1 - Colour-line: The Petrifaction of Racialization and Alterity at the University of Stellenbosch
Corresponding Author(s) : Fazil Moradi
Journal of Higher Education in Africa,
Vol. 8 No. 2 (2010): Journal of Higher Education in Africa
Abstract
This paper investigates ‘black’ (minority) student experiences and living conditions at an Afrikaans-speaking historically white university, the University of Stellenbosch (SU). It is an empirical attempt to unearth the present conditionality of minority students that make up 14 per cent of the enrolled students at SU. Thus it involves social (under-)development and is a move away from the individual as unit of analysis per se and includes assessment of the social processes that condition a racialized dividing-line between different groups and at once prolong group affiliation/belonging. The main focus is on the following themes essential to the dispute on educational transformation in South Africa: racialized skin colour and stereotypes, access to language and education, and segregated spaces and economic reality. I apply qualitative research interview and utilize the post- colonial approach to argue that minority students constantly encounter the reinstatement of a racialized system of difference that excludes and positions them as marginalized subjects. It is argued that these experiences are due to the corporeal schema and cultural characteristics that delineate membership at SU, which make minority students more resistant and at once more ambivalent about the pursuit of education as a self-realization process, and more importantly an investment for future life, which constitute the main force for almost all of the minority students.
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- Abdi, A. A., 1999, ‘Frantz Fanon and Postcolonial Realities: ATemporal Perspective’,Wasafiri 15 (30): 52-54.
- Alexander, N., 1989, ‘Language Policy, Symbolic Power and the Democratic Responsibility of the Post-Apartheid University’, D.C.S. Oosthuizen Memorial Lecture, Rhodes University.
- Alexander, N., 2001, ‘Prospects for a Nonracial Future in South Africa’, in Beyond Racism: Race and Inequality in Brazil, South Africa, and the United States, edited by C.V. Hamilton, L. Huntley, N.
- Alexander, A.S.A. Guimaraes &W. James, Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 471-489.
- Alexander, N., 2004, ‘The politics of Language Planning in Post-apartheid South Africa’, Language Problems & Language Planning 28 (2): 113-130.
- Appadurai, A.,1996, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
- Barber, J. & J. Barratt, 1990, South Africa’s Foreign Policy: The Search for Status and Security, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Bauman, Z., 1998, Globalization: The Human Consequences, Cambridge: Polity Press.
- Berger, E., 2003, ‘The Right to Education under the South African Constitution’,Columbia Law Review, 103 (3): 614-661.
- Bhabha, H. K., 2004, The Location of Culture, London and New York: Routledge.
- Biko, S., 1978, ‘Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity’, Journal of the African Activist Association, 8 (3): 10-23.
- Bognitz, S., 2010, ‘Contesting Tongues: The Politics of Language Rights and Claims at an Afrikaans-medium University in South Africa’, Master’s Thesis, Halle- Wittenberg: Martin-Luther-Universität, Germany.
- Bourdieu, P., 1990, The Logic of Practice, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
- Brink, C., 2007, ‘Preface to Stellenbosch University Self-evaluation Report for the HEQC’, in Chris Brink, Anatomy of a Transformer, edited by A. Botha, Stellenbosch: Sun Press, 135-143.
- Brink, C., 2006, No Lesser Place: The Taaldebat at Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch: Sun Press.
- Clark, N. L. & W. H. Worger, 2004, South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, Harlow: Pearson Education.
- Comaroff, J. L. & Comaroff, J., 2005, ‘Reflections on Liberalism, Policulturalism & ID- ology.
- Citizenship and Difference in South Africa’, in Limits to Liberation after Apartheid: Citizenship, Governance and Culture edited by S. Robins, Oxford: James Currey, 33-56.
- Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, No. 108 of 1996, Available at: http://www.info.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/a108-96.pdf. Accessed: 10-09-2010.
- Derrida, J., 1985, ‘Racism’s Last Word’, Critical Inquiry, 12 (1): 290-299.
- Derrida, J., 1998, Monolingualism of the Other; or, the Prosthesis of Origin, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
- Doh, E. F., 2009, Stereotyping Africa: Surprising Answers to Surprising Questions, Bamenda: Langaa RPCIG.
