Paradigm Busters or Poor Cousins?

Abstract

South Africa's postdemocracy period has seen profound shifts for gender research units, both in funding, and their relationships with government and their universities. Being almost entirely donor funded, but academically located, these units have to occupy the uncomfortable space at the intersection of academic freedom, acceptable outputs, and available funding. This article examines how these units negotiate these different (and often competing) agendas and evaluates how the current environment affects their ability to influence legislative reform and policy development. This article argues that these researchers and research units have been forced into an elite cluster, which struggle to negotiate the tension between survival, inclusion, and reform. It is further argued that the instability of the funding environment, and the consequently frenetic institutional context, not only cripples these units' ability to strategically engage in gender transformation, but also works against strong relationships among women's movement organizations, or a coordinated and unified gender movement more broadly.