Tracing Transformation in Turbulent Times

• Published date: 23 September 2022
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intecritdivestud.4.2.0012
• Pages: 12-30
• Date: 23 September 2022
• Author: Gabriel Hoosain Khan,Nina Barnes,Sianne Alves
• Subject Matter: transformation,inclusivity,diversity,higher education,activism

International Journal of CRITICAL DIVERSITY STUDIES 4.2 December 2021

Tracing Transformation in

Turbulent Times

Two Case Studies for Monitoring and Evaluating

Transformation in Higher Education

Gabriel Hoosain Khan

Office for Inclusivity and Change, University of Cape Town

Nina Barnes

Office for Inclusivity and Change, University of Cape Town

Sianne Alves

Office for Inclusivity and Change, University of Cape Town

ABSTRACT

We live in a South Africa dened 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 identied and

piloted a set of Transformation Benchmarks inspired by a higher education barom-

eter for transformation in South Africa and global diversity and inclusion standards,

which encourages transformation agents to take concrete actions to further trans-

formation. Both these processes, rst 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 struc-

tured 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?

KEYWORDS

transformation, inclusivity, diversity, higher education, activism

DOI:10.13169/INTECRIT DIVESTUD.4.2.0012

International Journal of CRITICAL DIVERSITY STUDIES 4.2 December 2021

TRACING TRANSFORMATION IN TURBULENT TIMES 13

Transformation Work as Activist Work

I teach what I am, I am what I teach: an intersectionality …, an interdisciplinarity, a

complex epistemology, and pedagogical location. I live and perform my multiple

social identities, both visible and invisible, and teach both through institutional

knowledge and my own “embodied text” … As I teach through these embodiments,

it has become apparent that the methods [I use] must be intersectional and interdis-

ciplinary, while recognizing the body as a site of learning and knowledge. I identify

as a Black woman, a lesbian, queer, a feminist, a scholar, and a teacher—thus living

and teaching at their intersections. The ways in which my students [or participants]

understand my identities becomes part of the project as they sort out the compli-

cated ideas of race, gender, sexuality, and class through the interpretation of course

texts, including my own embodied text. (Lewis, 2011, pp. 49–50)

Lewis’s powerful statement asserts that transformation work is activist work, and activist

work always occurs at the intersection of the personal and the political. As co-authors of this

paper, it is important to acknowledge our own complex identity, political and intellectual

locations, and the ways in which these formations of self influence and shape our work.

Ours is an institution rooted in the histories of colonial and apartheid oppression, and our

role (as women and gender queer persons of colour) is one which seeks to dislocate this

oppression. As agents of change in higher education, we are put into a contradictory posi-

tion, part activists and part managers, we struggle between meaningfully challenging

oppression and taking forward corporate interests. While our role is to disrupt, we as

authors are also part of the institution and complicit in it. When we refer to the University

of Cape Town (UCT) or the University, we are in part writing about ourselves.

We start the paper with this acknowledgement so that we face the role of silence in our

work, as both an oppressive tool when we’re forced into silence and as a strategic response to

oppression (Ahmed, 2010). Often transformation agents like ourselves are silent about our

own positionality and complicity in oppression, leading to dishonest reflections on our pro-

grammes, and in contrast can be silenced by those in positions of power who are resistant to

transformative change. In positioning this paper as an act of speech, we hope to inspire hon-

est reflections on the nature and effect of transformation at UCT.

This paper focusses on two case studies which monitor and track transformation, inclu-

sivity and diversity (TID) in higher education, namely the implementation of transformation

benchmarks and an inclusivity survey. In locating these interventions, the paper will explore

the turbulent higher education environment in South Africa and will ask: “how can we bet-

ter monitor, evaluate and track TID-related progress in this turbulent environment?” In

answering this question, we will unpack the friction between corporate approaches to mon-

itoring and evaluating transformation, and activist responses which are more fluid in nature.

Transformation, Inclusivity and Diversity in South Africa

South Africa has one of the highest levels of inequality in the world (IMF, 2020). This ine-

quality is apparent in the huge disparities in income distribution, unequal access to