- Title
- “The scales were peeled from my eyes”: South African academics coming to consciousness to become agents of change
- Creator
- Vincent, Louise
- Creator
- Idahosa, Grace E
- Date Issued
- 2018
- Date
- 2018
- Type
- text
- Type
- article
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141759
- Identifier
- vital:38002
- Identifier
- DOI: 10.18848/2327-0055/cgp/v15i04/13-28
- Description
- For postcolonial societies, addressing the impact of the previous oppressive system in a bid to attain equity and social justice necessitates transformation in various spheres and sectors of society. As cradles of learning, research, and knowledge development, higher education institutions are one such sphere with a particular duty to contribute to, and embody, social transformation. However, almost 25 years after the country’s first democratic elections, the institutional cultures and structures of many South African universities still bear the imprimatur of past inequities. Existing research suggests that the success of transformation policies is influenced by the extent to which individual staff members exercise agency to effect transformative practices. But what determines whether an individual becomes an agent of change? This paper draws on the experiences of ten academic staff members who have taken actions that can be said to have contributed to shifting in important ways relations and/or practices at one university in South Africa. It adopts a hermeneutic phenomenological lens to understand the lived experiences of participants of having agency and undertaking transformative actions.
- Format
- 16 pages
- Format
- Language
- English
- Relation
- The International Journal of Critical Cultural Studies
- Relation
- Idahosa, G.E. and Vincent, L., 2018. The scales were peeled from my eyes’: South African academics coming to consciousness to become agents of change. International Journal for Critical Cultural Studies, 15(4), pp.13-28.
- Relation
- The International Journal of Critical Cultural Studies volume 15 number 4 13 28 2018 2327-2376
- Rights
- Publisher
- Rights
- Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Common Ground Research Networks Rights and Permissions statement (https://cgnetworks.org/journals/rights-and-permissions)
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Collections
Vincent, Louise (Prof)
RU Department of Political and International Studies
SDG 10. Reduced Inequalities
SDG 04. Quality Education
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