In the past two years, higher education institutions (HEI) have been inundated with students' demands for a decolonised education. Their voice led to the resuscitation of debates on a transformed curriculum. Amongst others, the language question is an issue at the centre of these debates. What students were questioning was the hegemony of English, the slow pace in which universities implement multilingual policies, and lack of clarity on the positioning of African languages as languages of learning and teaching. In this paper, we argue that if higher education aims to address marginalised and new knowledge through a decolonised curriculum, fundamental questions are worth being asked. In particular the questions we are asking and responding to are: "How does student voice become a force for social change?" "How can student voice enable HEIs to deal with the issue of language?" We suggest and support the view that the issue of language should be recognised as a social justice issue, that student voice can enlighten curriculum designers and society on the dangers of reproducing inequalities through the hegemony of English, and that graduate attributes, as an essential notion, should recognise multilingualism as a core skill that students should acquire.

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This article explores the concept of decolonization and its implications for the teaching of academic literacy in the Unit for Academic Literacy at a South African university. It draws on existing literature on decolonizing knowledge in Africa and different models of curricula as well as on teaching and assessment practices in the Unit for Academic Literacy to provide a conceptual discussion on possibilities to rethink the teaching of academic literacy. The article acknowledges that the Unit for Academic Literacy has attempted to incorporate principles of curriculum transformation in the contents of its courses, teaching, and assessment practices, but these attempts are still not adequate. This article therefore argues that since the demographics of South African universities continue to shift rapidly toward a black majority, the design, teaching, and assessment of academic literacy should be more responsive to the epistemic injustice in South African higher education. To do this, the article proposes that the Unit for Academic Literacy should open up more space for epistemic plurality, which allows for the representation of African ways of being, knowing and doing embodied in its growing population of African students.

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Since the 2008 attacks on African migrants, xenophobic violence has become a form of social agency for responding to increasing unemployment, destitution and crime in South Africa. Africans living and operating businesses in urban and peri-urban areas are now objects of different forms of social violence, as they are repeatedly blamed for unfulfilled political promises by the ANC-led government. One of most victimised African migrant communities is the Somali community, whose business activities in cities and townships are perceived as undesirable threats to locals sources of livelihood. This article uses qualitative data collected from 30 Somali migrants in Bellville and Khayelitsha, Cape Town to examine how Somalis co-existence with South Africans and their business tactics in Cape Town intersect to influence xenophobic violence. It explores the relationship between risky entrepreneurship and xenophobia, and the threats that this relationship poses to Somali lives.