South African ‘Freirean’ literacy projects in the 1970s and 1980s: an exploration of their praxis.

Abstract

This thesis explores the nature, practice, and strategic role of five ‘Freirean’ literacy projects that operated in apartheid South Africa between 1970 and 1990. It asks a central question: to what extent were these projects truly Freirean, in that they used Freire’s pedagogy as a tool for political transformation, rather an as a technical literacy teaching method? To answer this, I undertook archival research at several different archives in South Africa and interviewed 15 people involved in the case study projects and/or radical adult education at the time. Working in a critical paradigm, I analysed the data generated by drawing on an integrated theoretical framework: Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, and war or position versus war of manoeuvre, at the macro level to interrogate the ideological struggle within South Africa at the time; Freire’s notion of Education for Domestication and Education for Liberation, and in particular his ideas of praxis and conscientisation, at the meso level to examine the internal mechanisms and dynamics of the projects; and Lukes’ three dimensions of power at the micro level to further unpack mechanisms of resistance. The analysis shows that the projects were indeed deliberate, counter-hegemonic political interventions. They pursued a dual strategy of resistance. First, a ‘war of position’ on the ideological front (framed within Lukes’ third dimension of ‘power over’), where the projects focused on building ‘power within’, i.e. agency and dignity. This then laid the foundation for a tactical confrontation, contesting agenda-setting and coercive power, and advancing organised initiatives such as union building and subaltern leadership. The thesis concludes that whilst these projects faced structural compromises such as the tension of practising liberatory pedagogy within a racial hierarchy, these compromises were necessary strategic adaptations. A contribution of this thesis is its identification of a power translation mechanism, which demonstrates how ideological liberation within Lukes’ third dimension of power was systematically converted into organised confrontation within the first dimension. This translation across the case study projects shows how conscientisation and agency-building in the classroom provided the ideological foundation for collective mobilisation and direct contestation, thereby linking micro-level pedagogical practice to macro-level political struggle.