Abstract
For postcolonial societies, addressing the impact of the previous oppressive system in a bid to
attain equity and
social justice necessitates transformation in various spheres and sectors of society. As cradles of
learning, research, and knowledge development, higher education institutions are one such sphere
with a particular duty to contribute to, and embody, social transformation. However, almost 25
years after the country’s first democratic elections, the institutional cultures and structures of
many South African universities still bear the imprimatur of past inequities. Existing research
suggests that the success of transformation policies is influenced by the extent to which
individual staff members exercise agency to effect transformatory practices. But what determines
whether an individual becomes an agent of change? This paper draws on the experiences of ten
academic staff members who have taken actions that can be said to have contributed to shifting in
important ways relations and/or practices at one university in South Africa. It adopts a
hermeneutic phenomenological lens to understand the lived experiences of participants of having
agency and undertaking transformative actions. In taking this approach we seek an understanding of
experience grounded within specific contexts. Analysis of the in-depth interviews with the
participants suggested that the underlying catalyst which drives an individual to involve
her/himself in actions toeffect change is ‘a coming to consciousness’. The paper explores the
“coming to consciousness” narratives of the participants and argues that being ‘conscious’ is a
necessary condition for being able to identify the discourses, practices and ways of being that
perpetuate injustice. Recognising such discourses, norms and ways of being,
enables the agent to then find ways of rejecting and changing such oppressive structures and
cultures.