History & Pedagogy

A GATHERING SPACE OF COMRADESHIP

STORY

The relational formation of the Anabaptist presence in South Africa came through an invitation from various local communities to explore ways of deepening solidarity, peace, justice, and reconciliation. The involvement of Anabaptist agencies in southern Africa dates back to the 1970’s when various global organizations and churches committed themselves to support and accompany people working for peace and justice. Between an era of apartheid and the emergence of the democratic period post-1994 wider Anabaptist influence began to take shape. It was during this era of new political and theological prophetic imagination that the formation of the Anabaptist Network in South Africa (ANiSA), from which Iziko emerges, presented itself as an alternative theo-political network which sought to foster a praxis of peace and justice at a distance from power. According to Andrew Suderman, one of the previous coordinator of the Anabaptist Network in South Africa (ANiSA):

“Anabaptism has had a small but significant influence in South Africa - particularly among the theological and activist voices during the struggle against apartheid. According to many of those most directly involved, Anabaptist theology provided and modelled an alternative understanding for what it means to be the church in relation to “the powers,” and what it means to be a community that walked in solidarity with those who were experiencing oppression, supporting them in their struggle, while challenging such violence and injustice in ways that demonstrated and bore witness to a path of peace and reconciliation.”

The work of Iziko Lamaqabane today emerged directly from these rich histories as both the organizational evolution of ANiSA and the call for a more indigenous expressionism of anabaptists witness.

PEDAGOGY of SOLIDARITY

Iziko Lamaqabane, meaning “the gathering space of comradeship,” highlights our pedagogical approach to accompaniment on the pilgrimage of liberation. As a faith informed support centre for peace and justice practitioners, it is our conviction that the more we can walk together, sharing stories, friendship and knowledgies, the more our wisdom, longevity and capacity to disrupt violence and oppression will grow.

Our practices at Iziko emerge from this desire to serve practitioners by exchanging and practicing our ‘Four R’s’ together: research, resource, remember, and retreat.

RE-SEARCH

The practice of thinking has often been denied to Black people. As such, our posture at Iziko is to explore new ways of knowing and being within Black communities and to resurface historically maligned knowledgies and experiences. This epistemic understanding seeks to place blackness and black lived-experience as a space we draw learning and thinking from for the work of healing colonial wounds.

Iziko’s research posture, therefore, explicitly centers urban African con(texts) and blackness at large. Our methodological premise, or assumption, is that black people have always used trans/inter/disciplinary methods to explain, explore, and story the world, because thinking and writing and imaging across a range of texts, disciplines, histories, and genres unsettles dismal and insular racial logics and praxis. The aim of Iziko’s knowledge production is to understand and construct contextual urban peace and justice theologies. To learn with and within black and disenfranchised communities as a means of interpreting urban con(texts) in Africa.