What happens when the lab meets the spirit world? When does ocean science flow into ancestral callings? For me, Kolisa Yola Sinyanya, it’s not a contradiction. It’s my real life! It is my calling.

In a powerful feature by Tanatswa Taruvinga in The Southern African Times, my journey reminds us that African spirituality and science don’t have to exist in separate worlds. As one of South Africa’s first Black women to earn a PhD in ocean biogeochemistry and a practising sangoma, I walk boldly between worlds that colonial systems tried to keep apart.

From Lab Coats to Beads

My story is both deeply personal and undeniably political. It challenges the Western narrative that science is objective and spirituality is superstition. Instead, I embrace both, arguing and being living proof that ancestral knowledge has always been rooted in observation, experimentation, and holistic insight. In fact, many African healing practices mirror modern health sciences, yet were dismissed for decades due to colonial erasure.

Today, I use my multidimensional identity to advocate for more inclusive, culturally grounded approaches to environmental, ocean research and research in general. I realised that my scientific work was missing spirit, and my spiritual work was craving structure.

A Reckoning with the Past

During colonial and apartheid rule in South Africa, indigenous knowledge systems were systematically attacked through laws like the Witchcraft Suppression Acts of 1895 and 1957. Traditional healers were criminalised, spiritual leaders were branded as witches or charlatans, and practices rooted in African cosmology were outlawed as dangerous or unscientific.

But today, a new generation of African scientists, spiritual practitioners, and healers is reclaiming these traditions, placing value on the wisdom systems that have sustained their communities for generations and challenging the legacy of laws that once sought to erase them.

My decision to undergo ukuthwasa (ancestral initiation) while continuing my career in academia is a radical act of reclamation. It also sets an example for younger generations: you do not have to choose between the modern and the traditional. You can be both. Fully!

Science, Ancestors, and the Sea

My work in ocean biogeochemistry now carries more profound meaning. I recognise the ocean not just as a chemical system but as a living, sacred entity connected to the ancestors. This isn’t a poetic license. It’s my reality. It’s my worldview. It’s science informed by story, spirit, and place. In the end, my story is a call to decolonise knowledge. To embrace an African worldview that understands healing, data, nature, and spirit as one ecosystem.

Final Word

If you’ve ever felt torn between worlds or silenced for being too “African” in academic spaces, this story is for you. The future is not either or. It’s both, and it’s already here!

🌀 Rooted in spirit. Driven by science. Led by the ancestors.