The 2015 Student Mobilizations in South Africa. Contesting Post-Apartheid Higher Education


Abstract


In October 2015, a student protest at the University of the Witwatersrand (WITS), a historically white university (HWU), arising in opposition to the decision taken by the University Council to increase tuition fees, spurred a massive wave of mobilizations across the country. The protests drew national and international media attention to what became the #FeesMustFall movement, named after the most popular twitter hashtag adopted by the protesters. Why did a local mobilization at WITS in 2015 trigger a national wave of student protests? After ten days of protests, the South African President intervened directly to calm down the situation by announcing a 0% increase in tuition fees for 2016. To all appearances, ten days of protests allowed South African students to win their battle over the hike in tuition fees. How and why did they obtain this concession? To answer the questions above, I have combined various qualitative methods of analysis. I carried out several in-depth interviews with relevant actors involved in the issue; I analysed movement documents elaborated by the students in the year of the protest (2015) as well as the main policy documents on higher education in post-apartheid South Africa (1994-2016) released by the government.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i20356609v12i1p43

Keywords: Black Students; Neoliberal University; Post-apartheid South Africa; Student Protests; Tuition Fees; #FeesMustFall

References


Alexander P. (2013) ‘Marikana, turning point in South African history’, Review of African Political Economy, 40 (138): 605-619.

Altbach P.G. (1992) Politics of Students and Faculty, in Clark B. and G. Neave (eds) The Encyclopaedia of Higher Education, New York: Pergamon.

Bennet A. (2004) Case Study Methods: Design, Use, and Comparative Advantages, in Sprinz D., Nahmias T. (eds.) Models, Number & Cases. Methods for Studying Interna-tional Relations, Michigan: University of Michigan Press.

Bennet A., George A. (2001) Case Studies and Process Tracing in History and Political Sci-ence: Similar Strokes for Different Foci, in Elman C., Elman M. (eds.) Bridges and Boundaries, Cambridge (MA): MIT University Press.

Blee K., Taylor V. (2002), Semi-Structured Interviewing in Social Movement Research, in Klandermans B., Staggenberg S., Methods of Social Movement Research, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Booysen S. (2016) Two Weeks in October: Changing Governance in South Africa, in Booysen S. (ed.) FeesMustFall. Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, Johannesburg: WITS University Press, pp. 22-52.

Bosi L., Giugni M., and K. Uba (2016) The Consequences of Social Movements. Taking Stock and Looking Forward, in Bosi L., Giugni M. and K. Uba (eds.) The Consequences of Social Movements, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 3-37.

Brooks R. (2016) Student Politics and Protest: An Introduction, in Brooks R. (ed.) Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives, London: Routledge, pp. 1-11.

Cele M., Luescher T. and T. Barnes (2016) Student Actions against Paradoxical Post-Apartheid Higher Education Policy in South Africa: The Case of the University of the Western Cape, in Luescher T., Klemenčič M., and J. Jowi (eds.) Student Politics in Afri-ca: Representation and Activism, Cape Town: African Minds, pp. 182-201.

Cini L. (2018) The Contentious Politics of Higher Education. Struggles and Power Relations within English and Italian Universities, London & New York: Routledge.

Cini L. (forthcoming) ‘Disrupting the Neoliberal University in South Africa. The #Fees-MustFall Movement in 2015’, Current Sociology.

Cini L., Chironi D., Drapalova E., and F. Tomasello (2017) ‘Towards a Critical Theory of Social Movements. An Introduction’, Anthropological Theory, 17 (4): 429-452.

Cloete N., Maassen P., Bailey T. (eds.) (2015), Knowledge Production and Contradictory Functions in African Higher Education, Cape Town: African Minds.

Everatt D. (2016) Standing on the Shoulders of the Giants? Successive Generations of Youth Sacrifice in South Africa, in Booysen S. (ed.) FeesMustFall. Student Revolt, De-colonisation and Governance in South Africa, Johannesburg: WITS University Press, pp. 126-147.

Fadaee S. (2016) Understanding Southern Social Movements, London & New York: Routledge.

Haynes J. (2001) Democracy and Political Change in the ‘Third World’, London: Routledge.

