Academics in the School of Education Professors Daisy Pillay (Project Leader) and Inbanathan Naicker, and Dr Lungile Masinga have developed a visual display book as a creative contribution to social cohesion in public Higher Education. They worked alongside Professors Theresa Chisanga of Walter Sisulu University and Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan (University of Nottingham, UK), and Dr Anita Hiralaal from Durban University of Technology.

The beautifully illustrated book of photographs showcases the three-day research symposium on Object Inquiry for Social Cohesion in Public Higher Education, held in Durban in 2019. Participants were invited from local and international Higher Education Institutions. They engaged in different activities which stimulated and provoked deep conversations about academic identities and fostered social cohesion across diverse contexts.

‘In the visual illustrated book, we document the range of activities and present them publicly as a photo-rich coffee table book showing in full colour the power of object inquiry to evoke and provoke us to think about who/what we are as academics,’ explained Pillay.

This research project on Object Inquiry for Social Cohesion in Public Higher Education: Exploring Academic Identities and Fostering Shared Values Across Diverse Contexts” has been funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) for the past four years.