THE AFRICAN STUDIES UNIT (ASU) AND CENTRE FOR AFRICAN STUDIES (CAS) at the University of Cape Town is a unit within the School of African and Gender Studies, Social Anthropology and Linguistics within the Faculty of Humanities . Its teaching and research focuses on interdisciplinary studies within an African and Global context.

The Centre was constituted in 1976 and built on the work of the School of African Studies, which had been in existence for over fifty years and was one of the oldest in the world. Current scholarship takes place within the context of the mission of the Centre, which is to promote scholarship in the various fields concerned with people in Africa. This brief remains focussed upon providing a critical comparative perspective between Southern Africa, Africa and the globalising world.

This mission remains urgent, given the long-standing and continuing dominance of Western models and discourses.

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