Hodes R. (2016) ‘Briefing. Questioning “Fees Must Fall”, African Affairs, 116 (462): 140-150.

Hutter O., Krucken G. (2014) The Rise and Fall of Student Fees in a Federal Higher Educa-tion System: The Case of Germany, in Erti H. and C. Dupuy (eds.) Students, Markets and Social Justice. Higher Education Fee and Student Support Policies in Western Europe and Beyond, Oxford: Oxford Studies in Comparative Education, pp. 85-110.

Kapstein E., Converse N. (2008) The Fate of Young Democracies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Klemenčič M. (2014) ‘Student Power in a Global Perspective and Contemporary Trends in Student Organising’, Studies in Higher Education, 39 (3): 396-411.

Klemenčič M., Luescher T. and T. Mugume (2016) Student Organising in African Higher Education: Polity, Politics and Policies, in Luescher T., Klemencic M., and J. Jowi (eds.) Student Politics in Africa: Representation and Activism, Cape Town: African Minds, pp. 9-26.

Johnson R., Schlemmer L. (1996) Launching Democracy in South Africa: The First Open Election, April 1994, Yale: Yale University Press.

Luescher TM. (2015) Theorising Student Activism in and beyond the 20th Century: The Contribution of Philip G. Altbach, in Klemencic, M.,

Bergan, S. and R. Primozic (eds.) Student Engagement in Europe: Society, Higher Education and Student Governance, Council of Europe Higher Education Series No. 20, pp. 33-50.

Luescher TM. (2016) Student Representation in a Context of Democratisation and Mas-sification in Africa: Analytical Approaches, Theoretical Perspectives and #RhodesMust-Fall, in Luescher T.,

Klemencic M., and J. Jowi (eds.) Student Politics in Africa: Repre-sentation and Activism, Cape Town: African Minds, pp. 27-60.

Luescher TM. and M. Klemencic (2017) Student Power in 21st-Century Africa: The Charac-ter and the Role of Student Organising, in Brooks R. (ed.) Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives, London: Routledge, pp. 113-127.

Maree J. (1998) ‘The Cosatu Participatory Democratic Tradition and South Africa’s New Parliament: Are They Reconcilable?’, African Affairs, 97 (386): 29–51.

Ness I (2016) Southern Insurgency: The Coming of Global Working Class, London: Pluto Press.

Nyamnjoh F. (2016) #RhodesMustFall. Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa, Mankon: Langa.

Paret M., Runciman C., and L. Sinwell (eds) (2018) Southern Resistance in Critical Perspec-tive. The Politics of Protest in South Africa’s Contentious Democracy, London & New York: Routledge.

Piazza G. (2018) ‘Not only students, but also not enough: the waves of protest in the higher education in Italy’, International Review of Social Research, 8 (1): 64-73.

Trow M. (2006) Reflections on the Transition from Elite to Mass to Universal Access in Modern Societies since WWII, in Forest J. and P. Altbach (eds.) International Handbook of Higher Education, Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 243-281.

Satgar V. (2016) Bringing Class Back In: Against Outsourcing During #FeesMustFall at WITS, in Booysen S. (ed.) FeesMustFall. Student Revolt, Decolonisation and Governance in South Africa, Johannesburg: WITS University Press, pp. 214-234.

Stefanovski I. (2016) ‘Tracing Causal Mechanisms in Social Movement Research in South-east Europe: the Cases of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Macedonia – Evidence from the “Bosnian Spring” and the “Citizens for Macedonia” Movements’, SEEU Review, 27–51. https://doi.org/10.1515/seeur-2017-0003.

White Paper on Higher Education (1997), South Africa.

Venesson P. (2008) Case Studies and Process Tracing: Theories and Practices, in Keating M., della Porta D. (eds.) Approaches and Methodologies in the Social Sciences: A Plural-ist Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

von Holdt K. (2014) ‘On Violent Democracy’, The Sociological Review, 62 (2): 129-151.

von Holdt K. and P. Naidoo (2019) ‘Mapping movement landscapes in South Africa’, Globalizations, 16 (2): 170-185.

Wood E. (2000) Forging Democracy from below: Insurgent Transitions in South Africa and El Salvador, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
کاغذ a4
Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.