Nuraan Davids
Stellenbosch University, Education Policy Studies, Faculty Member
- Nuraan Davids is Professor of Philosophy of Education in the Department of Education Policy Studies in the Faculty of... moreNuraan Davids is Professor of Philosophy of Education in the Department of Education Policy Studies in the Faculty of Education at Stellenbosch University. She is an NRF rated researcher, whose research interests include democratic citizenship education; Islamic philosophy of education; philosophy of higher education; and leadership and management inquiry. She is a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (2020 -2021). She is an Associate Editor of the South African Journal of Higher Education, and an Editorial Board Member of Ethics and Education, and the Journal of Education in Muslim Societies. She is the recipient of a number of research and teaching awards, which includes the NRF Research Excellence Award for Female Emerging Researcher (2015); the Stellenbosch University Distinguished Teacher Award (2017); the CHE/HELTASA National Excellence in Teaching and Learning Commendation (2017); Stellenbosch University Research Excellence Award (2015, 2016, 2018; 2019); and the Stellenbosch University Media Thought Leader Award (2018, 2019). She has 110 accredited publications, which include 13 internationally published books; 5 edited books; 29 book chapters; and 63 accredited research articles and conference proceedingsedit
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Out of Placeoffers an in-depth exploration of Nuraan Davids’ experience as a Muslim ‘coloured’ woman, traversing a post-apartheid space. It centres on and explores a number of themes, which include her challenges not only as a South... more
Out of Placeoffers an in-depth exploration of Nuraan Davids’ experience as a Muslim ‘coloured’ woman, traversing a post-apartheid space. It centres on and explores a number of themes, which include her challenges not only as a South African citizen, and within her faith community, but as an academic citizen at a historically white university. The book is her story, an autoethnography, her reparation. By embarking on an auto-ethnography, she not only tries to change the way her story has been told by others, transforms her ‘sense of what it means to live’ (Bhabha, 1994). She is driven by a postcolonial appeal, which insists that if she seeks to imprint her own way of life into the discourses which pervade the world around her, then she can no longer allow herself to be spoken on behalf of or to be subjugated into the hegemonies of others. The main argument of Out of Placeis that Muslim, ‘coloured’ women are subjected to layers of scrutiny and prejudices, which have yet to be confronted. What we know about Muslim ‘coloured’ women has been shaped by preconceived notions of ‘otherness’, and attached to a meta-narrative of ‘oppression and backwardness’. By centring and using her lived experiences, the author takes readers on a journey of what it is like to be seen in terms of race, gender and religion – not only within the public sphere of her professional identities, but within the private sphere of her faith community.
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People story their lives as they live them, and as story-telling beings, people are always living and storying their lives in relation to others - at once drawing from, and contributing to ongoing constructions of new stories. The telling... more
People story their lives as they live them, and as story-telling beings, people are always living and storying their lives in relation to others - at once drawing from, and contributing to ongoing constructions of new stories. The telling and re-telling of people's stories allow them a space in which they can make sense of who they are, and assign some meaning to their lives. Deciding what to do with their lives, and understanding how to reconcile who they are with what they either can do, or cannot do, is no longer a straightforward process directly linked to a specific job description. Maree's edited work, Shaping the story: A guide to facilitating narrative career counselling (2011), can therefore be appreciated as a valuable tool to navigate the work environments of clients in times of turbulence and transition. Picking up on the unstated value of people's capacity as story-telling beings, Maree provides readers with multiple and innovative ways of how the narrative, as a counselling methodology, provides clients with an opportunity to make decisions about career choices, while retaining a self. It is precisely through this retention of the self that, in addition to offering a review of Maree's book, the reviewer wishes to situate her own voice in this remarkable book by offering another perspective - that of the voice of the counsellor, both as a potential story and as a contribution to the narrative construction.
