Shane Moran - Alternation Journal

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