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Resistance and Solidarity: Navigating Fractures of Invisibility and Violence within the South African Neoliberal University

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Title: Resistance and Solidarity: Navigating Fractures of Invisibility and Violence within the South African Neoliberal University
Language: English
Authors: Isha Dilraj (ORCID 0000-0002-3249-8320), Azeem Badroodien
Source: Globalisation, Societies and Education. 2026 24(1):142-152.
Availability: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 11
Publication Date: 2026
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: Higher Education
Postsecondary Education
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Neoliberalism, Public Colleges, College Students, Activism, Resistance (Psychology), Decolonization, Educational Change, Violence, Racial Segregation
Geographic Terms: South Africa
DOI: 10.1080/14767724.2025.2585080
ISSN: 1476-7724
1476-7732
Abstract: With the birth of full democracy in 1994, promises of an equal and transformed South Africa suggested an end to turbulence and violence in a deeply divided country. Thirty years later, however, the country remains immersed in visible and invisible forms of struggle. Our paper interrogates the challenges of transformation within South Africa's neoliberal public universities and explores why student protests have been framed as disruptions rather than as necessary and generative interventions to reshape a wayward higher-education system. We argue that the exclusion and silencing of student voices since 2015 reveal a university system intent on violence and erasure to secure its neoliberal trajectory. The paper's main goal is to show how neoliberal agendas coexist, and often converge, with projects that claim a decolonial orientation, and how the expurgation of the black, especially critical, body from the public university imagination enables this reconfiguration. Using the concepts of resistance, invisibility and solidarity, the paper rethinks developments in South African higher education and contends that continued student protest remains essential if decolonial curricula and genuinely transformative universities are to be realised. It offers an intellectual engagement that conceptualises resistance and solidarity as meaningful practices through which deep, decolonial transformation might yet be achieved.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2026
Accession Number: EJ1503660
Database: ERIC
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  Data: Resistance and Solidarity: Navigating Fractures of Invisibility and Violence within the South African Neoliberal University
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Isha+Dilraj%22">Isha Dilraj</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3249-8320">0000-0002-3249-8320</externalLink>)<br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Azeem+Badroodien%22">Azeem Badroodien</searchLink>
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  Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
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  Data: 10.1080/14767724.2025.2585080
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  Data: With the birth of full democracy in 1994, promises of an equal and transformed South Africa suggested an end to turbulence and violence in a deeply divided country. Thirty years later, however, the country remains immersed in visible and invisible forms of struggle. Our paper interrogates the challenges of transformation within South Africa's neoliberal public universities and explores why student protests have been framed as disruptions rather than as necessary and generative interventions to reshape a wayward higher-education system. We argue that the exclusion and silencing of student voices since 2015 reveal a university system intent on violence and erasure to secure its neoliberal trajectory. The paper's main goal is to show how neoliberal agendas coexist, and often converge, with projects that claim a decolonial orientation, and how the expurgation of the black, especially critical, body from the public university imagination enables this reconfiguration. Using the concepts of resistance, invisibility and solidarity, the paper rethinks developments in South African higher education and contends that continued student protest remains essential if decolonial curricula and genuinely transformative universities are to be realised. It offers an intellectual engagement that conceptualises resistance and solidarity as meaningful practices through which deep, decolonial transformation might yet be achieved.
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      – Text: English
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        PageCount: 11
        StartPage: 142
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Neoliberalism
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      – SubjectFull: Public Colleges
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      – SubjectFull: College Students
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Activism
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      – SubjectFull: Resistance (Psychology)
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      – SubjectFull: Decolonization
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      – SubjectFull: Educational Change
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Violence
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Racial Segregation
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: South Africa
        Type: general
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      – TitleFull: Resistance and Solidarity: Navigating Fractures of Invisibility and Violence within the South African Neoliberal University
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