Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Shane Moran - Alternation Journal
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
Academic Exchanges<br />
Under a veneer of egalitarianism, academic decorum as the maintenance of<br />
acteristic apparatuses.<br />
legitirnising discursive manoeuvres might regulate an oppressive group solidarity<br />
The issue of the social identity of academics and the constituencies they can<br />
expense of others. The social function of the university may be to reproduce rathe<br />
challenge existing social relations, and identifjii~ig centres of power in spe<br />
historical contexts has the aim of reaching beyond the academy to use the poli<br />
threads of opposition to weave together wornen fiom divergent social and histo<br />
locations". This has involved distinguishing between institutional policy and the a<br />
function of academics in order to avoid both corporatising acadelnic wol<br />
accordance wit11 declared institutional aims or subsu~ning the intra-institutional co<br />
of acade~nic work in an ideal oftranscendcnt ilidividual autonorny that both enable<br />
ately clairn to represent crystalised at the January 1991 conference 011 Women<br />
ender' held at the University ofNatal, urban'". The contribution ofacadernics to<br />
era1 freedom and democratisation was dramatically foregroundcd in a series of<br />
lges between black arid white academics and academics and activists at the<br />
ence. Feminist academics were challenged to critically examine their social<br />
n within an oppressive and unjust historical context. Setting aside Susan<br />
s (1991:46) fragile apologia--'There is no blame -just history'--a sense of the<br />
sity of debate is conveyed by Kedibone Letiaka-Rennert (1 99 1 :22f):<br />
is the goal ofacademic work.<br />
Maqagi's approach implicitly cllallenged the claim that academics are<br />
vocation involved in working to realise the freedom of students, and that<br />
progressive potential of academic discourse is signaled by the exchange of conflict<br />
struggle for 'diversity' and 'dialogue' within thc broad consensus of plural<br />
Defensive accusations of racist counter-racism and the opportunities for strate<br />
patronage secured by the screening of i~~comingpcrsonncl work in the interests ofth<br />
Two major dichotomies ensued which created a tense and highly cllarged<br />
atmosphere. The great divides were between black and white wolnen as well<br />
as activists and academics .... Larne excuses about the need for academic<br />
standards to be maintained were used to deflect the substantial neglect of<br />
black and activist women alike. Ironically, the sub.jects of research in most of<br />
the presentations were black women but the conference did not include them.<br />
It simply commodified their suffering to generate relevant papers".<br />
retaining, but willing to modib, institutional hegemony. Those using the languag<br />
reciprocity may well be furthering their own interests and expressing the nat<br />
satisfaction of the beneficiary; the confession of a potential lack of neutrali<br />
problem of the 'ownership ofknowledge') can be but one more ruse towards ap<br />
more responsible. The stubborn intuition of rightful possession and the<br />
eatie Hofineyr (1991) the 'conference was a great beginning to developing<br />
inist theoretical debate in South Africa'. Desiree Lewis (1 992: 17f) also registered<br />
portunity for self-criticism presented by the level of dissent at the conference, and<br />
d the following salutary diagnosis ofthe failure of community:<br />
intention to combat injustice do not cancel out the crisis of self-justification, t<br />
hypocrisy of a power that cannot be justified and which is perceived as usurpat<br />
Analysis of the power relationships sedimented in acade~nic work is required, wi<br />
aim of transforming existing practices and concepts within the profession itself a<br />
White women's privileges are based on their dependence on and exploitation<br />
of black, and particularly black working-class women .... Whitc feminist<br />
academics have avested stake in the silence of black women. As producers of<br />
knowledge who have recently created a niche in the patriarchal world of<br />
knowledge production, they rely on the construct 'black women' as passive,<br />
- inarticulate and representable object. Recognition of the interpretations of<br />
black wornen would lead to white feminists' loss of dominance in an<br />
'<br />
According to Belinda Bozzoli (1991 :14): 'A combination of a materialist and an Africa<br />
understanding is surely necessary for this process [of colonisation] to be adequately captur<br />
See those engaging with the work of sociologists. historians and anthropologists examin<br />
structuration of social identity: Bozzoli (1983). Gaitskell (1983). and the essays colie<br />
Clingman (1991). But the fact that materialist and Africanist analyses themselves arise<br />
academic contexts (which are often erased by individual writers) also requires analysis. Bozz<br />
academic domain where their hold is already tenuous and Lhrcatened.<br />
particularly since a high preniium has always been placed on authoritative<br />
interpretations of the colonised, tltc undcrclass, the dominated in South<br />
(1991:l) contention that in a racialised Soutll Africa '[lliberal mystifications of bourgeo<br />
are a rarity in this stark order' underestimates the ideological saturation of academic disc<br />
See also the astonisliing clain1,that universities 'are instit~ttions that have contained within t<br />
an inherited logic of conservatism. They have no ideology. They just resist change' (M<br />
1992:65).<br />
"' The conference came in the wake of the Malibongwe Conference, held in Amsterdam<br />
January 1990. organised by the ANC. See tlassi~n (1991); also Cliarnian et al (1991:40) on t<br />
'watershed for South Afi-ican women and the ANC. The position and status of women wit1<br />
South Africa were legitimated as political issues to be addressed witl-tin the process of nati<br />
liberation'.<br />
Christopher Ballantine (199 I) tltc cause of discord was easy to identify: 'Patriarclly. It<br />
inale feminists alikc-on thc usual iloniiiiant continuum:<br />
ncio~~s/cognitive/ratjonal/verbal/sciz~rtiic More interesting is I'atl-icia Ilorii's (1991)<br />
bservation that the con tlict was not only hct\veen acadcn~ics and aciivisLs bu;prin~a~-iIy hci\veel-i<br />
banned and competing women's ntovcniciiis. 'The coniplcx issiie<br />
ernics speaking for othcrs rcsurfaceci at tile 1992 'LVome~i in At'r~cn ailii ilic Afi.icarr<br />
a: Bridges ilcross Aclivisiri and thc Acadcnly' in Nsukka. Nigeria (scc flcniiricks &<br />
994: Llaymond 1996: Meinljes 1993: C;ou\vs 10'13). Clticlri Aniagolti (1 998) reports tila[<br />
PI-oblenrs arose at tlic liistgathering ofwo~nanists in Sou[h Africa