the things that attracted me to this job is that I love teaching. If I don’t teach, I become grumpy. When the Basel opportunity came up, I looked at it and said this is exactly what I want right now for my career and personal growth. I really like the pedagogical approach which is about in-situ and experiential learning, which is a core part of my teaching philosophy. Seeing the student as someone you can learn from as well which is different from more traditional ways of approaching university education.
What are you looking forward to in this new role?
I’m looking forward to expanding my teaching into more of the critical urban studies space. I’m used to teaching planning; I teach students how to make plans and it’s quite instrumental and applied. It’s going to be really fun to move into a space where we do exploratory work with students. I’m looking forward to working with different students and seeing what I can learn from them. I’m really looking forward to working with my colleagues at Basel because there are some nice overlaps in research interests; and I’m just looking forward to being in a different environment which might pique different interests.
Expanding on research interests at Basel
There are two areas of my research that I want to expand on which apply directly to the Basel job, and one is on infrastructure. I’ve always been interested in infrastructure and lately I’ve started thinking about infrastructure legacies and histories which overlaps with a lot of work that Professor Kenny Cupers does in Basel. Thinking about infrastructure legacies vis-à-vis colonialism and apartheid is relevant to the job. The other work I’m looking forward to expanding on is around my work on smart urbanism which is what I’m known for. How to bring the digital into the everyday and getting students to work with that. I’m looking forward to bringing those who choose my elective to Cape Town and getting them to work with platforms, that interfaces with the urban every day. A big part of that work that I’m becoming interested in is data politics and storytelling. I think storytelling is quite a powerful vehicle to work with in terms of research and interrogating spaces. I’m looking forward to taking that further in research and the teaching space.
