The pedagogy of hyperlinkages: Knowledge curatorialism and the archive of kindness

Keywords: pedagogy, hyperlinks, higher education, knowledge curatorialism, curricula

Abstract

This article uses a student assessment developed in the “emergency” conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa as a tool for refracting and reflecting (Strassler 2011) the changing realities of higher education around the world. It examines the Archive of Kindness as an example of the possibilities enabled by digitally mediated learning, as well as the challenges of teaching and learning in environments where students enter university with varying degrees of digital literacy and skill. It poses questions pertaining to the futures of higher education in a world in which biopolitics are increasingly determined by and through screens, and suggests that uncritical engagements with digital platforms and the corporate entities behind them pose dangers to emerging forms of citizenship. The article details the processes of knowledge curatorialism which are increasingly likely to determine the shape of learning in tertiary education, particularly within the university sector. Here, it argues that the Humanities and Social Sciences will need to play a leading role in providing the language and tools for thinking through the pedagogy of hyperlinkages, where the boundaries between online and offline spaces are increasingly difficult to parse.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

J. Auerbach, North-West University, Potchefstroom

Social Anthropology

References

Appel, H., N. Anand, and A. Gupta. 2015. “The Infrastructure Toolbox.” Cultural Anthropology. http://culanth.org/fieldsights/725-the-infrastructure-toolbox.

Arvaja, M. and R. Hämäläinen. 2021. “Dialogicality in making sense of online collaborative interaction.” The Internet and Higher Education 48.

Auerbach, J., M. Dlamini, and Anonymous. 2019. “Scaling Decolonial Consciousness? The Reinvention of ‘Africa’ in an emergent 21st century Neoliberal University.” In Decolonisation in Universities: The politics of knowledge, ed. J. Jansen. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

Auerbach, J. 2020a. “Micro Kindnesses are Laying the Foundation for a Transformed South Africa.” Daily Maverick 15 April. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-04-15-micro-kindnesses-are-laying-the-foundations-for-a-transformed-south-africa/.

Auerbach, J. 2020b. From Water to Wine: Becoming Middle Class in Angola. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Auerbach, J. 2021 Archive of Kindness: Stories of everyday heroism during the South African Lockdown. Pretoria: BK Publishing.

Bao, W. 2020. “COVID ‐19 and online teaching in higher education: A case study of Peking University.” Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies 2(2): 113–115. doi: 10.1002/hbe2.191.

Benjamin, R. 2019. Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. London: Polity Press.

Berry, D. 2015. “Curatorialism as New Left Politics.” b2o: an online journal: 1–5. https://www.boundary2.org/2015/07/curatorialism-as-new-left-politics/.

Bhambra, G. 2019. Decolonising the University. London: Pluto Press.

Cave, S. and K. Dihal. 2020. “The Whiteness of AI.” Philosophy and Technology 33(4): 685–703. doi: 10.1007/s13347-020-00415-6.

Chinembiri, T. 2020. “Despite reduction in mobile data tariffs, data still expensive in South Africa.” Research ICT Africa: 1–6. Cape Town. https://researchictafrica.net/wp/wp-content/ uploads/2020/06/Tapiwa-Chinembiri-Mobile-Data-Pricing-Policy-Brief2-2020-FINAL.pdf.

Czerniewicz, L., D. Agherdien, J. Badenhorst, D. Belluigi, T. Chambers, M. Tilli, M. de Villiers, et al. 2020. “A Wake-Up Call: Equity, Inequality and Covid-19 Emergency Remote Teaching and Learning.” Postdigital Science and Education 2(3): 946–967. doi: 10.1007/s42438-020-00187-4.

Davidson, C. N. 2017. The New Education: How to Revolutionize the University to Prepare Students for a World in Flux. New York: Basic Books.

De Jong, S., R. Icaza, and O. Rutazibwa. 2019. Decolonization and Feminisms in Global Teaching and Learning. London: Routledge.

Dennis, M. J. 2021. “Predictions for higher education worldwide for 2021.” University World News 9 January.

Dumit, J. 2014. “Writing the Implosion: Teaching the World One Thing at a Time.” Cultural Anthropology 29(2): 344–362. doi: 10.14506/ca29.2.9.

