Authoritarianism, Resistance, and the Future of Democratic Education in South Africa

Through a fusion of autoethnography and critical theory, this bold, cutting-edge volume examines how South African universities, instead of fulfilling their post-apartheid promise of democratic transformation, have become sites of bureaucratic control, epistemic erasure, and neoliberal authoritarianism.

Drawing on African critical theorists such as Frantz Fanon, Achille Mbembe, and Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, the book interrogates the coloniality of knowledge, the corporate instrumentalisation of higher education, and the role of AI-driven surveillance in policing thought. It critically engages with movements like #FeesMustFall, positing that universities have become complicit in state repression. Amidst this backdrop, the book envisions an alternative – one where the university is reclaimed as a site of insurgent knowledge, radical democracy, and epistemic justice.

Positioned as both a theoretical intervention and a real-world call to action, the book encourages students, scholars, and educators to reclaim higher education as a practice of freedom, resistance, and liberation.