Introduction

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intecritdivestud.4.2.0006
• Published date: 23 September 2022
• Date: 23 September 2022
• Pages: 6-11
• Author: Claire Kelly

International Journal of CRITICAL DIVERSITY STUDIES 4.2 December 2021

Introduction

Claire Kelly

Dothe best youcan until you know better. Then when you know better,dobetter.

(Maya Angelou)

Following Freire (2005 p. 51) praxis requires “reflection and action upon the world in order

to transform it”. Or put another way it requires “dialectical unity between thought and

action” (Kress & Lake, 2013, p. 30). It could be argued that our efforts with regards to trans-

formation have been too regularly located in the realm of thought, and too little in the realm

of action. This special edition of the International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies brings

this thought and action together, by those of us who navigate this dialectical space every

day. By way of introduction I would like to share two experiences to elucidate the nature of

that space and the contestations that rage there.

The first relates to an encounter with a member of senior management. I had been called

into an emergency meeting early on a Monday morning. After the discussion, where it was

made clear to me that I had (again) said something “inappropriate” in a meeting, he said to

me “Claire, you are an employee of the university, not a student activist.” I have spent a lot of

time thinking about that. Was there something incommensurate about being an employee

and an activist for progressive social change? Isn’t that why we got into transformation in the

first place? This was such a strange assertion to me. South Africa has a long history of activ-

ism in higher education and the “scholar activist” is a well-known figure in universities

across the world. Furthermore, there is a growing international recognition that “employee

activism” is not only a phenomenon, but important for all organisations to start taking seri-

ously. What had changed when I became an “employee” to be somehow at odds with being

an activist?

The second relates to a series of workshops I co-facilitated. Our institution had just expe-

rienced a cruel, racist event in our residences, which was highly publicised and prompted one

of the largest student protests our institution had ever seen. Prior to all this our team had

planned a series of engagements with staff of a particular faculty to discuss a new Faculty

Transformation Charter. The racist incident happened just before the first workshops were

due to start. In some cases, the workshops went as originally planned, the issue of the racist

DOI:10.13169/INTECRIT DIVESTUD.4.2.0006