Exceptionalism As a Means to Inclusion: Academic Labour in Select South African Universities [before-2014]

Post-apartheid, legislative and workplace-based efforts to transform the composition of the academic labour market to meet social justice imperatives and better reflect South African demographics have proved lackluster.

In 2014, the reignited student movement called the higher education sector and institutions out for their collective failure to uproot coloniality. This paper looks at the period proceeding this defining movement to critically examine the perspectives and experiences of Black and White academics as they consider and negotiate the salience of 'race' as mediator of inclusion or exclusion as employees, within their workplace contexts.

The outcome of indepth interviews reveals distinctively racialised patterns although academics self-identify along a spectrum of inclusion/exclusion. In particular, the continuity of structural violence, as well as participants' double consciousness indicates that Black academics have been incorporated into the case study institutions through being exceptional, in a context where they are still the exception.

The paper ends with a consideration of the significance and Implications of these findings in light of more recent institutional workplace changes.