- Dubow, S., 1995, ‘Mental Testing and the Understanding of the “Native Mind”’, in Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa, S. Dubow, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 197-245.
- Egéa-Kuehne, D., 2001, ‘Derrida’s Ethics of Affirmation: The Challenge of Educational Rights and Responsibility’, in Derrida & Education, edited by G. J. J. Biesta and D. Egéa-Kuehne, London and New York: Routledge, 186-208.
- Eze, E. C., 1997, Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader, Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
- Fanon, F., 2008 [1952], Black Skin, White Masks, New York: Grove Press. Fanon, F., 2004 [1963], The Wretched of the Earth, New York: Grove Press.
- Fanon, F., 2006, ‘Racism and Culture’, in The Fanon Reader, edited by A. Haddour, London: Pluto Press, 19-32.
- Freund, B. & V. Padayachee, 1998, ‘Post-Apartheid South Africa: The key patterns emerge’, Economic and Political Weekly, 33 (20): 1173-1180.
- Giddens, A., 1991, Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
- Haferburg, C. & J. Ossenbrügge, eds., 2003, Ambiguous Restructurings of Post-apartheid Cape Town: The Spatial Form of Socio-political Change, Münster: Lit Verlag.
- Hall, S., D. Held, D. Hubert, K. Thompson, eds., 2004, Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies, Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
- Hall, S., 1996, ‘The after-life of Frantz Fanon: Why Fanon? Why now? Why black skin, white mask?’, in The Fact of Blackness: Frantz Fanon and Visual representation, edited by A. Read, London: Bay Press, 12-37.
- Hall, S., ed., 1999, Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, London: Sage Publication.
- Heugh, K., 2003, Language Policy and Democracy in South Africa: The Prospects of Equality within Right-based Policy and Planning, Stockholm: Stockholm University.
- Huschka, D. & S. Mau, 2006, ‘Social Anomie and Racial Segregation in South Africa’, Social Indicators Research, 76 (3): 467-498.
- James, G. W., 1990, ‘Apartheid, the University, and Change in South Africa’, American Association of University Professors, 74 (3): 20-23.
- Jemison, E. L., 2004, ‘The Nazi Influence in the Formation of Apartheid in South Africa’, The Concord Review 15 (1):75-103.
- Kant, I., 1997 [1775], ‘This Fellow was Quite Black…A Clear Proof that what he said was stupid’, in Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader, edited by E. C. Eze, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 38-64.
- Koen, C., M. Cele & A. Libhaber, 2006, ‘Student Activism and Student Exclusions in South Africa’, International Journal of Educational Development, 26 (4): 404-414.
- Kohn, M., 1995, The Race Gallery: the Return of Racial Science, London: Jonathan Cape.
- Lalu, P., 2007, ‘Apartheid’s University: Notes on the Renewal of the Enlightenment’, Journal of Higher Education in Africa, 5 (1): 45-60.
- Mabokela, R. O., 2001, ‘Selective Inclusion: Transformation and Language Policy at the University of Stellenbosch’, in Apartheid No More. Case Studies of Southern African Universities in the Process of Transformation, edited by R. O. Mabokela, and K. L. King, London: Bergin & Garvey, 59-72.
- Mandela, N., 2000, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London:Abacus.
- Memmi, A., 2000, Racism, Minneapolis and London: University of Minneapolis Press.
- Ministry of Education, 2002, Language Policy for Higher Education, Available at: http://www.education.gov.za/content/documents/67.pdf. Access date: 10-11-2010
- Mkhondo, R., 1993, Reporting South Africa, London: James Curry.
- Mmusi, S. O., 1987, ‘Language Planning and Policy and its Associated Problems in Black Education in South Africa’, Master’s thesis, Carbondale: Southern Illinios University, Department of Linguistics.
- Molteno, F., 1984, ‘The Historical Foundations of the Schooling of Black South Africans’, in Apartheid and Education, edited by P. Kallaway. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 45-107.
- Murphy, J. T., 1992, ‘Apartheid’s Legacy for Black Children’, Phi Delta Kappa, 73 (5): 67-74.
- O’Meara, D., 1983, Volkskapitalisme: Class, Capital and Ideology in the Development of Afrikaner Nationalism 1934-1948, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Rich, P., 1990. ‘Race, Science, and the Legitimization of White Supremacy in South Africa, 1902-1940’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 23 (4): 665-686.
