POWER, DISCOURSE AND IDEOLOGY: CHALLENGING ESSEN-TIALIST NOTIONS OF RACE AND IDENTITY IN INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER LEARNING IN SOUTH AFRICA

Professor Malegapuru Makgoba and Professor Sipho Seepe, while serving as the acting Vice-Chancellors of the then University of Natal (now the University of KwaZulu-Natal) and of Vista University, respectively, were authorised by the Minister of Education at the time, Kader Asmal, to produce a document that charted the way forward for transformation in higher education. This responsibility, assigned to Kader Asmal by the State President, Thabo Mbeki, was delegated to Makgoba and Seepe within the framework of regular interactions with the State President (Seepe, 2004). Thus it would appear that the attempt toward drawing up the agenda for educational transformation took place within a broader political project. The resultant paper appeared as a key chapter “Knowledge and Identity: An African Vision of Higher Education Transformation” (Makgoba & Seepe, 2004) in the book Towards an African Identity in Institutions of Higher Learning edited by Seepe (2004). My paper, which had its genesis in an invitation to present a paper at the launch of the book, is based on a critique of Makgoba’s and Seepe’s essentialist notion of an African identity and their call to replace the Eurocentric with the Afrocentri