Fabian, J. 2002. “Virtual Archives and Ethnographic Writing: Commentary as a New Genre?” Current Anthropology 43(5): 775–786.

Farmer, P. 2004. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Fassin, D. 2007. When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Finn, A. and M. Leibbrandt. 2018. (Earnings) ‒ The evolution and determination of earnings inequality in post-apartheid South Africa. https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/Publications/Working-paper/PDF/wp2018-83_0.pdf%0A https://www.wider.unu.edu/publication/evolution-and-determination-earnings-inequality-post-apartheid-south-africa.

Foucault, M. 2010. The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the Collège de France, 1978‒1979. London: Picador.

Freire, P. and M. Horton. 1990. We Make the Road By Walking. New York: Temple University Press.

Gerwal, J. and J. Higgins. 2013. “Interview with Jakes Gerwal.” In Academic Freedom in a Democratic South Africa: Essays and interviews on higher education and the humanities. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

Grimaldi, E. and S. J. Ball. 2020. “Paradoxes of freedom: An archaeological analysis of educational online platform interafaces.” Critical Studies in Education 62(1): 114‒129. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2020.1861043.

Günel, G., S. Varma, and C. Watanabe. 2020. “A Manifesto for Patchwork Ethnography.” Cultural Anthropology, Member Voi. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/a-manifesto-for-patchwork-ethnography.

Habib, A. 2019. Rebels and Rage: Reflecting on #feesmustfall. Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball.

Hamilton, C., V. Harris, J. Taylor, M. Pickover, G. Reid, and R. Saleh, et al. 2002. Refiguring the Archive. London: Springer. http://library1.nida.ac.th/termpaper6/sd/2554/19755.pdf.

Harris, V. 2015. “Hauntology, archivy and banditry: An engagement with Derrida and Zapiro.” Critical Arts 29: 13–27. doi: 10.1080/02560046.2015.1102239.

Hedding, D., M. Greeve, D. Breetzke, W. Nel, B. van Vuuren, et al. 2020. “COVID-19 and the academe in South Africa: Not business as usual.” South African Journal of Science 116(8): 8–10. doi: 10.17159/sajs.2020/8298.

Hodges, C., S. Moore, B. Lockee, T. Trust, and A. Bond. 2020. “The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning.” Syracuse Educause. Educause Review.

Hountondji, P. J. 2009. “Knowledge of Africa, Knowledge by Africans: Two Perspectives on African Studies.” Revista Crítica de Ciências Sociais (1). doi: 10.4000/rccsar.174.

Ingold, T. 2007. Lines: A Brief History. Oxford: Routledge.

Jansen, J. 2009. Knowledge in the Blood: Confronting Race in the Apartheid Past. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

Jansen, J. 2017. As By Fire: The End of the South African University. Cape Town: Tafelburg.

Jansen, J. 2020a. “More eyes on COVID-19: Perspectives from Education Studies.” South African Journal of Science 116(7): 17159.

Jansen, J. 2020b. “Special Compilation: What the social sciences and humanities allow us to see and do in response to Covid-19.” South African Journal of Science 116(7/8).

Keet, A. and D. Swartz. 2015. A Transformation Barometer for South African Higher Education Draft Discussion Document, André Keet and Derrick Swartz With the TMF / TSG July 2015. I. Introduction – The “ System”, II . Systemic Transformation Challenges.

Kosslyn, S. M. and B. Nelson. 2017. Building the Intentional University: Minerva and the future of higher education. Boston: MIT Press.

Kros, C. 2015. “Rhodes Must Fall: Archives and counter-archives.” Critical Arts 29(April): 150–165. doi: 10.1080/02560046.2015.1102270.

Kukutai, T. and J. Taylor. 2016. Indigenous Data Sovereignty: Toward an Agenda, Ands. Canberra: Australian National University. http://www.ands.org.au/working-with-data/sensitive-data/indigenous-data.

Lange, L. 2014. “Thinking Academic Freedom”, 1–8. Daantjie Oosthuizen Academic Freedom Lecture, Rhodes University, 31 October.

Langmia, K. and A. L. Lando. 2020. Digital Communications at Crossroads in Africa: A Decolonial Approach. Geneva: Springer International Publishing.

