International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies

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• Students as Producers, Not Consumers?

  This paper reflects on lessons learned about contemporary teaching at two very different universities located in Mauritius and South Africa. Thinking with digital capabilities as a crucial dimension of transformation, it traces the evolution of a series of commitments to pedagogy first written up in a Conversation article in 2017, which emphasised the need for undergraduate students to actively contribute to global discourses through both academic and non-academic knowledge production. This paper reflects on insights gained through assignments based on knowledge production, which included social media interactions, academic writing practice and contributions to an ongoing project entitled the Archive of Kindness. These insights call for the development of new curricula-based interventions pertaining to digital capabilities. The paper elaborates upon these digital literacies in light of Sushona Zuboff’s work on the paradigm of surveillance capitalism, expanding this to explore its implications for students located in the global south. It develops the notion of “digital capabilities” as a missing component of transformational discourse and practice, arguing that, without the conscious development of digital capabilities, ontological transformation will be critically stymied.

• Review of Pumla Dineo Gqola’s Female Fear Factory

  This paper reviews the book Female Fear Factory (2021) by Pumla Dineo Gqola. An overview and evaluation of the book are provided, emphasising the important deepening of the central concept and its relevance to anti-rape and feminist work, activism and scholarship across the world.

• Commentary: Sustained and Sustainable Transformative Actions Can Deliver Diverse, Equitable and Inclusive Universities
• Aims and Scope
• Workplace Bullying and Its Implications for Gender Transformation in the South African Higher Education Sector

  While transformation in the higher education sector in South Africa has been the subject of intensive research since 1994, few studies have explored the link between workplace bullying and transformation. Whereas workplace bullying has drawn researchers’ attention for decades, it is only recently that scholars have started to interrogate the phenomenon through the intersectional lens. This paper employs intersectionality to explore women academics’ experiences of workplace bullying and to suggest links between workplace bullying and gender transformation in the higher education sector in South Africa. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with a cross-section of 25 women academics who had experienced workplace bullying. As part of data triangulation, four union representatives and three human resources practitioners were also interviewed. The study’s main findings indicate that gender, race and class mediate women academics’ experiences of workplace bullying. In historically White universities, African, Coloured and Indian women academics, particularly those from working-class backgrounds, are more likely to be bullied, by seniors, peers, administrators and students. For White women academics, race ameliorates their workplace bullying experiences. The simultaneous effects of race, gender and class derail transformation as members of previously disadvantaged groups either remain stuck in junior academic positions, or exit the sector.

• Introduction
• IJCDS News
• Contents
• Diversity Is an Asset to Science Not a Threat

  In this paper, Critical Realism is used as a theoretical framework to show that diversity is an asset to science not a threat. Critical Realism situates the reliability and reproducibility of science in the realm of the real and thus relocates the notion of “objectivity” from the person of the scientist to the process of science. This means that it no longer necessary to attempt to minimise the person of the scientist in pursuit of rigorous knowledge. The implication is that diversity both in terms of intellectual training (within limits) and in terms of being multicultural, gender, sexuality, multilingual, is revealed to be an asset. This is because the construction of knowledge draws on personal experience and having people with divergent experience interrogating the same problem is more likely to provide a reliable, reproducible solution. In the latter parts of the paper, the implications for teaching are described. In addition, it is demonstrated that this argument can be extended into different knowledge areas.

• Tracing Transformation in Turbulent Times

  We live in a South Africa defined by deep inequalities. The post-apartheid promise of free and quality education is met by the realities of lasting disparities related to race, gender, socioeconomic class and disability, among other factors. The University of Cape Town (UCT) has initiated two interdependent processes to chart and track transformation, inclusion and diversity during these turbulent times. First, the university has set up an Inclusivity Survey, using a validated scale to understand staff experiences in relation to inclusion. Secondly, the university has identified and piloted a set of Transformation Benchmarks inspired by a higher education barometer for transformation in South Africa and global diversity and inclusion standards, which encourages transformation agents to take concrete actions to further transformation. Both these processes, first implemented in 2019, experimented with new ways of tracing the shape of transformation, inclusion and diversity at UCT. The paper will explore the opportunities and limitations these structured approaches to transformation offer to higher education institutions. For example, while structured approaches are useful, some argue that these reduce the complexity of social struggles (like those against racism) to simple box-ticking exercises. In unpacking these issues, the paper seeks to ask: how can we better monitor, evaluate and track progress in an increasingly turbulent world?

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