Framing community engagement in African Universities: A Comparative Study of UCT, AAU and LUANAR

Abstract

Purpose: In this thesis, I examine how universities, as institutions, and researchers/lecturers frame community engagement within distinct institutional, socio-cultural, and postcolonial contexts, namely, the University of Cape Town (UCT), the University of Addis Ababa (AAU), and Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR). Theory: I draw on the framing theory developed by Erving Goffman in the 1970s to understand how researchers and universities frame community engagement by attending to their issue framing, relationship framing and interaction framing. Method: To examine those frames, I conducted semi-structured interviews with three people with extensive experience in teaching, research and management: one from UCT, and one each from AAU and LUANAR. I also examined policies on community engagement from the three universities comparing how the three universities and their respective researchers/lecturers frame community engagement. Results: I showed how the framing of community engagement is deeply connected to the socio-historical conditions of the university where it is conceptualised. Institutionally, UCT frames community engagement as a means of ensuring public good and social justice in post-apartheid South Africa; hence, politics is at the core of community engagement. Whereas for AAU and LUANAR, community engagement is framed in a more technical language as “service” or “Corporate social responsibility”, and issues of social justice and politics are nearly non-existent. When examining individual researchers’ framing of community engagement, a much more complex picture emerges. For AAU’s interviewee, community engagement is framed as a depoliticising exercise whereby academic freedom is being corroded, and universities are less engaged with society. Community engagement is a form of critique of the current university and politics in Ethiopia. In contrast, for UCT’s interviewees, community engagement still emerged as a public good that needs to address social injustices in South Africa. The implementation of community engagement initiatives relies heavily on individual researchers and lecturers, which further burdens them. For LUANAR’s interviewee, community engagement emerged as connected to the social impact of research and teaching. It continued the depoliticised and technical institutional framing of the university.