Strategic competence and agency: individuals overcoming barriers to change in South African higher education

Abstract

Social relations, institutional arrangements and cultures bequeathed by South Africa’s system of apartheid continue be felt in the present despite the country’s formal transition to democracy 25 years ago. Race, class and gender inequities continue to structure South African society in ways that have proven intransigent to change, leading to growing frustration and widespread public dissatisfaction expressed in multiple arenas including worker strikes, service delivery and university student protests. While it is clear that social structures inherited from the past are difficult to change, it is also the case that change does happen. In this paper, we discuss the findings of a hermeneutic phenomenological study with 10 academics at one historically White university in South Africa, who have been agents of change within their particular context. We show how participants engaged in struggles to counter resistance to their efforts. In doing so they demonstrate what we call ‘strategic competence’ – the ability to act in ways that not only draw on personal resources but recognise the resources, contradictions and opportunities offered within the existing limitations of the social structure. Strategic competence thus emerges as a central feature of agency, enabling individuals to stretch the boundaries of what is possible.

Keywords:

• Agency
• resistance
• transformation
• strategic competence
• higher education
• South Africa

Notes

Notes

1 ^{Department of Education, “Report of the Ministerial Committee”; Habib, “Transcending the Past,” 35.}

2 ^{Department of Education, “Report of the Ministerial Committee.”}

3 ^{Seepe, “Higher Education Transformation in South Africa"; Soudien, “Grasping the Nettle?” 121.}

4 ^{Ngcobosi, “RhodesSoWhite: An Insight.”}

5 ^{Africa is a Country, “Shutting Down the Rainbow Nation.“}

6 ^{Portnoi, “Transformative Change?” 373.}

7 ^{Govinder et al., “A New Look at Demographic Transformation,” 1.}

8 ^{Bitzer, “Some Myths on Equity and Access,” 298.}

9 ^{Hemson and Singh, “Shadows of Transformation,” 937.}

10 ^{Cassim, “Benchmarking Equity and Diversity,” 429.}

11 ^{Giddens, The Constitution of Society; Archer, Realist Social Theory.}

12 ^{Seidman, Interviewing as Qualitative Research.}

13 ^{Archer, Realist Social Theory.}

14 ^Ibid.

15 ^{Swartz, Culture and Power, 9.}

16 ^{Dumais, “Cultural Capital, Gender, and School Success,” 46.}

17 ^{Archer, Realist Social Theory, 199.}

18 ^{Bourdieu and Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology, 97.}

19 ^{Ibid., 99.}

20 ^{Swartz, Culture and Power, 120.}

21 ^{Ibid., 119.}

22 ^{Archer, Realist Social Theory.}

23 ^{Hay, Political Analysis, 129.}

24 ^{Ibid., 132.}

25 ^{Anderson, Arguments within English Marxism, 19.}

26 ^{Giddens, The Constitution of Society.}

27 ^{Department of Education, “Report of the Ministerial Committee,” 13.}

28 ^{van Manen, Researching Lived Experience, 14.}

29 ^{Seidman, Interviewing as Qualitative Research.}

30 ^{Laverty, “Hermeneutic Phenomenology,” 29.}

31 ^{Seidman, Interviewing as Qualitative Research.}

32 ^{Flood, “Understanding Phenomenology,” 13.}

33 ^{Landgren, “Being the Parent of an Infant with Colic,” 159.}

34 ^{Jessop, “Interpretive Sociology,” 124.}

35 ^{Foucault, Michel Foucault, Politics, Philosophy, Culture, 155.}

36 ^{Silliman, “Agency, Practical Politics.”}

37 ^{Portnoi, “Transformative Change?” 382.}

38 ^{Fourie, “Institutional Transformation at South African Universities.”}

39 ^{Department of Education, “Report of the Ministerial Committee,” 32, 90.}

40 ^{Ibid., 32, 90.}

41 ^{Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 191.}

42 ^{Beckert, “Agency, Entrepreneurs, and Institutional Change,” 783.}

43 ^{Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory, 66.}

44 ^{Tucker, Anthony Giddens and Modern Social Theory, 71.}

45 ^{Beckert, “Agency, Entrepreneurs, and Institutional Change,” 782.}

46 ^{Vincent et al., “Disclaiming/Denigrating/Dodging”; McEwen and Steyn, “Hegemonic Epistemologies.”}

47 ^{Giddens, The Constitution of Society, 90.}

48 ^{Ibid., 91.}

49 ^{New, “Structure, Agency and Social Transformation.”}

50 ^{Fegan, “Subjects of Regulation/Resistance?” 264.}

51 ^{Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, 193.}

52 ^{Krause, “Bodies in Action,” 308.}

53 ^{Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory, 68, 94.}

54 ^{Beckert, “Agency, Entrepreneurs, and Institutional Change,” 782.}

55 ^{Giddens, Central Problems in Social Theory, 93.}

56 ^Ibid.

57 ^{Ibid., 93.}

58 ^{Edwards and D’arcy, “Relational Agency and Disposition,” 149.}

59 ^{Steyn and Foster, “Repertoires for Talking White.”}

60 ^{Bevir, “Foucault and Critique.”}

61 ^{Badat, “Social Justice in Higher Education.”}

62 ^{Steyn and Van Zyl, “That Statue at Jammie Stairs.”}

63 ^{Lightfoot, “Daily Practice and Material Culture,” 202.}