- Rossouw, J., 2006, ‘The Disgrace of a Guilty Afrikaner: On Chris Brink’s No lesser place: The Taaldebat at Stellenbosch, LitNet. Website: http://www.oulitnet.co.za/ taaldebat/rossouw_brink.asp Access date: 24-02-2010.
- Said, E. W., 2003, Orientalism, London: Penguin Books.
- Said., E. W., 1993, Culture & Imperialism, London: Chatto & Windus.
- Sikwebu, D., 2008, ‘A Search for Post-apartheid Collective Identities: Ethnic Student Organisations at a South African University’, Journal of Higher Education in Africa, 6 (2&3): 107-133.
- Soudien, C., 2001, ‘Culture, Race, and Ethnicity in Education’, in Ethnicity, Race, and Nationality in Education: A Global Perspective, edited by N. K. Shimahara,
- I. Z. Holowinsky and S. Tomlinson-Clarke, Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 99-128.
- Spreen, C. A. & S. Vally, 2006, ‘Education Rights, Education Policies and Inequality in South Africa’, International Journal of Educational Development, 26 (4): 352- 362.
- Stellenbosch University Annual Report 2010, Available at: http://www.myvirtualpaper.com/doc/stellenbosch-University/annual_report_2010_ english/ 2011062303/10.html#26, Access date: 28-09-2011.
- Stellenbosch University Annual Report 2008, Available at: http://www.sun.ac.za/university/jaarverslag/verslag2008/pdfs/eng/report_vicerector_teaching.pdf, Access date: 02-11-2010.
- Stellenbosch University Language Policy 2002, Available at: http://www.sun.ac.za/university/Taal/dokumente/LangPolFinal2002.pdf Access date: Access date: 08-10-2010.
- Stellenbosch University Vision Statement for 2012. A Strategic Framework for the Turn of the Century and Beyond, Available at: http://www.sun.ac.za/university/ StratPlan/stratdocs.htm, Access date: 02-11-2010.
- Statistics South Africa, 2004, Census 2001, Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. Available at: http://www.statssa.gov.za/census01/html/RSAPrimary.pdf, Access date: 11- 03-2010.
- Vally, S., 2007, ‘Higher Education in South Africa: Market Mill or Public Good?’, Journal of Higher Education in Africa, 5 (1): 17-28.
- Van der Waal, K., 2002, ‘Diverse Approaches in a South African Debate on Language and Diversity in Higher Education’, Anthropology Southern Africa, 25 (3&4): 86-95.
- Webb, V. N. & M. Kriel, 2000, ‘Afrikaans and Afrikaner Nationalism’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 144: 19-49.
References
Abdi, A. A., 1999, ‘Frantz Fanon and Postcolonial Realities: ATemporal Perspective’,Wasafiri 15 (30): 52-54.
Alexander, N., 1989, ‘Language Policy, Symbolic Power and the Democratic Responsibility of the Post-Apartheid University’, D.C.S. Oosthuizen Memorial Lecture, Rhodes University.
Alexander, N., 2001, ‘Prospects for a Nonracial Future in South Africa’, in Beyond Racism: Race and Inequality in Brazil, South Africa, and the United States, edited by C.V. Hamilton, L. Huntley, N.
Alexander, A.S.A. Guimaraes &W. James, Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 471-489.
Alexander, N., 2004, ‘The politics of Language Planning in Post-apartheid South Africa’, Language Problems & Language Planning 28 (2): 113-130.
Appadurai, A.,1996, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Barber, J. & J. Barratt, 1990, South Africa’s Foreign Policy: The Search for Status and Security, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bauman, Z., 1998, Globalization: The Human Consequences, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Berger, E., 2003, ‘The Right to Education under the South African Constitution’,Columbia Law Review, 103 (3): 614-661.
Bhabha, H. K., 2004, The Location of Culture, London and New York: Routledge.
Biko, S., 1978, ‘Black Consciousness and the Quest for a True Humanity’, Journal of the African Activist Association, 8 (3): 10-23.
Bognitz, S., 2010, ‘Contesting Tongues: The Politics of Language Rights and Claims at an Afrikaans-medium University in South Africa’, Master’s Thesis, Halle- Wittenberg: Martin-Luther-Universität, Germany.
