the aim of this project is to generate a bottom-up understanding of what a sustainable university community may look like, but also to generate knowledge that can be applied into practice. Such knowledge can prompt transformative practices in the university community to consider more African/Indigenous/locally-centred strategies, not necessarily as a unique vision but rather as an articulation of an ecology of knowledges.

 

Hence, the project is not only relevant and necessary due to current claims for decolonisation in the South African higher education sector but also as a way to align aims and methodological procedures within our research practices. In this participatory research project power is shared among facilitators and research partners (student activists). This shifts knowledge asymmetries placing at the centre students’ voices, knowledges, and valued ways of being.