ABSTRACT
2015–2016 were years of protest and turmoil at South African universities that again underscored not only that the pace of transformation since the early 1990s was too slow but also that the change in many cases amounted to what Drucilla Cornell aptly names evolution – a change in the system but not a change of the system – rather than radical transformation that has the potential to change not only systems but also individuals within systems. Ubuntu has been described as a philosophy about how human beings are intertwined in a world of ethical relations. This intertwinement invokes spatiality. Inter-relatedness and relationality that are inherently part of Ubuntu, immediately call forth notions of spatiality. Feminist geographers have been concerned with spatial politics for many years. Gillian Rose notes that for many feminists patriarchy, by distinguishing between “feminine” and “masculine” spaces also linked them to certain activities.
