Theorising the #MustFall Student Movements in Contemporary South African Higher Education: A Social Justice Perspective

Abstract

A significant amount of literature on the student movement in South Africa is characterised by two limitations. Firstly, a significant amount of this literature is found in un-academic and non-peer-reviewed sources, such as social media, online newspapers, blog posts and other platforms. Secondly, some of this literature is characterised by an absence of theory in offering us critical analysis of the emergent conditions of the student movement as a phenomenon in South African higher education (SAHE). In this article, we respond to the above gaps by contributing to the scholarly development and critical analysis of the student movement in SAHE. In order to respond to the above two gaps, we firstly provide a brief historical and contextual environment that has contributed to the emergence of the student movement phenomenon in SAHE. Secondly, we introduce Nancy Fraser's social justice perspective, in offering us the theoretical and conceptual tools we need to look at the struggles and challenges that confront student movements, focusing in particular on the challenges that frustrate them in relating and interacting as peers on an equal footing in society. Using Fraser's social justice framework to look at the #MustFall movements will allow us to better understand them as complex phenomena in SAHE and allow us to properly understand their emergence.

Re-Thinking the Humanities Curriculum in the Time of Covid-19

“…The second purpose of education is 'socialisation', where education also concerns the hidden and implicit induction of students into the norms, values, and beliefs of a particular society. This alignment of education with the social, economic and political orders reflects Bourdieu's (2011) notion of cultural capital, where students gain access to the official and recognised habitus that they will need to negotiate beyond the family and religious community 2019a;2019b). The third purpose of education for Biesta (2009) is what she refers to as 'subjectification', which largely concerns students becoming independent in their thinking, being, and acting.…”

“…This online teaching and learning regime align with the state sanctioned, World Economic Forum developed, discourse of President Cyril Ramaphosa 4 regarding South Africa needing to embrace the 'fourth industrial revolution' and its online pedagogies. This includes acknowledging the plight of the Black working class students located in the township and rural areas who would struggle with access to data, requisite electronic devices, shelter, food, a conducive environment, and training to handle the pressures and demands of online teaching and learning (Heffernan, Nieftagodien, Ndlovu & Peterson 2016;Hlalele 2012;Hlatshwayo & Fomunyam 2019a). Failure to respond to the above, will result in the reinforcement of inequality of the educational experience between middle to upper class students (who will be able to successfully participate in online pedagogies), and those who are still structurally trapped in the township and rural areas (who will continue to struggle to navigate online teaching and learning).…”

"We've been taught to understand that we don't have anything to contribute towards knowledge": Exploring academics' understanding of decolonising curricula in higher education

“…(Sanchez, 2018, pp. 3-4) In the South African context, the calls for decolonising and transforming 2 curricula have often suggested that the post-1994 political dispensation did very little to challenge or interrupt colonial and apartheid epistemic traditions, and bring about new and inclusive knowledges in curricula (Heleta, 2018;Hlatshwayo & Fomunyam, 2019a;Hlatshwayo & Shawa, 2020). The 1990s and early 2000s were shaped and informed largely by a policy framework that sought to open the doors of higher education to all, especially for the millions 2 While there are new and emergent debates in South African higher education on the differences between transformation (which is seen as reforming the system) and decolonization (which is seen as overhauling and restructuring the system), in this paper we have adopted and operationalized both transformation and decolonization as being concerned with changing the system and attempting to make it socially just and inclusive.…”

“…This was significant in that it moved beyond the narrow and nativist conception of Africanisation which essentialises and simplifies what it means to be a political African subject (see Msila and Gumbo, 2016). The student movements called for a broader understanding of transforming curricula beyond precolonial, nativist, monolithic, and indigenous conceptions of Blackness (see Hlatshwayo & Fomunyam, 2019a;Naicker, 2016;Ngcobozi, 2015).…”

“…Universities in the Global South 1 continue to face intensive scrutiny and critique regarding the ever increasing demands to change, reform, transform, decolonise, and, in the Indian higher education context, to de-commodify curricula in the academy (Dey, 2019;Hlatshwayo & Fomunyam, 2019a;Hlatshwayo & Shawa, 2020). Common to the above debates is the assumption that the contemporary university in its current constitution not only colonises, oppresses, and marginalises, but also fails to serve the interests of society, and thereby continues to reinforce its structural inequality (Heleta, 2016;Mbembe, 2016;Morreira, 2017).…”