Bourdieu, P., 1990, The Logic of Practice, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Brink, C., 2007, ‘Preface to Stellenbosch University Self-evaluation Report for the HEQC’, in Chris Brink, Anatomy of a Transformer, edited by A. Botha, Stellenbosch: Sun Press, 135-143.
Brink, C., 2006, No Lesser Place: The Taaldebat at Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch: Sun Press.
Clark, N. L. & W. H. Worger, 2004, South Africa: The Rise and Fall of Apartheid, Harlow: Pearson Education.
Comaroff, J. L. & Comaroff, J., 2005, ‘Reflections on Liberalism, Policulturalism & ID- ology.
Citizenship and Difference in South Africa’, in Limits to Liberation after Apartheid: Citizenship, Governance and Culture edited by S. Robins, Oxford: James Currey, 33-56.
Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, No. 108 of 1996, Available at: http://www.info.gov.za/documents/constitution/1996/a108-96.pdf. Accessed: 10-09-2010.
Derrida, J., 1985, ‘Racism’s Last Word’, Critical Inquiry, 12 (1): 290-299.
Derrida, J., 1998, Monolingualism of the Other; or, the Prosthesis of Origin, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Doh, E. F., 2009, Stereotyping Africa: Surprising Answers to Surprising Questions, Bamenda: Langaa RPCIG.
Dubow, S., 1995, ‘Mental Testing and the Understanding of the “Native Mind”’, in Scientific Racism in Modern South Africa, S. Dubow, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 197-245.
Egéa-Kuehne, D., 2001, ‘Derrida’s Ethics of Affirmation: The Challenge of Educational Rights and Responsibility’, in Derrida & Education, edited by G. J. J. Biesta and D. Egéa-Kuehne, London and New York: Routledge, 186-208.
Eze, E. C., 1997, Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader, Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers.
Fanon, F., 2008 [1952], Black Skin, White Masks, New York: Grove Press. Fanon, F., 2004 [1963], The Wretched of the Earth, New York: Grove Press.
Fanon, F., 2006, ‘Racism and Culture’, in The Fanon Reader, edited by A. Haddour, London: Pluto Press, 19-32.
Freund, B. & V. Padayachee, 1998, ‘Post-Apartheid South Africa: The key patterns emerge’, Economic and Political Weekly, 33 (20): 1173-1180.
Giddens, A., 1991, Modernity and Self-identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Haferburg, C. & J. Ossenbrügge, eds., 2003, Ambiguous Restructurings of Post-apartheid Cape Town: The Spatial Form of Socio-political Change, Münster: Lit Verlag.
Hall, S., D. Held, D. Hubert, K. Thompson, eds., 2004, Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies, Malden: Blackwell Publishing.
Hall, S., 1996, ‘The after-life of Frantz Fanon: Why Fanon? Why now? Why black skin, white mask?’, in The Fact of Blackness: Frantz Fanon and Visual representation, edited by A. Read, London: Bay Press, 12-37.
Hall, S., ed., 1999, Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices, London: Sage Publication.
Heugh, K., 2003, Language Policy and Democracy in South Africa: The Prospects of Equality within Right-based Policy and Planning, Stockholm: Stockholm University.
Huschka, D. & S. Mau, 2006, ‘Social Anomie and Racial Segregation in South Africa’, Social Indicators Research, 76 (3): 467-498.
James, G. W., 1990, ‘Apartheid, the University, and Change in South Africa’, American Association of University Professors, 74 (3): 20-23.
Jemison, E. L., 2004, ‘The Nazi Influence in the Formation of Apartheid in South Africa’, The Concord Review 15 (1):75-103.
Kant, I., 1997 [1775], ‘This Fellow was Quite Black…A Clear Proof that what he said was stupid’, in Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader, edited by E. C. Eze, Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 38-64.
Koen, C., M. Cele & A. Libhaber, 2006, ‘Student Activism and Student Exclusions in South Africa’, International Journal of Educational Development, 26 (4): 404-414.
Kohn, M., 1995, The Race Gallery: the Return of Racial Science, London: Jonathan Cape.
