Beyond critique to academic transformation : reconceptualising rurality in the global south

Abstract

Critique is taken to mean an analytical examination of a text or a situation whether political or economic or social. Although critique is commonly understood as fault finding and negative judgment, it can also involve merit recognition, and, in the philosophical tradition, it also means a methodical practice of doubt. This reasoned judgment or analysis, value judgment, interpretation or observation is different from the pragmatic imperatives to action, in this case policy action; and in the South African case transformative policy action. Where the academy is concerned there is a radical difference between critiquing the academy and finding practical solutions to endemic problems ingrained not only in the philosophy but in the cyclical practice that drives it and the disciplines that emerge from it. This article takes its cue from the urgent need to go beyond ideologies which are neo-colonial, Eurocentric, abstract or individualist, to a discourse which engages in sustained action beginning with the academy. Since the universities in Africa remain mired in fundamentally Eurocentric views and interpretations, we need to find deep analyses and come out with propositions that have the ability to transcend the battle between scholars and academic paradigms to transformative imperatives that can put pressure and raise the bar for the academy to consider changing its ways.