Metaphor drawing as decolonial research and feminist care among Black women academics in selected South African higher education institutions in times of crises

abstractThe global COVID-19 pandemic and devastating floods in parts of Southern Africa in 2022 intensified the competing gender role expectations for women academics in the home and workplace, with negative consequences on their effective participation and success in their institutions. This article explores the value of participatory visual methodology generally, and metaphor drawing as feminist decolonial praxis and a research as social change approach to develop a community of practice among a group of 20 South African Black women academics. Participants drew animal metaphors to reflect on their experiences of COVID-19 and the gendered impacts of the neoliberal policies and processes in universities during crises. The participants exhibited and shared their reflections in a workshop format. These were audio-recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed using decolonial feminist care as a conceptual lens. Two main themes highlighting women’s vulnerabilities and strengths emerged. Metaphor drawing as a decolonial method has the potential to generate counter-narratives that disrupt pathologising discourses about women academics’ experiences and capacities. The drawing workshop (and previous ones) contributed to generating deep relationality and sociality in the group, with care embedded deeply in the various interactions and formations that arose throughout the workshop and the project.keywords: metaphor drawingdecolonialitydecolonial feminismfeminist careBlack women academicsparticipatory visual methodologySouth Africa AcknowledgementThe project ‘Neoliberalism, Gender and Curriculum Transformation in Higher Education: Feminist Decoloniality as Care’ (FEMDAC) is funded by a grant from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation (New York) (Grant Number: G-1807-06023).Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 The authors of this article are the research team members based at the three public HEIs in South Africa (the rest of the transnational members of the team are based at the two institutions in the USA). We wish to thank them and the rest of the members for their support throughout the COVID-19 crisis and FEMDAC project.2 As part of our decolonial feminist praxis, we never ask our participants to do tasks that we ourselves as facilitators do not participate in. Therefore, we also drew our own metaphor drawings and presented our experiences and vision for the future. Our drawings form part of the collective/co-generated data set.3 By this time in the FEMDAC project all members were on a first-name basis, but in this article we use pseudonyms.Additional informationNotes on contributorsRelebohile MoletsaneRELEBOHILE MOLETSANE is Professor and the JL Dube Chair in Rural Education at the School of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Her current research interests include rurality, gender transformation, and participatory visual methodology as transformative feminist praxis. Moletsane is Co-Principal Investigator (with Reitumetse Mabokela, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA) of the project ‘Neoliberalism, Gender and Curriculum Transformation in Higher Education: Feminist Decoloniality as Care’ (FEMDAC). She is co-author, with Claudia Mitchell and Naydene de Lange, of the 2017 book Participatory Visual Methodologies: Social Change through Community and Policy Dialogue, published by SAGE. Email: Moletsaner@ukzn.ac.zaRonelle CarolissenRONELLE CAROLISSEN is a clinical psychologist and full Professor of Psychology in the Department of Psychology at Stellenbosch University, South Africa. She is a National Research Foundation-rated researcher. Her research expertise and publications explore feminist decolonial pedagogies and critical community psychology perspectives on equity in general, and youth citizenship in higher education contexts. She is a Fulbright research scholar alumnus (2021–2022) and a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. Email: rlc2@sun.ac.zaSaajidha SaderSAAJIDHA SADER, who identifies as a decolonial feminist activist scholar, is a lecturer in the School of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Her activism, teaching and research focus on decoloniality, social justice and education broadly and more specifically on decoloniality, gender, scholar activism and higher education. She is a founding member of the International Network on Gender, Social Justice and Praxis (commonly referred to as The Network), which is based at the Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education (CEEHE), University of Newcastle, Australia. The Network includes founding members from South Africa, Ghana, Sudan, the USA and Australia. Email: SaderS@ukzn.ac.zaNonhlanhla MthiyaneNONHLANHLA MTHIYANE is a Senior Lecturer and Head of the School of Education at Durban University of Technology, South Africa. She received her Master of Science in Education from SUNY College at Buffalo, and her PhD in Science Education from the University of KwaZulu-Natal. A recipient of the Spencer Foundation Fellowship and the NRF/NSF award, Nonhlanhla’s career started as a Biology teacher and spans secondary school, college of education and university. She is passionate about teacher education that is impactful and transformative, and that contributes significantly to finding solutions to societal problems. Her research interests include gender in education, teacher development, feminist methodologies and methods, and recently feminist decolonial methodologies. Her focus is on creating supportive and reflexive spaces for students and Black women academics, and in applying feminist decolonial methodologies to decolonise the curriculum, including research. Email: cynthiam@dut.ac.za