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Please help populate SUNScholar with the full text of SU research output. Also - should you need this item urgently, please snd us the details and we will try to get hold of the full text as quick possible. E-mail to scholar@sun.ac.za.... more
Please help populate SUNScholar with the full text of SU research output. Also - should you need this item urgently, please snd us the details and we will try to get hold of the full text as quick possible. E-mail to scholar@sun.ac.za. Thank you.OpvoedkundeOpvoedingsbeleidstudi
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Please help populate SUNScholar with the full text of SU research output. Also - should you need this item urgently, please snd us the details and we will try to get hold of the full text as quick possible. E-mail to scholar@sun.ac.za.... more
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ABSTRACT As academics, we do not only produce and reproduce knowledge; we also produce our citizenship as a social and agonistic space. There are nuances embedded within academic citizenship – unqualifiable, but compelling in their... more
ABSTRACT As academics, we do not only produce and reproduce knowledge; we also produce our citizenship as a social and agonistic space. There are nuances embedded within academic citizenship – unqualifiable, but compelling in their production and reproduction of power dynamics, bringing into disrepute notions of academic citizenship as a homogenous or inclusive space. There are ways of being and becoming within citizenship that might be less readily conceivable, and hence, slip beneath the radar of scholarly scrutiny and debates.We have yet to delve into how we come into the presence of one another. In offering an expanded understanding of academic citizenship as alterity, I argue that academic citizenship has to involve wading into a curious uncertainty about the other so that the immensity of diversity, its unknown-ness, is brought to bear on the university, not as fear and estrangement, but as a rupture with a continuity of Othering.
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In this chapter, we are interested in how a critical-social educational theory can most appropriately advance human existence. To this end, we draw on Seyla Benhabib’s (Critique, norm and utopia: a study of the foundations of critical... more
In this chapter, we are interested in how a critical-social educational theory can most appropriately advance human existence. To this end, we draw on Seyla Benhabib’s (Critique, norm and utopia: a study of the foundations of critical theory. Columbia University Press, New York, 1986) re-articulation of Jürgen Habermas’s notion of critique to ascertain how the practice of academic activism ought to be amended. According to Benhabib (Critique, norm and utopia: a study of the foundations of critical theory. Columbia University Press, New York, 1986: 279), Habermas’s theory of communicative action is a justifiable form of critique as it re-establishes the relation between self -reflection and autonomy and it explains autonomy in communicative terms, that is, autonomy is not synonymous with self-legislation or self-actualisation or mimesis, but rather ‘the cognitive competence to adopt to a universalist standpoint and the interactive competence to act on such a basis’ (Benhabib, Critique, norm and utopia: a study of the foundations of critical theory. Columbia University Press, New York, 1986: 282). In relation to the notions of self -reflective autonomy and communicative autonomy, we examine what a philosophy of higher education looks like and what the implications of such a form of critique hold for academic activism.
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In this chapter, we show how democratic education encourages respect, mutual engagement and the recognition of a plurality of views. Inasmuch as reasonable persons engage deliberatively with one another, they invariably draw on their... more
In this chapter, we show how democratic education encourages respect, mutual engagement and the recognition of a plurality of views. Inasmuch as reasonable persons engage deliberatively with one another, they invariably draw on their emotions as they endeavour to reason together. Yet, when reasonable people engage openly and freely they take responsibility for one another’s views. Even when they are provoked by the emotions of distress and belligerence, they are responsible enough to make sure to restrain their hostility towards one another that potentially leads to open conflict. Rather, their belligerence and distress allow them to speak their minds without being silenced even when their views are provocative and dissenting. Through speech participants disturb doubts about the claims being proffered and collectively strive together to achieve conciliation when rival positions are taken into perspective.
