The role of transformation in the de-segmentation and re/production of academic labour, post-apartheid: 1986-2012

Abstract

The recent student-led struggles for the De-colonisation of higher education have been premised on the lack of Transformation within the sector. This study, focuses specifically on how some of these underlying issues have been of concern to permanent academic labour within public higher education institutions. It explores the extent to which there has been racial, gender, and educational desegmentation in access to academic labour between 1986 and 2012. In conjunction, the experiences of academic staff, within two cases study institutions, on different post-apartheid trajectories is also documented. The role of Transformation within these change processes was specifically explored. Here, Transformation is used to encompass a variety of state, institutional, and activist-initiated interventions, namely restructuring, employment equity, and symbolic and socio-cultural transformation. Through the use of the mixed method approach, the study finds a range of incongruities between the goals and outcomes of change processes. The study finds that de-segmentation inevitably raises fundamental questions of the re/production of academic labour. Despite numeric de-segmentation, Transformational processes themselves often re/produce patterns of exclusion, inequity, and re/racialisation. The study’s core argument is mapped and unfolds throughout eight comprehensive chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the purpose and aim. Chapter 2 thematically reviews a broad scope of existing literature in which the study’s main argument is positioned. Chapter 3 engages the potential, challenges, and reflections of the mixed method at the heart of the research. Descriptive statistics generated from the HEMIS data base, analysis of 113 in-depth qualitative interviews across two case study institutions, and policy analysis were the core methods. Chapters 4 through 7 provide the research findings. The former two chapters, meticulously detail numeric de-segmentation across the sector and within the case studies. The latter two chapters, engage the rich texture, nuance, and contradictions of the academic condition in the face of Transformation. Lastly, Chapter 8 provides a summative discussion of the findings within the context of key literature. This thereby highlights the main contributions, and concludes the study through consideration of its significance, implications, directions for future research, and recommendations to improve academic labour conditions.