The investigation of structured variation in native communities lies at the center of language variation and change studies which was introduced by Labov (1963; 1966 [2006]). Since the 1960s this quantitative approach has been highly influential in understanding variation and language change processes by investigating production and perception of language use (cf. e.g. Langstrof 2009; Hay and Drager 2010; Jansen 2019).

The student protests starting in 2015 added a new term to the lexicon of South African universities – decolonisation. It is of course a word with a long history dating back to the anti-colonial struggles of the 1950s and extending to the postcolonial period to signal ongoing efforts to ‘undo’ the legacies of colonialism. But decolonisation had never been a prominent or sustained component of the struggle discourse under or after apartheid. The discursive terminologies of the struggle included terms like antiapartheid education, liberation pedagogy, reconstruction and development education, and of course that ubiquitous referent, transformation. Literally overnight, the word decolonisation rolled off the lips of activists, bannered everyday protests and initiated across mainly the formerly white campuses seminars, conferences and committees to determine meanings and methods for changing universities – their complexions, cultures and curricula.

This book brings together the best curriculum minds in South Africa to make sense of decolonisation as a signal moment in the century-old history of higher education in South Africa. What does the word even mean? Why does it emerge at this moment, more than 20 years into democracy? Where does the press for decolonisation come from – intellectually, socially, culturally and politically? How does it relate to associated concepts such as Africanisation or indigenous education or postcolonial education? Is decolonisation the appropriate response, substantively and strategically, to the complex of problems gripping the education system in South Africa? Does the term decolonisation carry much validity in a country last formally colonised more than 100 years ago? Or is decolonisation simply a byword for proxy discontents in education and society? And what does decolonisation imply for the nature, purposes and politics of curriculum?

THE CONCEPTUAL ORIENTATION OF THE BOOK

In the literature, decolonisation is a concept that has been applied broadly to various things, from changes to the artworks of a university to the social transformation of entire nations. The specific focus of this book, however, is primarily on decolonisation as applied to the university curriculum; that is, as a knowledge project.

The question of knowledge as framed in this book is a political subject and therefore the decolonisation thesis is interrogated from the viewpoint of The Politics of Knowledge, as reflected in the subtitle of this volume.

One of the critical roles of the social scientist, especially in times of high change, is the scrutiny of important concepts as they emerge from time to time in the public arena (Lee 2009). In South Africa, political slogans frequently serve as the currency carrying important concepts in social discourse. Those slogans become the rallying point for political competition among rival parties but they are also taken up in everyday conversations among citizens, often without closer examination. In recent years, those slogans include ‘radical economic transformation’, ‘white monopoly capital’ and ‘land expropriation without compensation’.

It is not that these ‘concepts as slogans’ (Head 1988) have no substantive merit in a massively unequal society harbouring deep grievances in the present about an unresolved past. Nor should this criticism be read as a dismissal of political slogans, for they have always been ‘significant symbols of society’ (Raj 2007), with the power to suggest actions, evoke emotions and persuade publics (Denton 2009). It is, rather, that these crisp and simple descriptions of complex problems – such as the urgent need for land reform – are seldom subjected to critical reflection and quickly attain the status of ‘empty signifiers’ (Long 2018: 20). We now know, for example, that concepts like ‘white monopoly capital’ were conjured up by the disgraced British public relations firm Bell Pottinger to deflect attention from the charges of state capture and corruption by President Zuma and his cronies (Chutel 2017).

The task of the social scientist when ‘concepts as slogans’ emerge is to subject them to critical analysis with questions such as: What does the concept mean? Why now? Where does it come from? And whose purposes does it serve? Social scientists fail in their responsibilities when they merely parrot popular terms and rush towards uncritical usage in academic work, without much reflection on the social and intellectual validity of key concepts.