Asinamali: Aspiration, debt and citizenship in South Africa's #FeesMustFall protests

Abstract

South Africa's #FeesMustFall protests have widely been seen as a reckoning with the limitations of post‐apartheid citizenship and young people's frustrations over the slow pace of socio‐economic transformation. This paper seeks to analyse how working‐class students from one township community interpreted these protests. It argues that the protests reflected collective aspirations toward social mobility among working‐class students and concerns over the threat that high levels of future debt posed to this mobility. It contributes to geographical research on young people's experiences of debt by highlighting how the burden of debt intersects with experiences of racialised poverty and inequality. It suggests that young people's aspirations, even in the context of neoliberalism, frequently focused on collective social mobility and family well‐being. Finally, it proposes global comparative research on young people's experiences of debt and economic uncertainty in order to understand this increasingly globalised phenomenon and its political consequences.

Decolonisation, knowledge production, and interests in liberal higher education

“…In contrast, because of poor investment in infrastructure and complex teaching and administrative loads, historically black universities were unable to raise student fees or academic research and publication income. The latter continued to operate on limited fee revenues from students who overwhelmingly depend on the government's financial aid/loan scheme (Webb, 2019). Reduced funding and persistent pressures from government to show competitiveness in global ranking metrics have, together, further undermined efforts to address social justice, equity, and curriculum reforms at both historically white and black universities (Mbembe, 2016).…”

Youth-Led Social Movements and Peacebuilding in Africa

“…Students felt that their curricula and pedagogies did not reflect their lived experiential realities and contexts. Scholars argue that the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall protests have widely been seen as a reckoning of the limitations of post-apartheid citizenship and young people's frustrations over the slow pace of socioeconomic transformation (Maringira and Gukurume 2021;Webb 2018). Scholars like Nyamnjoh (2016) have also argued that in post-apartheid South Africa, the social and economic field remains largely unequal, as revealed by how racism and its systemic privileges persist.…”

Geographies of citizenship in higher education: An introduction

“…He also argues that “students play a crucial role in experimenting and testing the boundaries of citizenship imagined by the institution” (p. 624), which reflects the ambiguities of citizenship subjectification, thereby revealing the openness of any citizenship‐making project promulgated by higher education. Webb's () paper demonstrates how post‐apartheid educational reform to abolish race‐based admission policies represented the South African Government's efforts to promote collective intergenerational mobility through higher education. Yet, while this “presented an opportunity for reimagining social citizenship in the new South Africa” (p. 628), the neoliberal‐style policies also saw revealed competition and rising fees among universities that resulted in student loans and debts.…”

“…Yet, while this “presented an opportunity for reimagining social citizenship in the new South Africa” (p. 628), the neoliberal‐style policies also saw revealed competition and rising fees among universities that resulted in student loans and debts. Webb () argues that while historical inequities are partially addressed under this reform, new class divisions and youth vulnerabilities are generated.…”

“…Collectively, these papers hint at alternative expressions of citizenship that shift beyond their respective study contexts to highlight the role of young people in enacting them. Webb's () and Dimpfl and Smith's () papers reveal the central role of student resistance in pressurising for institutional change. Here, social actions not only oppose the dominant and narrowly elitist models of citizenship, but also expose the hidden injuries that such models tend to obscure, and in a manner that exceeds the students’ own particular interests to include those of workers such as cleaners and frontline housekeepers.…”