- Title
- Selected benefits, challenges and lessons experiences by the 2015-16 feesmustfall leaders at the University of Fort Hare (UFH), East London Campus (EL)
- Creator
- Dyakumeni, Monica
- Subject
- Student movements -- South Africa Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Education, Higher -- South Africa
- Date Issued
- 2018
- Date
- 2018
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MSoc
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10353/11075
- Identifier
- vital:37028
- Description
- There is a high amount of journalistic and academic work that has been produced to highlight the various benefits, challenges and lessons the 2015-2016 #Feesmustfall movement (henceforth, FMFM) brought in its wake for South African universities affected and for South African society in general. Save for the University of the Witwatersrand (activists from Wits produced a book on their involvement in FMF), there is a dearth of academic research on the benefits, challenges and lessons of FMF as experienced by students from affected universities, in general, and student activists and leaders, in particular. The current research study was conducted to fill the above gap, and it adopted a qualitative research philosophy in the manner the research was conducted. For the purposes of this research, 10 male FMF activists from the University of Fort Hare, East London, Eastern Cape, were interviewed using an in-depth interview technique about what they regarded as benefits, challenges and lessons stemming from their involvement as leaders of the FMF protests in their campus. The findings largely set a tone of caution that there are important considerations to be made when looking at the issue of university-based protests such as FMF; in particular, the physical and psychological impacts of these protests on student leaders, or activists. The results in this study demonstrate that those who led the 2015/6 FMF protests at UFH, EL, experienced intellectual and political leadership growth as young student leaders, among some benefits. The benefits, however, were tempered by some of the traumatic and disturbing events, which exposed these leaders to, among other things, police violence, arrests and serious psychological discomfort during and even after the protests. The results also demonstrate some continuing positive impact of the FMFM on those who led the students at UFH, that is, they are today using the knowledge and lessons from FMF to make their workplaces and their political organization’s processes more robust and democratic. These findings are significant, especially for universities in South Africa, and in Africa as a whole, as there are researchers who caution that the South African university management is quick to resort to student repression during protests. The study then goes on to discuss the relevance of the findings for universities, the state and the student activists themselves. Areas for future research are also proffered.
- Format
- 56 leaves
- Format
- Publisher
- University of Fort Hare
- Publisher
- Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
- Language
- English
- Rights
- University of Fort Hare
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UFH Department of Sociology and Anthropology
| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | SOURCE1 | Monicas Masters Work EDITED.pdf | 9 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |