Research Articles (GEU)

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Solidarity and advocacy at a South African institution: tracing convivial efforts for institutional equity
(Routledge, 2025) van Staden, Maria; Vilakazi, Fikile; Villamil, Astrid
This study sought to (a) delink dominant articulations of institutional diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), often conceptualized prescriptively from North Atlantic and Eurocentric epistemologies, and (b)describe efforts to engage in solidarity and advocacy from institutional equity spaces at a South African University. To that end, we anchored our research in postcolonial African communication and conducted an ethnographic study that spanned over 12 months (virtually) and 1 month (in site) with the Equity Lab Collective (ELC), an institutional equity entity at a South African University. Our findings revealed that the ELC engaged in advocacy and solidarity in two ways. First, the Collective followed a convivial approach, fostering an environment of openness, incompleteness, and complex care for others. Second, they prioritized co-presencial commitments, building relationships sustained by ancestral knowledge, intersectional awareness, and a commitment to challenging the status quo, without being afraid of tension. We present theoretical expansions and provocations