Abstract
In this study, I analyse the mundane everyday experiences of complex multi-layered forms of violence and dehumanisation against Black academics in a Historically White South African university (HWU). Utilising decolonial theory – one of the gaps in studies of Black academics – I demonstrate how violence in the South African academy is anchored within the global colonial matrix of power defined by coloniality of power, knowledge and being. Drawing from interviews, analyses of critical incidents, and the review of government policy documents, I discuss and analyse how violence and dehumanisation in the academy is manifested and anchored in the everydayness of social interactions between Black academics and various stakeholders (as well as institutional processes) within the university. I describe how some mundane taken-for-granted encounters such as job interviews, first day at work, academic staff meetings, and the distribution of resources/opportunities for career advancement/success can be deployed as mechanisms to ‘murder’ the spirit of Black academics, thus forcing them to leave the profession. I highlight the fact that the post-1994 higher education policy and legislative discourse has deployed ‘transformation’ as a mechanism to, ostensibly, dismantle the legacies of colonialism and in the academy. However, I argue that to engage critically with the legacies of apartheid, colonialism and coloniality there has to be a radical departure from the transformation discourse towards decolonisation/decoloniality precisely because transformation has utterly failed to dislodge entrenched institutional structures of violence that target Othered bodies in the academy. Further, I aver that dismantling institutional cultural practices that engender university colonialism and coloniality must begin by reasserting and recognising the humanity of those whose bodies, epistemologies, cultures and spiritualities are considered transgressive in academic spaces. Utilising a diverse range of ideas and concepts emanating from decolonial scholarship, I argue for a recognition of alternative ways of knowing, doing and living that are not benched-marked by colonialism, Eurocentric modernity and coloniality. I conclude that to turn universities into anti-capitalist; anti-racist; anti-sexist; and anti-patriarchal spaces, collectivities within such institutions must engage in difficult collective deliberations on the future of a modern (South) African university.
Keywords: Black academics, coloniality, decoloniality, decolonisation, academy, South Africa