UKZN Introduces A New Critical Social Justice and Citizenship Module - Prof Thabo Msibi

So, the University of KwaZulu-Natal is very excited about our new Critical Social Justice and Citizenship Module, it is a module that is designated or designed to address issues of oppression and inequality in society, particularly focused on gender-based violence, but also looking at intersections of other forms of identification, race, gender, sexuality, class, as they relate to issues of oppression.

So, how do we address issues of xenophobia, how do we address issues of sexism, how do we address issues of racism in society and the various discriminatory practices that we often see around issues of disability, that is the essence of the module and what we're trying to pursue is change in society.

At the, I want to say the beginning, or could be mid-year of 2019, we saw episodes of gender-based violence in higher education institutions, claiming themselves out, there were episodes in Fort Hare, there were episodes at UCT, and the university was really concerned that there appeared to be a resemblance of what was happening in society, sort of playing itself out within higher education institutions.

And at the time, the Vice Chancellor felt the need to think about how the university can respond in a much more tangible way to issues of gender-based violence, he then decided to task the Deputy Vice Chancellor of the College of Humanities at the time, Professor Ntlanthla Mkhize, to establish a task team that would look into this issue and I was given that responsibility. At the beginning, our aim was to really think through how we can address issues of gender-based violence within UKZN, we're thinking about how we can respond to the issue in a much more meaningful way, holistic way, involving housing, the actual campus, the curriculum, but ultimately, we realized that we can't isolate GBV from other forms of identification, other issues in society that that relate to oppression, so we decided to go for an intersectional approach, looking at issues of race, looking at issues of gender, looking at issues of sexuality, to be able to do it in a much more meaningful and comprehensive way.

Okay, the module will have a dual roll-out process, one involving online lectures, videos that are going to be uploaded on the learn site and students are going to be able to access those lectures and videos in their own free time, but there's also going to be tutorials, they're going to be on offer for students to be able to present their stories, to insert themselves in terms of the learning that they would have had online, and to have robust engagements in the class. What is exciting for us is that the module is going to be offered both in the medium of English and in isiZulu, and we've done a lot of work to have even subtitles in relation to the video recordings and the lectures that they're going to have, but also the conversations in terms of the tutorials will be facilitated also both in English and in isiZulu.

Ultimately, what we want to achieve as the university is to see change among our students and also more broadly, the type of graduate that goes into society. We are very clear that the university should not be a space that only prepares you academically for the field of work, but should be able to capacitate you to be able to function in society and to be socially competent. So, the module is focused on social competency, we want our graduates to be able to engage with other, to treat other people as human beings, to be able to recognize the value of the other person, and hence our approach is to say, we're going to give you the skills to be able to navigate that social world. We believe that the module is not only going to impact UKZN students, but it will definitely impact society because long-term, we want to have this module offered to other people beyond the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

So, the issue of the naming of the module was a very contentious one within the task team because we're worried that, you know, the name of the module is almost immediately associated with with that particular module, whatever, whatever you name it, you know, people will immediately have a particular conception of what you are thinking, regardless of what content you provide. So, we were concerned, we wanted a module that would actually focus exclusively on what we are, what we're presenting. So, our focus is on enabling critical thinking among our graduates. There were debates whether social justice can can ever not be critical, and we felt that yes, sometimes social justice can adopt a stance that that doesn't actually have the critical edge where it's all about singing peacefully around, you know, the fire and being and being happy.

But what we are thinking about is something beyond that, it's it's getting people to pause for a moment and to think of themselves in relation to their society and to think of themselves as to how they can contribute to these debates that we're having, important debates that we're having in South Africa about what it means to be a South African, what it means to exist in the in the continent and in in the country and in the world beyond. So, ultimately, we wanted it to have a critical edge, we wanted to enable critical thinking, and we wanted to have an approach that is embedded in critical theory, and hence, you know, critical social justice.

And the citizenship dimension again was another element, are we trying to make citizens who are docile, are we trying to indoctrinate? And that, you know, we had major debates around that as well. But citizenship for us is not just about a nationalistic identity, it's about a sense of belonging, asking ourselves about how do I exist within the society that I'm placed in and how do I see myself and how do I see others in the society that I'm placed in, and it does not necessarily mean that it has to be about being South African exclusively. Citizenship is about being a local and a global citizen at the same time, so it's those types of debates and hence the name. So, we want you to please enroll for this module in your first year. Do not delay, do not delay for second or third or fourth year, depending on your degrees. Do it in your first year because it's going to give you the skills to be able to navigate the institution and the society that you're located in. So, in order for you to register, you need to engage with your academic leaders in your schools to to guide you in the process, but the module is already online as part of the catalog of modules that are going to be available for your degrees. So, you can click on the module, choose the module, select the module and get approval from your school to do it this semester, they are ready to enroll you. So, it's a matter of just going online through the registration process as you would for other modules, the module will show and you'll be able to enroll accordingly.