Lalu, P., 2007, ‘Apartheid’s University: Notes on the Renewal of the Enlightenment’, Journal of Higher Education in Africa, 5 (1): 45-60.
Mabokela, R. O., 2001, ‘Selective Inclusion: Transformation and Language Policy at the University of Stellenbosch’, in Apartheid No More. Case Studies of Southern African Universities in the Process of Transformation, edited by R. O. Mabokela, and K. L. King, London: Bergin & Garvey, 59-72.
Mandela, N., 2000, Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela, London:Abacus.
Memmi, A., 2000, Racism, Minneapolis and London: University of Minneapolis Press.
Ministry of Education, 2002, Language Policy for Higher Education, Available at: http://www.education.gov.za/content/documents/67.pdf. Access date: 10-11-2010
Mkhondo, R., 1993, Reporting South Africa, London: James Curry.
Mmusi, S. O., 1987, ‘Language Planning and Policy and its Associated Problems in Black Education in South Africa’, Master’s thesis, Carbondale: Southern Illinios University, Department of Linguistics.
Molteno, F., 1984, ‘The Historical Foundations of the Schooling of Black South Africans’, in Apartheid and Education, edited by P. Kallaway. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 45-107.
Murphy, J. T., 1992, ‘Apartheid’s Legacy for Black Children’, Phi Delta Kappa, 73 (5): 67-74.
O’Meara, D., 1983, Volkskapitalisme: Class, Capital and Ideology in the Development of Afrikaner Nationalism 1934-1948, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rich, P., 1990. ‘Race, Science, and the Legitimization of White Supremacy in South Africa, 1902-1940’, The International Journal of African Historical Studies, 23 (4): 665-686.
Rossouw, J., 2006, ‘The Disgrace of a Guilty Afrikaner: On Chris Brink’s No lesser place: The Taaldebat at Stellenbosch, LitNet. Website: http://www.oulitnet.co.za/ taaldebat/rossouw_brink.asp Access date: 24-02-2010.
Said, E. W., 2003, Orientalism, London: Penguin Books.
Said., E. W., 1993, Culture & Imperialism, London: Chatto & Windus.
Sikwebu, D., 2008, ‘A Search for Post-apartheid Collective Identities: Ethnic Student Organisations at a South African University’, Journal of Higher Education in Africa, 6 (2&3): 107-133.
Soudien, C., 2001, ‘Culture, Race, and Ethnicity in Education’, in Ethnicity, Race, and Nationality in Education: A Global Perspective, edited by N. K. Shimahara,
I. Z. Holowinsky and S. Tomlinson-Clarke, Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 99-128.
Spreen, C. A. & S. Vally, 2006, ‘Education Rights, Education Policies and Inequality in South Africa’, International Journal of Educational Development, 26 (4): 352- 362.
Stellenbosch University Annual Report 2010, Available at: http://www.myvirtualpaper.com/doc/stellenbosch-University/annual_report_2010_ english/ 2011062303/10.html#26, Access date: 28-09-2011.
Stellenbosch University Annual Report 2008, Available at: http://www.sun.ac.za/university/jaarverslag/verslag2008/pdfs/eng/report_vicerector_teaching.pdf, Access date: 02-11-2010.
Stellenbosch University Language Policy 2002, Available at: http://www.sun.ac.za/university/Taal/dokumente/LangPolFinal2002.pdf Access date: Access date: 08-10-2010.
Stellenbosch University Vision Statement for 2012. A Strategic Framework for the Turn of the Century and Beyond, Available at: http://www.sun.ac.za/university/ StratPlan/stratdocs.htm, Access date: 02-11-2010.
Statistics South Africa, 2004, Census 2001, Pretoria: Statistics South Africa. Available at: http://www.statssa.gov.za/census01/html/RSAPrimary.pdf, Access date: 11- 03-2010.
Vally, S., 2007, ‘Higher Education in South Africa: Market Mill or Public Good?’, Journal of Higher Education in Africa, 5 (1): 17-28.
Van der Waal, K., 2002, ‘Diverse Approaches in a South African Debate on Language and Diversity in Higher Education’, Anthropology Southern Africa, 25 (3&4): 86-95.
Webb, V. N. & M. Kriel, 2000, ‘Afrikaans and Afrikaner Nationalism’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 144: 19-49.