A dialogue on the erosion, subversion, and reclamation of academic freedom
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20853/39-4-7530Keywords:
Academic freedom, dialogic approach, institutional reform, South African higher educationAbstract
This study examines the complex landscape of academic freedom in South African higher education and explores its historical context, challenges and perspectives. Using a dialogue-based approach, we examine the mechanisms of erosion and control that threaten academic freedom, as well as the strategies to subvert and reclaim it. A triad of theoretical lenses is employed to interpret the dialogue, drawing on the works of Foucault, Marcuse and Crenshaw. The article emphasises the paradoxical nature of academic freedom, drawing on Jacques Derrida’s concept of the pharmakon. We argue for a contextual approach to academic freedom that recognises both its crucial importance for social progress and its potential for abuse. The paper concludes with a call for continued critical reflection, institutional reform and a commitment to promoting diverse and inclusive academic communities as important steps towards redefining academic freedom in the South African context.
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References
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Crenshaw, Kimberlé, Luke Harris, Daniel HoSang, and George Lipsitz, eds. 2022. Seeing race again: Countering color blindness across the disciplines. Oakland: University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520972148
Darbyshire, Philip, David R. Thompson, Roger Watson, Elizabeth Jenkins, and Parveen Ali. 2021. “Academic freedom.” Journal of Nursing Education 60(7): 367–368. https://doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20210616-01
Datta, Ranjan. 2018. “Decolonizing both researcher and research and its effectiveness in Indigenous research.” Research Ethics 14(2): 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747016117733296
Davids, Nuraan. 2021. “Academic freedom and the fallacy of a post-truth era.” Educational Philosophy and Theory 53(11): 1183–93. https://doi.org:10.1080/00131857.2021.1917363
De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The practice of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
De Sousa Santos, Boaventura. 2007. “Beyond abyssal thinking: From global lines to ecologies of knowledges.” Review (Fernand Braudel Center) 30(1): 45-89. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40241677
Derrida, Jacques. 1981. “Plato’s pharmacy.” In Dissemination, translated by Barbara Johnson, 61-171. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Divala, Joseph J. 2014. “Black women academics in higher education: In search of inclusive equal voice and justice: Part 2: Being and belonging in South African higher education: The voices of black women academics.” South African Journal of Higher Education 28(6): 2079-2087. https://doi.org/pdf/10.10520/EJC166123
Du Toit, André. 2022. The politics of knowledge after liberalism: Populism, decolonisation and public universities in South Africa. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University.
Enders, Jürgen, Harry de Boer, and Elke Weyer. 2013. “Regulatory autonomy and performance: The reform of higher education re-visited.” Higher Education 65(1): 5-23. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-012-9578-4
Feyerabend, Paul K. 1970. “Against method: Outline of an anarchistic theory of knowledge.” Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 4(2): 17-130. https://hdl.handle.net/11299/184649
Feyerabend, Paul K. 1993. Against method. 3rd edition. London and New York: Verso.
Fitzgerald, Tanya, Julie White, and Helen Gunter, eds. 2012. Hard labour?: Academic work and the changing landscape of higher education. Bingley: Emerald Publishing.
Foucault, Michel. 1980. Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and other writings, 1972-1977. New York: Pantheon Books.
Foucault, Michel. 1989. The order of things: An archaeology of the human sciences. New York: Routledge.
Foucault, Michel. 1995. Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison. Translated by Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage Books.
Foucault, Michel. 2008. “Of other spaces”. In Michiel Dehaene and Lieven De Cauter (Eds.), Heterotopia and the city: Public space in a postcivil society, 13-29. Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Fromm, Erich. 1941. Escape from freedom. New York: Rinehart.
Fuller, Steve. 2009. The sociology of intellectual life: The career of the mind in and around academy. London: SAGE Publications.
Gibson-Graham, J.K. 2006. A postcapitalist politics. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Gramsci, Antonio. 1971. Selections from the prison notebooks. New York: International Publishers.
Habib, Adam, Seán Morrow, and Kristina Bentley. 2008. “Academic freedom, institutional autonomy and the corporatised university in contemporary South Africa.” Social Dynamics 34(2): 140-155. https://doi.org/10.1080/02533950802280022
Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective.” Feminist Studies 14(3): 575-599. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066
Harney, Stefano, and Fred Moten. 2013. The undercommons: Fugitive planning and black study. New York: Minor Compositions.
Higgins, John. 2013. Academic freedom in a democratic South Africa: Essays and interviews on higher education and the humanities. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.
Hoepner, Jacqueline. 2019. “Silencing behaviours in contested research and their implications for academic freedom.” Australian Universities’ Review 61(1): 31-41. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/aeipt.222530
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2025-08-23
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Mahabeer, P., and N. Amin. 2025. “A Dialogue on the Erosion, Subversion, and Reclamation of Academic Freedom”. South African Journal of Higher Education 39 (4):108-29. https://doi.org/10.20853/39-4-7530.
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