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1 – 10 of 280Using a decolonial framework for thinking about knowledge, education and internationalisation, this chapter critically unpacks the historical and contemporary complexities in…
Abstract
Using a decolonial framework for thinking about knowledge, education and internationalisation, this chapter critically unpacks the historical and contemporary complexities in South African higher education, including the colonial roots of higher education and internationalisation, the Eurocentric hegemony and white domination during colonialism and apartheid, and the lack of epistemic decolonisation in post-apartheid South Africa. The chapter shows how the way internationalisation has been practiced by universities since the end of apartheid has contributed to the maintenance of Eurocentric hegemony and coloniality of knowledge. The chapter highlights the need to rethink, reconceptualise and redefine internationalisation, and unpacks a new definition of internationalisation which takes into consideration historical complexities, contemporary realities and challenges, and the need for epistemic transformation and decolonisation in South African higher education. This is in line with Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o’s decolonial ‘quest for relevance’ of education and knowledge to the people, places and regions in which universities operate, while looking outwards at the world and critically engaging with the plurality of worldviews, ideas, knowledges and ways of knowing. Such a quest could allow students to critically interrogate and understand their being and place in the world, as well as their relationships and linkages to others around the globe.
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Nkholedzeni Sidney Netshakhuma
This paper aims to explore the role played by the National Archives of South Africa in human rights promotion and protection. The study examined the challenges that archivists…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the role played by the National Archives of South Africa in human rights promotion and protection. The study examined the challenges that archivists encounter when undertaking archival functions, such as acquisition, appraisal and access provision, that contribute to forming documentary archives crucial for human rights promotion and protection.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of literature dealing with acquisition, appraisal and access was used in this research. It was supplemented with interviews.
Findings
This paper provides recommendations of benefits in the field of archives management with a focus on the areas of acquisition, appraisal and access. The transformational discourse in the jurisdiction of archives management challenges archival institutions to be active players in selecting historical and cultural archives’ significance that is significant in human rights protections. However, despite judicial requirements that recommend the importance of archives, there is evidence that archival functions such as appraisal, acquisition and access are not being fully used, resulting in national archives institutions that are subject to irregularities that contribute to an unbalanced archives collection.
Research limitations/implications
The paper was limited only to the National Archives of South Africa.
Practical implications
The paper makes practical implications concerning the acquisition, appraisal and providing access to human rights records.
Social implications
Sufficient funding resource allocation ought to be provided to advance human rights promotion.
Originality/value
This paper offers informed recommendations to address the challenges of acquisition, appraisal and access provision of archive materials. The availability of archives materials reinforces the community by aiding to protect legal rights and prevent human rights violations. It was, thus, necessary to establish whether the National Archives of South Africa is actively building the archives collections that are important for human rights promotion and protection.
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Maropeng Modiba and Sandra Stewart
Schooling in South Africa represents a history of gains and losses for sections of the society. The colonial, missionary, and apartheid political systems made schooling a weak…
Abstract
Schooling in South Africa represents a history of gains and losses for sections of the society. The colonial, missionary, and apartheid political systems made schooling a weak instrument for mobility for the majority within society. Post-apartheid, although school reform has provided greater access to formal education, it continues to crystallize socioeconomic inequalities. A relatively small number of the previously disadvantaged receive education that facilitates economic and social mobility. The authors examine the new funding system and equity rhetoric that is employed to justify education access to different types of schools and argue that coupling the rhetoric of social transformation with the funding system for schools and thus class, continues the unequal historical education provision. School reform fails to compensate for the adverse effects of apartheid education and is largely reproductive rather than socially transformative. The conclusion is that unless South Africa overcomes the appeasing semantic trap in its policies, historical trends that make the constitutional ideal of equal rights unrealizable are likely to be entrenched.
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The herstory of Black women in South Africa is one of sexualised forms of political, physical and psychological violence. A herstory of violence, oppression, exploitation…
Abstract
The herstory of Black women in South Africa is one of sexualised forms of political, physical and psychological violence. A herstory of violence, oppression, exploitation, victimisation, imprisonment and police brutality. The apartheid government used violence to control women, their bodies, their religious and spiritual experiences. The feeling of disregard for African women is echoed in an interview with Mhlophe, a South African author, playwright and actress, when she talks about the Battle of Blood River and emphasises how there is no mention of women. ‘Did those men have no sisters, no mothers who helped them? Our history is very unbalanced’ (August, 1990, p. 332).
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Nkholedzeni Sidney Netshakhuma
The purpose of the study is to assess the role of political power and politics in selecting, creating and preserving Liberation Movement archives in South Africa.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of the study is to assess the role of political power and politics in selecting, creating and preserving Liberation Movement archives in South Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
A review of literature focusing on liberations archives was carried out.
Findings
Politics and the associated power play an essential role in the selection, creation and preservation of liberation movement archives. The study found out that the African National Congress (ANC) selected the University of Fort Hare as the center to preserve liberation movements repatriated from all over the world to South Africa. The National Archives of South Africa did not play a role in the preservation of liberation movement archives. The study also noted that there existed an ineffective collaboration between the ANC and the National Archives of South Africa regarding the preservation of liberation movements archives.
Research limitations/implications
The study focused on the liberation movement archives created by the ANC of South Africa only.
Social implications
The establishment of liberation archives may promote social cohesion.
Originality/value
The liberation movement archives are a part of the history of South Africa and present perspectives on the history of the liberation of South Africa. This study, which builds on the post-colonial scholarship on liberation movement archives, discussed the significance of liberation archives.
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This chapter traces the origin of racism and reviews the historical and contemporary debates around race and racialisation in western thought. There are persistent disagreements…
Abstract
This chapter traces the origin of racism and reviews the historical and contemporary debates around race and racialisation in western thought. There are persistent disagreements surrounding the origin and nature of racism. Because of the evolution of racist ideas, behaviours and institutional practices and policies, there are various views about the meaning and analytical application of racism. This chapter explores how ideas of race – understood as innate and immutable human differences that can be classified and ranked hierarchically based on race – has emerged in western history and evolved over time. It examines how this has influenced social and political practices and associated policies across the evolution of modernity. The chapter specifically discusses the Atlantic slave trade and how it shaped the historical development of race and racism within the context of colonialism. It concludes with a discussion and critical review of some of the racist systems and policies which have been enforced across different multiracial countries.
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