Becoming and Unbecoming: Black Students’ Identity Paralysis at Stellenbosch University
Date
2024-12
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Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
Abstract
This is a qualitative, exploratory study of Black students’ self-reports and narratives of their perceptions and experiences of being students at Stellenbosch University, a Historically White Institution (HWI): how they navigate and negotiate space and a sense of self in the context of historical and contemporary racism and limits to transformation. Almost three decades post-1994, race and racism continue to affect many South Africans’ lives. The institutional cultures and environments of HWI’s are embedded in the historical legacies of apartheid and Whiteness, and this hinders transformation. Research has indicated that Black students experience alienation and perceive a lack of transformation at Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s) and especially HWI’s in South Africa. However, many of these institutions have indeed amended their old policies and have transformation agendas aimed at welcoming students of the historically excluded groups and meeting government transformation requirements. The discrepancy between research findings on black student experiences and the universities’ stance regarding the exclusion, marginalization and racism, requires critical exploration. Based on a thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with nine Black students at Stellenbosch University, the thesis shows that Whiteness and racism continues to mark students’ lived experiences on campus and that transformation policies without changes that are meaningful from the vantage point of Black experiences, often fall prey to becoming an illusionary, tokenistic façade that further fuels feelings of alienation. Black students experience immense pressure to assimilate and acculturate, and they are fraught with perceptions of being negated. As such “becoming” what institutional culture embraces and assimilating into campus culture becomes a priority; however, this also means “unbecoming” that which Whiteness categorizes and negates as inferior, a contradiction that leads to identity paralysis. This research sought to afford Black students a platform and a voice to share their experiences and perceptions of the campus environment, to explore their feelings of being welcome or unwelcome at the university and their perception of what a transformed HWI would look like. Findings reveal that Black students do not feel fully welcome, and that they experience a sense of being tolerated and offered a space to study at the institution as form of tokenism. Across participants, there seems to be a common sentiment of fighting: to study at Stellenbosch University, for space and recognition, to graduate and to disprove Black inferiority stereotypes.
Description
Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2024.