Laughter, J. 2014. “Toward a theory of micro-kindness: Developing positive actions in multicultural education.” International Journal of Multicultural Education 16(2): 2–14. doi: 10.18251/ijme.v16i2.842.

Lembani, R., A. Gunter, M. Breines, and M. Dalu. 2020. “The same course, different access: The digital divide between urban and rural distance education students in South Africa.” Journal of Geography in Higher Education 44(1): 70–84. doi: 10.1080/03098265.2019.1694876.

Mall, S., P. Mortier, L. Taljaard, J. Roos, D. Stein, and C. Lochner. 2018. “The relationship between childhood adversity, recent stressors, and depression in college students attending a South African university.” BMC Psychiatry 18(1): 1–10. doi: 10.1186/s12888-017-1583-9.

Maphumulo, W. T. and B. R. Bhengu. 2019. “Challenges of quality improvement in the healthcare of South Africa post-apartheid: A critical review.” Curationis 42(1): 1–9. doi: 10.4102/curationis.v42i1.1901.

Masebinu, S., J. Holm-Nielson, C. Mbohwa, S. Padmanaban, and N. Nwulu. 2020. “Electricity consumption data of a student residence in Southern Africa.” Data in Brief 32. doi: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.106150.

Mathe, T. 2020. “‘We want to occupy the land’, says EFF’s Malema at Senekal farm murder protest.” Mail and Guardian 16 October. https://mg.co.za/politics/2020-10-16-we-want-to-occupy-the-land-says-effs-malema-at-senekal-farm-murder-protest/.

Mbembe, A. 2006. “Variations on the Beautiful in Congolese Worlds of Sound.” In Beautiful Ugly: African and Diaspora Aesthetics, ed. S. Nuttall. Durham: Duke University Press.

Mbembe, A. J. 2015. “Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the Archive.” Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER), 29. University of the Witwatersrand. http://wiser.wits.ac.za/system/files/Achille Mbembe ‒ Decolonizing Knowledge and the Question of the Archive.pdf.

Meyer, J., N. Schellack, J. Stokes, R. Lancastar, H. Zeeman, D. Defty, B. Godman, and G. Steele. 2017. “Ongoing initiatives to improve the quality and efficiency of medicine use within the public healthcare system in South Africa; A preliminary study.” Frontiers in Pharmacology 8(NOV): 1–16. doi: 10.3389/fphar.2017.00751.

Mignolo, W. D. 2007. “Delinking: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality.” Cultural Studies 21(2–3): 449–514. doi: 10.1080/09502380601162647.

Miller, C. and J. Bartlett. 2012. “‘Digital fluency’: Towards young people’s critical use of the internet.” Journal of Information Literacy 6(2): 35. doi: 10.11645/6.2.1714.

Miller, D. (ed.) 2005. Materiality. Durham: Duke University Press.

Monatshana, M. G. “Bafana”. 2020. Molapo o tlatswa ke melatswana: Re-existence in the context of remote learning and Covid-19. North West University.

Morreira, S. 2015. “Steps Towards Decolonial Higher Education in Southern Africa? Epistemic Disobedience in the Humanities.” Journal of Asian and African Studie: 1–15. doi: 10.1177/0021909615577499.

Nwankwo, E. J. 2020. White eyes, Africa is a Country. White eyes (africasacountry.com) 27 July.

Nyabola, N. 2018. Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Politics in Kenya. London: Zed Books.

Nyamnjoh, F. 2017. #RhodesMustFall: Nibbling at Resilient Colonialism in South Africa. Doula: Langaa.

O’Niel, C. 2016. Weapons of Math Destruction. Crown/Archetype.

Odendaal, N. 2021. “Recombining place: COVID-19 and community action networks in South Africa.” International Journal of E-Planning Research 10(2): 124–131. doi: 10.4018/ IJEPR.20210401.oa11.

Orlowski, J. 2020. The Social Dilemma. USA.

Perrotta, C., K. Gulson, B. Williamson, and K. Witzenberger. 2020. “Automation, APIs and the distributed labour of platform pedagogies in Google Classroom.” Critical Studies in Education 00(00): 1–17. doi: 10.1080/17508487.2020.1855597.

