Nelson Mandela University students get new voice with online journal

Students were given a new voice with the launch of a student-driven online journal that will see their work make a fresh contribution to dialogues on contemporary issues within Nelson Mandela University.

Making its debut in council chambers at NMU’s south campus on Friday, The Perspective Online is a project of the university’s chair for critical studies in higher education transformation (CriSHET).

It operates in partnership with the office of the dean of students and the department of student governance and development.

The publication was unpacked at a full chamber, which also saw a vibrant panel discussion involving four of the publication’s first contributors, Samantha Msipa, Luzuko Buku, Nangamso Nxumalo and Anele Dloto.

This was followed by a question-and-answer session.

The panellists expressed satisfaction at having the opportunity to be among the first to contribute to the journal.

The project creates a new platform for students, with space also being allotted to academics, to contribute creative academic writing that tackles issues such as the deepening of transformation, decolonisation, and the Africanisation of higher education.

The new platform – which is edited by CriSHET research assistant Pedro Mzileni, is located on CriSHET’s homepage with the inaugural edition featuring 14 articles.

The journal’s first “Editorial Notes”, penned by Mzileni and titled “The Morphology of #Feesmustfall campaign”, explains the essences of the publication, its inaugural content and its direction.

“When we make critique the norm derived from the students’ authentic urgency, we could have a higher education that is shaped by the students’ own credible and authoritative ways of imagining their own decolonised and Africanised university.

“The authors in this inaugural edition of the journal are the activists who continue to view the decolonial project as a continuing struggle that should be further intensified in the site of the battle of ideas.

“This edition begins with a piece by Awethu Fatyela, Thanduxolo Nkala and Savo Heleta, who state how black students have got tired of epistemic violence that is depicted by whiteness in universities.

“Then, Veli Mbele goes further on this question to reveal how current black students’ experiences are tied to the overall historical violence and dispossession of the black race by the colonial empire.”

Final-year BCom law student Nxumalo, 23, who hails from Mthatha, said her fascination with understanding systems had formed part of her motivation to write her piece, “Decolonising the market space: An intersectional approach to neoclassical economics”, in which she tackles the “Euro-centric” nature of economies. Nxumalo, who is planning to work in the corporate social responsibility field when she completes her studies, said universities were at the coal face of economic learning, and changes to how economics were taught and changes in the way economies worked should start at these institutions.

Political science master’s student Siphokazi Tau, 24, who authored “Body at War: Rhodes in Nelson Mandela University”, used her piece as a platform to discuss gender and genderbased violence.

“[As a political science student] I was inspired by the use of bodies in protests as political tools and the underlying messages that these types of protests have,” she said.

Tau said she was honoured to be among the first to contribute to the new publication.