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South Africa's transition into a democracy signalled many new beginnings to different people, and communities. For the Muslim community, a new democracy beckoned an untraversed path of identity and expression-one unshielded by the... more
South Africa's transition into a democracy signalled many new beginnings to different people, and communities. For the Muslim community, a new democracy beckoned an untraversed path of identity and expression-one unshielded by the seclusion, unintentionally provided through apartheid. The changes, while not immediately obvious, were profound nevertheless-no more so than within a new realm of desegregated schools. The extensive migratory patterns of learners to previously 'off-limits' schools soon revealed another pattern of exit. The more public schools diversified, the greater the increase in the number of faith-based schools. Although small in relation to the total number of independent schools, the percentage of Muslim schools was significantly higher than the proportion of Muslims in the South African population. In 'mapping the terrain' of Muslim education in post-apartheid South Africa, the interest of this article lies, firstly, in understanding the motivation for the proliferation of Muslim schools. Secondly, how might the prevalence of faith-based schools enhance South Africa's democratic project?
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abstract Nandipha Mntambo’s wide corpus of art offers us exciting ways to think through and extend feminist themes. We dwell specifically on Mntambo’s cowhide series, which is an ongoing meditation on, and subversion of different... more
abstract Nandipha Mntambo’s wide corpus of art offers us exciting ways to think through and extend feminist themes. We dwell specifically on Mntambo’s cowhide series, which is an ongoing meditation on, and subversion of different conceptions of subjectivity, the body and identity (common themes within feminist epistemologies). Her installations (re)present a mounted artistic contestation of the un-enunciated ways of viewing the (‘African’) female subject, pointing to non-dualistic revisions of the subject’s conceptions. In this way, Mntambo gives materiality to the cultural theorist Homi Bhabha’s conceptions of the Third Space, her works usher us into ‘the beyond’ – a space for contesting archaic dualism, a site of the re-imagined, and a way of (re)theorising the now. In this regard, it is our contention that Mntambo provides us with unexplored avenues to re-think and re-conceptualise some of the central themes of (‘African’) feminism.
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Thanks to intense prohibition and regulation of access to higher education during apartheid, a significant number of teachers from historically marginalised groups did not necessarily enter the profession as a first choice or as a... more
Thanks to intense prohibition and regulation of access to higher education during apartheid, a significant number of teachers from historically marginalised groups did not necessarily enter the profession as a first choice or as a desirable profession. Instead, post-schooling choices were based on access and financial support, restricting many marginalised groups to enrol at teacher training colleges. Beyond schools, there were no career pathways for “coloured”, “black”, and “Indian” teachers to teach at a higher education level. In mathematics education, the challenges experienced by “coloured” women are especially pronounced yet unexplored. To date, the dominant literature has leaned towards a negative portrayal, informed by stereotypical imagery and caricature. By exploring the lived experiences of six “coloured” women, who succeeded in establishing themselves as mathematics educators in higher education, the article is driven by a twofold imperative. On the one hand, it seeks to...
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In this chapter, we offer an account of Berlin’s (Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford University Press, 1969) conceptions of positive and negative liberty. We bring into contestation the argument that an individual’s freedom to act... more
In this chapter, we offer an account of Berlin’s (Four Essays on Liberty, Oxford University Press, 1969) conceptions of positive and negative liberty. We bring into contestation the argument that an individual’s freedom to act autonomously, without any interference or constraint, can ever be the case, if one considers, that an individual’s action is always in relation to others, and hence, always conditional. We draw on Gutmann’s (Democratic Education, Princeton University Press, 1987) argument that an individual’s freedom does not happen independently from the exercise of freedom by others which, in turn, constrains their freedom as they do things in collaboration with others. Consequently, the exercise of freedom is both autonomous and interdependent: autonomous freedom is exercised through individual human agency; and interdependent human freedom is practised in relation with others. We contend that at the heart democratic education is the notion of deliberative freedom: to act with deliberative rationality, and to pursue one’s engagement with others on the basis of an emotive freedom, that enhances the possibility for co-learning and ethical judgement of a rational and emotive kind.
