6. The South African DCR Project

Abstract

hard work have been a constant source of inspiration to me. Thank you for this and our long conversations about Africa, South Africa and social injustices, which helped me to develop many of the ideas in this book. To my beloved husband, Sander van Leusden, thank you for remaining supportive and caring despite my ups and downs throughout this book. The journey has not been easy, but I could not imagine undertaking it without you. You have been a central pillar of strength for my work. Finally, but not least, to all the DCR co-researchers that took part in the collaborative inquiry, thank you for your enthusiasm, dedication and hard-work despite your academic commitments. Without you this book would not have been possible. I feel grateful for our friendships and to have shared with you all this time during and since the project. For SpheAs a young, working-class girl who grew up in a mono-parental family in the South of Spain, knowledge meant something simple but also something unattainable. First, it was clear to me that we all have the capacity to know many things to a certain extent. Back then, I thought my mother knew a lot, many adults did as well. They knew how to do things and how things worked in the local context. However, there was another kind of knowing that was relegated to others, especially not for a family like mine, the knowing from universities and what is usually understood as scientific or academic knowledge.University knowledge, the knowledge nourished within universities' walls, was a mystery to me and many of the members of my family and friends, however, somehow whoever was able to access it or embodied it through university degrees or any diploma would become something 'more'. This 'more', was not a distinction between which kinds of academic knowledge we were talking about. It was an intrinsic value that raised the person possessing scientific knowledge to a level of dignity that was strange to imagine for someone who had never been seen in that light. Equally, becoming 'more' meant of course, we were 'less'; less respectable, less educated, less intelligent, and less dignified than those who were part and parcel of these elitist institutions.And all this became overwhelmingly clear when I first entered university at the age of eighteen and, as expected, I failed, and I dropped out during my second year. I was constantly wondering: how do I not belong in this university when everyone said (directly or indirectly) to me that this is what I have to do to become a dignified human being in my society? To have opportunities, to have a voice, to have freedoms,