Between the ‘Local’ and the ‘Global’: South African Geography after Apartheid

Abstract

South Africa's higher education system has undergone significant change since the end of apartheid. A central theme in the debates on higher education transformation has been the tension between the global imperatives of development and the need for universities to respond to the legacy of apartheid. This paper explores this tension by considering recent changes in geographical teaching and research. The paper argues that many of the tensions evident in higher education between the global and the local, which are as yet unresolved, find expression within South African geographical scholarship.

Curriculum Development: ProducingGeographersfor the 21st Century

“…In the United States, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) occupies a prominent position within undergraduate geography curricula (Murphy, 2007). In Australia, the gradual erosion of geography departments has created degree programmes that are reliant upon, and shaped by, other subjects (Gibson, 2007); and in South Africa, geography curricula have become increasingly localized, focusing around the region's development challenges rather than those topics popular within the Anglo-American geographical tradition (Mather, 2007). Moreover, at an institutional level, curricula often reflect the expertise of staff, and where departments are small curricula are inescapably limited or diluted of their 'geography' (Gibson, 2007).…”

Engaged pedagogy and responsibility: A postcolonial analysis of international students

“…In South Africa, by contrast, Mather (2007) documents how the development of the geography discipline reflects the apartheid legacies of the country whilst more recent research agendas have focused on applied questions of reconstruction and development. However, in Singapore, Kong (2007b) International students should therefore be seen not as passive recipients of a rarefied 'UK' geographical knowledge, but as agents of the flows of geographical knowledge within the global discipline, from and to the specific places that the students are coming from.…”

Where's the Geography department? The changing administrative place of Geography in UK higher education

“…However, this is not universal and it is possible to note some important differences in the nature and degree of this trend and in the institutional histories of Geography in higher education in different countries. For example, in South Africa and Australia, Geography's increasing incorporation into merged multi‐ or interdisciplinary units is a relatively recent phenomenon (Gibson ; Mather ), while in the USA it has been weaker historically and has traditionally enjoyed limited administrative autonomy (Smith ; Murphy ). Within these broad national trends, some commentators note countervailing tendencies or degrees of ambiguity (Gibson ; Sidaway and Johnston ).…”

“…These include moves to secure direct administrative savings, economies of scale and rationalisations of staffing (Gibson , 99; Kong , 15; Sidaway and Johnston , 72) and to increase student recruitment and research income by emphasising the applied and interdisciplinary nature of the discipline and its courses (Kong , 45; Li et al . , 32; Mather , 151). These administrative rationales for restructuring are often overlain with further justifications, including fostering new research and teaching synergies between academics in formerly different areas (Sidaway and Johnston , 72).…”