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Derived from the Greek word kosmopolites—meaning ‘citizen of the world’—the concept of cosmopolitanism has gained much currency in political theory over the last few decades and has been taken up by many prominent scholars—from Kant and... more
Derived from the Greek word kosmopolites—meaning ‘citizen of the world’—the concept of cosmopolitanism has gained much currency in political theory over the last few decades and has been taken up by many prominent scholars—from Kant and Habermas to Waldron, Nussbaum, Derrida and Benhabib. Not ignoring the plethora of literature currently available on the concept, we want to examine two distinct views in particular showing how tolerance can be enacted within the practice of cosmopolitanism in reference to the views of Seyla Benhabib (Another cosmopolitanism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) and Jacques Derrida (Cosmopolitanism and forgiveness. London: Routledge, 2001). In this regard, we are especially interested in cosmopolitanism as a practice of openness, open-mindedness, and a tolerant accountability to and for the other.
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Given the heavy social and cultural implications on how respect is enacted and viewed, it becomes apparent that inasmuch as conceptions of tolerance/intolerance shift across boundaries of particular value systems, so, too, do conceptions... more
Given the heavy social and cultural implications on how respect is enacted and viewed, it becomes apparent that inasmuch as conceptions of tolerance/intolerance shift across boundaries of particular value systems, so, too, do conceptions of respect/disrespect. We consider the connectedness of enactments of respect to human dignity and recognition. Thereafter, we take a closer look at Isaiah Berlin’s (Liberty (H. Hardy, Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002) ground-breaking exposition of liberty. Berlin (Liberty (H. Hardy, Ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002: 229) makes the provocative claim that tolerance implies ‘a certain disrespect’. It is such a notion of conditional tolerance marred by some disrespect toward the views of others, on which we wish to expound in relation to liberty (freedom) and educational encounters. We conclude by examining how notions of freedom could enhance tolerance in the pursuit of sustained educational encounters.
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According to Young (Inclusion and democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000: 79), greeting, rhetoric and narrative are important practices that constitute ‘larger arguments, and sometimes enable understanding across difference in... more
According to Young (Inclusion and democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000: 79), greeting, rhetoric and narrative are important practices that constitute ‘larger arguments, and sometimes enable understanding across difference in the absence of shared premises that arguments need in order to begin’. We shall, firstly, examine these three ways of human practice in order to show how tolerance manifests in cultivating educational encounters. Next, we offer conceptual analyses of educational inclusion and exclusion, and how these relate to both learners and teachers as they endeavor in settings in which they might not be the dominant or normative voice. We conclude this chapter by looking at tolerance, internal inclusion and dissent. Here we pay particular attention to Buber’s (Pointing the way (M. Friedman, Trans. & Ed.). New York, NY: Harper and Brothers, 1957) account of educational inclusion as ‘pure dialogue’.
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Our focus is on the practice of disagreement as a way, firstly, through which educational encounters might be enhanced, and secondly, as a practice that can engender dissent. We do this, by exploring two conceptions by Gutmann and... more
Our focus is on the practice of disagreement as a way, firstly, through which educational encounters might be enhanced, and secondly, as a practice that can engender dissent. We do this, by exploring two conceptions by Gutmann and Thompson. First we consider ‘deliberative disagreements’ (Democracy and disagreement. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), and second, ‘an economy of moral disagreement’ (Why deliberative democracy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004). Secondly, we consider Butler’s (Excitable speech: A politics of the performative. New York, NY: Routledge, 1997) resignification of speech as an act of tolerance. We conclude the chapter by considering Nussbaum’s (Hiding from humanity: Disgust, shame, and the law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004) treatment of disgust, shame and humiliation as ways in which humanity can be undermined, as resistance to shaming people through speech. In this manner, we argue why disagreement is constitutive of a conditional tolerance, that is, we make an argument for tolerant human action, as constituted by the practice of disagreement.
