Abstract

A presumed indicator of change, in terms of the South African higher education sector’s racialised past, are the quantitative measures of numerical ‘diversity’ within the academic staff composition at historically white institutions. To better inform policy, academic development curricula and institutional culture, this study focuses on macroaggressions related to the mis/recognition and un/belonging of black academics who were selected for prestigious affirmative ‘accelerated development programmes’ for transforming the academic staff composition. Insights and narratives elicited via report-and-respond questionnaires, reflective small group discussions and an arts-based method, indicated that participants (a) experienced various microaggressions as members of different communities within the institution, and as a result (b) negotiated different identities according to social group norms, affordances and settings. The study brings to the fore the complex social processes and agential consequences of negotiating the politics of belonging in the looming shadow of legacies of conflict and oppression.

摘要

就南非高等教育部门的种族化过去而言，一个假定的变化指标是对历史上白人机构学术人员构成中数字“多样性”的定量测量。为了更好地为政策、学术发展课程和机构文化提供信息，本研究侧重于与被选为著名的肯定性“加速发展计划”以改变学术人员构成的黑人学者的错误/认可和不属于/归属相关的宏观侵略。通过报告和回答问卷、反思性小组讨论和基于艺术的方法获得的见解和叙述表明，参与者 (a) 作为机构内不同社区的成员经历了各种微攻击，因此 (b) 根据社会群体规范、可供性和环境协商不同的身份。该研究突出了在冲突和压迫遗留问题的阴影下谈判归属政治的复杂社会过程和代理后果。