Pikoli, Z. 2020. “Academics reject claims that 2020 has been a success for universities.” Daily Maverick 14 December. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-12-14-academics-reject-claims-that-2020-has-been-a-success-for-universities/.

Pilli, O. and W. Admiraal. 2017. “Students’ Learning Outcomes in Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs): Some Suggestions for Course Design.” Yuksekogretim Dergisi 7(1): 46–71. doi: 10.2399/yod.17.001.

Pink, S., E. Ardévol, and D. Lanzeni. 2016. Digital Materialities: Design and Anthropology. London: Bloomsbury.

Prensky, M. 2009. “H. sapiens digital: From digital immigrants and digital natives to digital wisdom.” Innovate: Journal of Online Education 5(3): 1–9. http://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=innovate.

President, C. R. 2020. Escalation of measures to Compat Coronavirus Covid-19 Pandemic. South African Government.

Rajab, M. H., A. M. Gazal, and K. Alkattan. 2020. “Challenges to Online Medical Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Cureus 12(7). doi: 10.7759/cureus.8966.

Ramphele, M. 1993. A Bed Called Home: Life in the Migrant Labour Hostels of Cape Town. Cape Town: David Philip.

Rao, K., P. Edelen-Smith, and C.-U. Wailehua. 2015. “Universal design for online courses: Applying principles to pedagogy.” Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning 30(1): 35–52.

Rapanta, C., L. Botturi, and P. Goodyear. 2020. “Online University Teaching During and After the Covid-19 Crisis: Refocusing Teacher Presence and Learning Activity.” Postdigital Science and Education 2(3): 923–945. doi: 10.1007/s42438-020-00155-y.

Ross, F. 2010. Raw Life New Hope: Decency, Housing and Everyday Life in a Post-Apartheid Community. Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press.

Schmidt, E. and J. Rosenberg. 2014. How Google Works. New York: Grand Central.

Schopf, C. 2020. “The Coloniality of Global Knowledge Production: Theorizing the Mechanisms of Academic Dependency. Social Transformations 8(2): 157–170. doi: 10.2307/j.ctvt1sj6g.19.

Starosielski, N. 2015. The Undersea Network. Durham: Duke University Press.

Strassler, K. 2011. Refracted Visions: Popular Photography and National Modernity in Java. Belo Horizonte: Duke University Press.

Van der Berg, S. and M. Gustafsson. 2019. “Educational Outcomes in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Signs of Progress Despite Great Inequality.” In South African Schooling: the Enigma of Inequality, ed. N. Spaull, and J. Jansen. London: Springer.

Välaiho, P. 2014. Biopolitical Screens: Images, power and the neoliberal brain. Boston: MIT Press.

Van Schalkwyk, F. 2020. “Reflections on the public university sector and the covid-19 pandemic in South Africa.” Studies in Higher Education: 1–15. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2020.1859682.

Wiederhold, B. K. 2020. “Using Social Media to Our Advantage: Alleviating Anxiety during a Pandemic.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 23(4): 197–198. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2020.29180.bkw.

Williamson, B. 2020. “Making markets through digital platforms: Pearson, edu-business, and the (e)valuation of higher education.” Critical Studies in Education (March). doi: 10.1080/17508487.2020.1737556.

Wood, G. 2014. “The Future of College.” Atlantic (September): 1–21. http://www.theatlantic.com/ features/archive/2014/08/the-future-of-college/375071/.

Young, A. and C. Norgard. 2006. “Assessing the quality of online courses from the student’s perspective.” The Internet and Higher Education 9(2): 107–115.

Young, R. 2020. “Australian Universities: Thriving in a changing world”. Acton: 23. Australia: National Security College of Australia.

Zembylas, M. and A. Keet. 2019. Critical Human Rights Education: Advancing Social-Justice Oriented Educational Praxes. London: Springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-030-27198-5.

Published
2022-03-31
How to Cite
Auerbach, J. 2022. “The Pedagogy of Hyperlinkages: Knowledge Curatorialism and the Archive of Kindness”. South African Journal of Higher Education 36 (1), 76-95. https://doi.org/10.20853/36-1-4602.
Section
General Articles