Our engagement with student activism in South Africa and the new hashtag student movements that started in 2015 cannot only be as observers or activists or theorists. Indeed, ideally, an intellectual engagement with the critically embraces civil society activism, perhaps taking the role of
"“movement intellectuals” [ … ] who are central to the production and dissemination of ideology, to the theoretical and empirical definition of the opposition, and to the education of new members’ (Badat 1999, 31) [...as a] duty to the serious educator, to intellectuals in the postcolony, forging a new national culture (Fanon 1990)."
What is clear is that academics we cannot simply 'benefit' from the student activism - against racism, against class-based exclusion from higher education, etc. - we must, as Xolela Mangcu states in the Sunday Independent, "seek them and teach them".
Towards an intellectual engagement with the #studentmovements in South Africa: (2016). Towards an intellectual engagement with the #studentmovements in South Africa. Politikon: Vol. 43(1) pp. 145-148. doi: 10.1080/02589346.2016.1155138
"“movement intellectuals” [ … ] who are central to the production and dissemination of ideology, to the theoretical and empirical definition of the opposition, and to the education of new members’ (Badat 1999, 31) [...as a] duty to the serious educator, to intellectuals in the postcolony, forging a new national culture (Fanon 1990)."
What is clear is that academics we cannot simply 'benefit' from the student activism - against racism, against class-based exclusion from higher education, etc. - we must, as Xolela Mangcu states in the Sunday Independent, "seek them and teach them".
Towards an intellectual engagement with the #studentmovements in South Africa: (2016). Towards an intellectual engagement with the #studentmovements in South Africa. Politikon: Vol. 43(1) pp. 145-148. doi: 10.1080/02589346.2016.1155138
