Les zones critiques d'une anthropologie du contemporain. Группа авторов
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and Franz Fanon its totemic embodiment. And of equal concern, indeed, is the absence of any persuasive or fully coherent theoretical counter-discourse. The Comaroffs have done their indefatigable best to provide an alternative conceptualization of post-colonial ethnological theory (Comaroff and Comaroff 2009, 2012), but it has not the same apocalyptic rejectionist energy or self-conviction.
Of course it is not only in South Africa that the universities have, for the present, politically limited academic freedom and free speech. But as my life has become a longue durée, I have ceased to either lament or complain about this, or about my own present irrelevance. I am grateful that my department still tolerates my ancestral presence, and my spirit has moved on. I continue to hope, however, that the confrontation of advocacy with social reality will lead in the longer durée of scholarship to a re-orientation toward how the people are actually living and what they think and do about it. These would be the surest guidelines along the currently fashionable boulevard to “de-colonization“, and not faux-nativist rejections of cultural appropriation and globalizing hybridity so deeply imbricated in African world-views.
The case of Anthropology and “#FeesMustFall“
Journals, books, documentaries, and the internet are replete with accounts of South Africa’s “Fees Must Fall“ movement (2015–2017). Yet the issues that led to this rebellion and the severe crisis it caused have not been resolved, gone away, or ceased to influence teaching, scholarship, or academic life. Indeed, the value of the ethnographic “backstory“ for finding some form of resolution and a workable way forward is clearly evident. What did participants think, feel, say, and do on the basis of violently competing narratives, behind the doors of journalistic representation? In the case of the South African student protests of 2015–2016 demanding free tertiary education and the unspecified or undefined, “de-colonisation“ of the curriculum, certain realities played an important part:
1 Unemployment is high at more than 27% overall, and 52% among black youth. Economic growth is stagnant, and public corruption, bureaucratic obstruction, consumer debt, and over-taxation sap the efforts to spark recovery.
2 Tertiary education appears as the most direct and secure route out of unemployment and poverty and into some level of the “middle class“. Questions arise in popular discourse as to the justice of limitations on access to this seemingly straightforward social good. Yet even the 17% of high school leavers who do find places at university are understandably fearful of not finding suitable positions upon graduation.
3 Government policy has greatly increased tertiary enrolment, but poor primary and secondary level preparation and lack of funds are still exclusionary for many. Drop-out rates for both academic and financial reasons are counter-productively high. Lowered academic standards are acceptable to government, but understandably resisted by academics and university management.
4 The government scholarship program (NSFAS) has been greatly expanded along with various forms of student lending, but these still do not operate adequately to address the enormous extent of the felt or genuine need. The new management of the expanded, unavoidably unwieldy NSFAS itself admits that bureaucratic problems still hamper the equitable and efficient provision of student financial grants (Sunday Times 30 June 2019, Daily Maverick 19 June 2019)?
5 The current generation of black students were born after the transition to non-racial democracy, yet economic progress remains uneven and radically mal-distributed. Economic inequality and social exclusion as political issues have fulfilled the need and provided a focus for a sense of participation in a political “struggle“ of some kind for the present generation.
6 For 2015, University Councils, starting at my own university, ignored warning signs and raised fees as they saw necessary—10.5%— “as usual“. Spontaneous protests ensued. The movement appears to have begun idealistically among university students in response to managerial blindness, and to address the problem of access to advanced education. Leadership was at first reasonably well-distributed among the student demographic. This initial leadership gained perhaps inordinate attention from the media, and also fell prey to manipulation and co-optation by the ruling party, which let to their de-legitimization among rank-and-file protestors.
7 University administrative leaders argued that it was not in their power to simply grant universal free education individually or on their own, but that national government would have to subsidize any such policy. Increasingly insurgent new leaders, this time backed by the EFF, perceiving the universities to be the soft underbelly of the “System“, then held universities hostage to government compliance with their demands, but government did not respond. Serious violence followed, and securitization in response, leading to running battles on campuses. Under our then Head, my own department became integrally involved in support of #feesmustfall, and adopted its radical positions, in some cases even encouraging civil disobedience. This was in part due to sensitivity to the perception of anthropology among students as a purveyor of colonial consciousness.
8 Political parties, student politics, and the surrounding popular politics of the society came to the fore after original leaders were forced out and even into hiding. Non-student participation and outside interference and funding by political interests undermined efforts at negotiation and conciliation. Negotiations stalled and were then abandoned. Violent protest including attacks on security and police, destruction of property and facilities and injury to persons increased. Universities responded with a security crackdown, arrests, disciplinary action, expulsions, and criminal charges. With exams looming, most protests were suspended. Where necessary, exams were postponed, but then conducted under high security. Many movement leaders have been charged for public violence and destruction of property and remain incarcerated to this day.
9 Nevertheless, ousted President Jacob Zuma promised to meet the movement’s demands as one of his last acts in office, and ultimately 57 billion rands (3.8 billion euro) were allocated to student financial assistance in the national budget.
These student protests affected my ability to conduct classes, administer the syllabus, and set exams. I was labelled an irredeemable colonialist, even by my colleagues, but I carried on until the end of 2016 and then permanently retired. Although my academic freedom and institutional rights were violated and procedural regulations flouted, I did not make any formal complaint. This was because the beleaguered administration had more important issues to address than mine, and because I considered myself a member of the University community and departmental family whom I would not abandon even if they, temporarily I hoped, abandoned me.
Since 2017, our radical head of department has departed to a more receptive institution, but the influence of #feesmustfall remains potent. Far-left populist politics remains the dominant, narrow discourse. This produces a univocal theoretical paradigm, heavily weighted toward a pedagogy of oppression, in which no one troubles any longer to use the term “neo-liberal“ as a pejorative synonym for capitalism, as “capitalism“ is considered pejorative enough in itself. Other perspectives, non-political subjects and empirical research issues are ignored. But this may not remain the case. As always in anthropology, “the people“ will ultimately have their say.
So I might conclude by noting the equal valence, indeed the inseparability of anthropology’s intellectual and social missions. We cannot know for certain that the ineradicable politicisation of our research field can be methodologically overcome. We cannot know what use will be made of our reportage, or the nature of its unintended consequences. We cannot be sure of finding or occupying the moral high ground, and if we could, that social agencies will take our direction. We cannot even be sure that that our treasured public intellectual role as “rebel angels“ (Gordon and Spiegel 1993:100) committed to exploring the interface between the people and the state as a relationship between a new coloniser and the eternally colonised, can be maintained. But we can be more sure that we have actually discovered and represented what social actors are doing on the ground and why. We can also be confident that this knowledge in itself, applied to teaching, speaking, and writing, constitutes a major form of applied or practical anthropology. We must persuade students that the intellectual values of anthropology are consistent with the meaningful and influential “voice of the people“. We must carry on with our attempts to influence public policy by “speaking truth to