I decided to study an MPhil in African Studies because I wanted to engage more rigorously with the varying contexts, conversations, ideas and concepts that are born from the African continent. Primarily being a philosopher, specialising in the areas of ontological phenomenology, political philosophy, ethics and social epistemology, the interest in African modes of thought and debates is considered to be pivotal to how I engage, philosophically, with questions aimed at understanding what it means to be a being-in-the-world; what it is to be an African being in the world. My research project, which focuses on the ethics of reconciliation centred memorialization in South Africa, brings together these philosophical interests quite neatly into addressing matters important to the contemporary South African context. More specifically, as reflected in my choice in the research project, I needed a space to engage these ideas outside of the traditional analytical philosophy canon, which at times, as Charles Mills has pointed out, finds itself preoccupied in idealism and tends to be wilfully ignorant regarding the urgent need for addressing the complex concrete realities that marking an unjust world. This space, I believe, rested in a parallel pivot into African Studies, as a form of enlightening myself to doing things differently- with a hope that I can transfer what I learn in African Studies and harness it into doing philosophy in a way more inclusive of the African contribution to the world.