AFDA Participative Research Project on Student’s Perceptions and Proposals to Address Issues of Institutional Racism
The intention of this research was to open a dialogue between the learners and the institution (AFDA) to address issues around institutional racism.
I proposed to conduct a participatory research project within AFDA to generate findings, recommendations, and to evaluate the implementation of recommendations that addressed issues of institutional racism within AFDA.
I used a participatory research methodology and worked with a research team consisting of co-researcher Jateen Hansjee, a member of our faculty, and 36 Black students from our four campuses.
PROBLEM ANALYSIS
The research was to inform the curriculum design for revising the AFDA curriculum for 2020 and for introducing 21st-century skills to learners. Changes were to be evaluated through the evaluation scheduled for 2020.
The Fees Must Fall and Rhodes Must Fall events happened during the 2015-2016 period. These movements were captured and documented at government universities, but private education was not really represented in the accounts and documentation.
Grounded Theory method was used so as not to impose a particular race theory onto the findings, and instead have the work reflect how the students spoke and what they perceived their reality to be.
Impact
The interviews and coding have been completed. The coding indicates that the major issues that arise relate to behaviour rather than curriculum content.
Issues of repeated microaggression need to be addressed between staff and students as well as within the student body. A wide range of microaggressions disrupt the students of colour on an ongoing basis. As a learning institution where the majority of students are Black or people of colour this needs to be addressed.
The students’ responses alert us that discussions about de-colonizing the curriculum, although important, can mask the greater need to address behaviours that support diversity rather than create exclusion.
It is important to note that Stadio Holdings, of which AFDA is a part, is one of the larger private-sector educators in South Africa. With the capacity of the Government Universities being limited private sector education, is a growing and important part of the South African Higher Education terrain. It was therefore important that AFDA address racism directly and in conversation with the student body.
Some of the findings that came out from the research were as follows:
The students spoke about their experiences of racism in the form of microaggressions between each other and between staff and students.
One cannot allow learners to be exposed to that kind of diminishing experience if one intends to develop people who are confident and powerful leaders in their disciplines.
The research alerted me to the problem that the debates around decolonizing the curriculum, which is important, also can be a liberal excuse to avoid addressing microaggressions.
AFDA did address decolonizing the curriculum content in the new curriculum introduced in 2021 along with a focus on greater reflection on individual and team processes. The funds that covered the expenses for the research came from the stipend paid to me by AFRE as one of the cohorts for 2018.
Additional resulting projects
Tell Your Story Project with the Zim Academy of Excellence (ZAE).
The storytellers comprised veterans living in South Africa drawn from ZIPRA and MK forces who fought together in Zimbabwe’s liberation war and who wished to participate in the project. The narrative about the Zimbabwe Liberation War has largely been appropriated by ZANU in order to support post-liberation structures of power. In the early years of independence, the Gukurahundi was a period of genocide initiated by ZANU that targeted SiNdebele speaking people, and ZIPRA ex-combatants in the Midlands and Matabele Provinces of Zimbabwe.
The stories were recorded for release to a wider audience in the form of podcasts. The stories were told in whatever language was considered most effective for the veterans to use and for the intended audience to engage. They were told primarily in indigenous languages. The storytelling events and podcasts were not monetarized in any way as this would compromise the intention and ethos of the project. The stories followed a general structure for example:
The values that drew the individual into the liberation struggle.
The context for the key event to be shared in the story.
The account of the key event.
How things are now for the veteran.
I purchased a laptop, software, recording equipment, and provided an expert to provide training to the ZAE for this project. The funds to cover these costs came from the stipend paid to me by the AFRE as one of the cohorts for 2018. AFRE was acknowledged as supporting this project. The recordings can be sourced at https://www.youtube.com/@zimacademy6175
Black Power
In 2019 I ran a project that provided an introduction to documentary making for ten young men incarcerated at the Youth Centre at the Westville Correctional Facility in Durban. The equipment was provided by AFDA and Third Year AFDA students worked with the young men to devise and shoot a documentary. The participants had achieved excellent passes in the South African Matric exam. Dr Mahoro Semege, a colleague from AFDA and now an Atlantic Fellow for Racial Equity, revised the project for release to film festivals. The Department of Correctional Services had agreed to all parts of this project but finally did not give permission for the public release of the short documentary.
Although the documentary showed scenes of prison life and addressed the participants' decision to study successfully, it also addresses their concerns and anxiety, despite having achieved good educational results, around the difficulties they face on release, reintegration into their communities, and unemployment, The film was screened in the Youth Centre at the Westville Correctional Facility. It cannot be screened publicly. The production costs again came from the stipend paid to me by the AFRE as one of the cohorts for 2018. AFRE was acknowledged as supporting this project.
