FeesMustFall Protests in South Africa

A Critical Realist Analysis of Selected Newspaper Articles

Bibliographic Data

ID8086792
AuthorsGeorge Mavunga (0000-0002-2253-6477, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume7
Issue1
Publication date2019-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Student Affairs in Africa (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2307-6267 • E-ISSN: 2311-1771
PublisherUniversity of Pretoria - ESI Press (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.24085/jsaa.v7i1.3694
OpenAlexW2973665057
LanguageEN
Citations received8

Using Critical Realism (CR), this article looks at articles from selected South African newspapers which reported on the #FeesMustFall protests. The study established that, arising from the protests, was a culture characteried by tensions and distrust among stakeholders such as students, university management and the government. This, the article argues, was a result of how each of these stakeholdersperceived, and went on to exercise, their agency in an attempt to resolve the conflict arising from the protests. To avert a recurrence of negative consequences of student protests such as the destruction of property and development of toxic and adversarial relationships amongst different stakeholders, the article recommends collaborative approaches to conflict resolution in South African higher education. These approaches need to be framed differently from those in which some stakeholders seek to use theiragency to achieve outright victory over other stakeholders – a recurring mode of engagement during the #FeesMustFall protests

Agency (philosophy · Distrust · Government (linguistics · Media studies · Newspaper · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Realism · Social science · Sociology · Unrest · Victory · Critical Realism in Sociology · Law · Public Administration

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