The Borders of Transformation: The Continent and the South African University

This colloquium considers competing and complementary approaches to race and nationality in South African higher education, at a moment that marks ten years since the RhodesMustFall and FeesMustFall protests as well as being characterised by the increasing visibility and weaponisation of national and international xenophobia. It poses this question as a reflection not just on the Fallist movements, but on a three-decade long history of contentious post-Apartheid efforts to align the country’s universities with broader commitments to equity and progressive social change. Current attacks on academic institutions represent them as sites of illicit patronage of apparently unqualified foreigners, while foreign academics themselves navigate bureaucratic mazes and hostile atmospheres. What can these contradictions tell us about the processes of transformation and change that were meant to be invigorated by #RMF? The colloquium also considers future institutional trajectories in an era of resource scarcity, persistent domestic and global inequality, and rampant populist anti-intellectualism. At its heart, it asks how universities, and the scholars and activists housed within them, can respond to stormy political waters and to potentially competing visions of justice and transformation. What might it mean to be an African university in South Africa, and what will it take to realise that vision?

Featuring Ahmed Veriava (Wits), Srila Roy (Wits), Mxolisi Makhubo (UJ), Fikile Masikane (UP), William Mpofu (Wits), Samia Chasi (Wits) and Salim Vally (UJ).

Please RSVP to Lenore.Longwe@wits.ac.za, stating whether you will attend in-person or online

A collaboration between the Internationalization and Strategic Partnerships Office, the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, the Wits-Oxford Mobility Governance Lab, the NRF-DST SARChI Chair in Mobility and the Politics of Difference and the NRF-DST SARChI Chair in Critical Diversity Studies

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