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Notwithstanding the flurry of pronouncements about Muslim education in recent years, in surveying some of the major philosophical ideas that constitute the concept, it appears as if three discernable epistemological and ethical practices... more
Notwithstanding the flurry of pronouncements about Muslim education in recent years, in surveying some of the major philosophical ideas that constitute the concept, it appears as if three discernable epistemological and ethical practices frame a plausible understanding of Muslim education, namely tarbiyyah (socialization), ta’līm (critical engagement), and ta’dīb (social activism). These three practices have application in multiple areas of Muslim educational life for the purposes of both lifelong learning and social organization, thus contributing to its status as an indigenous knowledge system. Collectively, these three meanings serve not only to teach Muslims about the tenets of their faith, but offer the actual processes through which to socialize Muslims into an inherited knowledge system and how to flexibly use that knowledge in relation to, and in service of, humanity. It is our contention that these interrelated genres of Muslim education have as their morally worthwhile achievements the enhancement of people’s sense of rational judgment, criticality, and deliberative engagement—all optimal pursuits in pedagogical settings that can engender moral and social responsibility toward others in humane modes of being and living. But, if the moral worth of Muslim education, as we contend, resides in the moral and social responsibility toward others in society and is not confined to its contribution to a community of Muslims, then what separates and defines the indigenous Muslim community (from which an indigenous knowledge system emerges) from the community or society, as constituted by others of non-Muslim descent in a society?
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The authors’ understanding of democratic citizenship is that it ought to connect to the human experience along the lines of deliberative engagement, responsible action, co-belonging and equality of speech and action. In reflecting on the... more
The authors’ understanding of democratic citizenship is that it ought to connect to the human experience along the lines of deliberative engagement, responsible action, co-belonging and equality of speech and action. In reflecting on the chapters in this anthology, they assert that there appears to be an overwhelming bias towards some kind of liberal view of democratic citizenship education—one that privileges individual rights and collective autonomy. In turn, they argue that it might be important to move beyond such an established notion of democratic citizenship education, especially in light of multifarious enactments of the concept on the continent. That is, considerations and enactments of individual rights and collective autonomy might not be sufficient in realising the type of democratic citizenship education necessary for African countries.
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At least, over the past four decades post-colonial African higher education has undergone significant changes in the quest to cultivate democratic educational / pedagogical actions in universities. From its early insistence on... more
At least, over the past four decades post-colonial African higher education has undergone significant changes in the quest to cultivate democratic educational / pedagogical actions in universities. From its early insistence on deliberative action (Waghid 2001), more recently, it assumed the forms of both ethical pursuits (Davids and Waghid 2016) and caring (Waghid 2019). Yet, as South Africa continues its unprecedented transition into a democracy, it is becoming abundantly evident that what is needed in higher education should surpass deliberative, ethical, and caring encounters. The expectation that a democratic climate would ease the deep inequalities in higher education, would somehow set the scene for a renewal of knowledge, and restore opportunities for historically marginalised communities, lies in limbo. Instead, what we witness is the awakening of renewed resistance – this time, not against an unjust apartheid regime, but against a democracy that seems incapable of yielding ...
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The prevalence of dystopias—whether in the form of terrorism, human trafficking or erosion of constitutional democracies—has touched on our philosophical work to the extent that we were urged to respond to such undesirable human actions.... more
The prevalence of dystopias—whether in the form of terrorism, human trafficking or erosion of constitutional democracies—has touched on our philosophical work to the extent that we were urged to respond to such undesirable human actions. This book in itself is one such response, particularly having taken up the task of making a case for tolerance within educational encounters as a way of rupturing dystopic realities and potentialities with which we are faced in education. In this chapter, we draw on Hannah Arendt’s (Responsibility and judgment (J. Kohn, Ed.). New York, NY: Shocken Books, 2003) notion of judgment to analyze how tolerant educational encounters would unfold. Influenced by her thoughts in Responsibility and judgment (Arendt, Responsibility and judgment (J. Kohn, Ed.). New York, NY: Shocken Books, 2003), we examine what the implications of judgment would be for an enactment of tolerance within educational encounters.
