When the students are revolting: The (IM)possibilities of listening in academic contexts in south africa

Abstract

Student activists in South Africa have put the decolonisation of higher education firmly on the agenda, demanding that researchers and teachers pay attention to something in particular that is very hard to hear and very possibly unhearable. These young, black South Africans are the intellectual force upon whom we are depending for the altered future of our country. We cannot change the circumstances which continue to frustrate and anger them without paying particular attention to them. Taking on the knowledge bases and knowledge generation in the Global South, they are demanding that we rethink the logos-based project of universities in South Africa. Their struggle is critically about how knowledge is implicated as a shaping force in lives which are still defined by colonial governmentality.