Wrestling to Exist

Abstract

The waves of 2015/2016 #FeesMustFall protests saw South African students questioning every inch of the higher education structure and its exclusionary patriarchal racist roots. Few alliances between students and staff were created because of the “us vs. them” divide, despite junior scholars in particular, having a great deal in common with students and the oppression and trauma they endure. “Post-FMF” saw many institutions scramble to create “transformative policies” for students and minority staff like women, people of colour, people with disabilities, the LGBTQ+ community and so on. Now, years later, everyone has policy fatigue. Minority staff have been pushed back to the margins and students battle the same challenges the fallists questioned. This paper with be a narrative study tracking the experiences of three junior scholars, black women at historically white universities; with the pseudonyms *Thoko, *Andile and *Thandazile. The research took a narrative approach rooted in qualitative research. It studies their insiderness/outsiderness to show just how little work institutions have done to ensure equality and inclusivity. This piece unpacks issues of belonging, and their experience as they try to navigate being postgraduate (PG) students and being staff, and being insiders and outsiders in both. This discussion is in relation to Alice Walker’s womanism theorising, focused on the experiences of black women. The authors also bring their own life experiences because the strong similarities between their own experiences and those of their participants are impossible to ignore. The authors’ diverse scholarly background is used in the analysis, leaning towards Critical Race Theorists like Cornel West’s discussion on black nihilism to better understand the aggression of black men towards black women in the academy. This is juxtaposed with a crisis of masculinity discussion. These experiences will also be viewed from a victimological perspective.