ABSTRACT
This chapter examines key issues at play in the postgraduate research supervision capacity development arena in the South Africa (SA)context by illuminating the fractures and fault lines at work as well as the opportunities and potential for advancing this aspect of the higher education (HE) mandate. It focuses on the lived realities and wellbeing of novice “chalkface” academics as they contend with the multiple demands that comes with teaching and research in HE. A key theme in the strengthening postgraduate supervision programme is the examination of the context within which supervision takes place. A striking feature at every institution, as reflected in the nature and content of the commentary by the participants, is the level of overt depression that has beset the HE landscape in SA. In applying the concept of domain to communities of practice in HE postgraduate research and supervision, one might venture that varying domains might well prevail.