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bution to educational theory and practice. The book covers a broad range of topical and exciting issues as diverse as faith, hope, wonder, imagination and posthuman ethics of care in teaching and learning. It does so with poetic elegance... more
bution to educational theory and practice. The book covers a broad range of topical and exciting issues as diverse as faith, hope, wonder, imagination and posthuman ethics of care in teaching and learning. It does so with poetic elegance as well as argumentative rigour. It combines critical edge with an affirmative stance towards pedagogical possibility, steering clear from drastic choices and dichotomous thinking. The book’s captivating metaphors and its valuable insights will be of lasting significance for a variety of fields that intersect in their commitment to an innovative and transformative pedagogy. Marianna Papastephanou, Department of Education, University of Cyprus
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Commonly, debates on educational inclusion/exclusion in South Africa are centred on learner and student experiences. While current calls for decolonisation and decoloniality have encompassed demands for broader racial representation among... more
Commonly, debates on educational inclusion/exclusion in South Africa are centred on learner and student experiences. While current calls for decolonisation and decoloniality have encompassed demands for broader racial representation among academics in higher education, the particular solitary and isolationary experiences of minority group teachers have slipped below the radar, and remain largely unnoticed, and hence, unrecorded. The encounters and confrontations of minority group teachers embody a specific complexity which brings into disrepute professional competence because of racial identity. In other words, minority group teachers are deemed as less competent on the basis of their disconnection from the majority group teachers. This means that while a teacher might have a qualification to teach, he or she is not qualified to teach because of who he or she is. In this regard, the interest and concern of this chapter is threefold. What are the implications for conceptions of social justice, if teachers experience pedagogical undermining and estrangement as practices of exclusion? Secondly, how might innovative career counselling assist in cultivating pedagogies and ways of being that move towards openness and inclusion? And thirdly, how can career innovation be extended beyond normative parameters of advancement, and instead be reconceived as an enactment of social justice? Our argument is in defence of teacher inclusion: teachers are included when they are recognised for the responsible acts they perform in expediting student learning. In our case, responsibility is conceptually and pragmatically linked to cultivating decoloniality, evoking student potentialities, and acting responsibly and ethically.
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The violence that continues to paralyse too many South African schools on a daily basis often has its origins in highly complex and dysfunctional communities. To this end, traditional punitive measures, as well various disciplinary-based... more
The violence that continues to paralyse too many South African schools on a daily basis often has its origins in highly complex and dysfunctional communities. To this end, traditional punitive measures, as well various disciplinary-based policies have not always provided an adequate response to violence in schools. In searching for alternative ways of dealing with disruption and violence in schools, the article explores the practices of four high school principals. Following on these particular practices – couched as ‘listening to learners’ – the article considers, firstly, whether caring relations between principals (by extension, educators) and learners can make a difference to disruptive and violent behaviour among learners. Secondly, in drawing on care ethics, the article considers how the practice of ‘listening to learners’ might contribute towards the cultivation of a democratic citizenship.
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As a practice, which implies the promotion of patience and open-mindedness, on the one hand, and the prohibition of bias and parochialism, on the other hand, tolerance is firmly located within a liberal tradition. Seemingly less agreed... more
As a practice, which implies the promotion of patience and open-mindedness, on the one hand, and the prohibition of bias and parochialism, on the other hand, tolerance is firmly located within a liberal tradition. Seemingly less agreed upon, is the, at times, interchangeable use between tolerance and toleration. In taking account of, and revisiting some liberal views of tolerance, we commence this chapter by firstly exploring conceptions of tolerance or toleration in relation to the self and others. Thereafter, we turn our attention to contemporary expositions of tolerance in relation to Eamonn Callan’s (Creating citizens: Political education and liberal democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) account of tolerance with dissent; Amy Gutmann’s (Democratic education. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987) take on tolerance and recognition: on agreeing to disagree; and Jacques Derrida’s (2003) tolerance of responsibility.