Policy Futures International Webinar Series: #FeesMustFall and related changes in student politics in twenty-first century Africa
Online event: Register
Keynote: Thierry M. Luescher
Discussants: Rachel Brooks and Judith Bessant
In the course of the last twenty years, student politics in Africa has been impacted by a number of important changes, including the macro changes in the political and socio-economic environments of African nations; changes in the size, nature, and institutional composition of higher education provision along with the expansion, transformation, and fragmentation of student bodies; the changing political character of student governments and changing role of student representation in university governance; technological changes and new repertoires of student political agency; and a new student political discourse on higher education. These changes are interrelated, pronounced differently across the continent and institutions but overall reflective of the large-scale political, socio-economic, and educational transformations that African societies have undergone in the twenty-first century. Against a high-level overview of these changes, this keynote will focus on three developments that are particularly evident in the 2015/16 student movement in South Africa: (1) the entanglement of student politics with multipartyism and its impact on student representation and activism; (2) the emergence of networked student movements (RhodesMustFall, #FeesMustFall, #EndOutsourcing) and new protest repertoires; and (3) the elaboration of Fallism and its contribution to student political discourse on African higher education (intersectionality and decolonisation).
The webinar will be introduced by Associate Professor and research director, Katja Brøgger, and chaired by Associate Professor, Gritt B Nielsen.
