ABSTRACT
Fossilised thinking persists in the practice of tertiary educational staff in South Africa, a country still bonded to pre-liberation modes of obedience to colonial legitimacy, race characterisation, and textbook authority. The present study investigates whether reflections by students on the movie Black Panther would help these students delink from fossilised thinking. The main aim was to steer classroom activities away from textbook-based learning to create an attitude of doubt and iconoclasm among pre-service teachers in South Africa in order to interrogate dystopic views of Africa and examine the student identity denoted as ‘African’. Engrained modes of behaviourist pedagogy were addressed by invoking a discourse of conscious disruption, uncertainty, and mobility. South African student teachers were asked the question: ‘In what way did the film change your perceptions and ideas, belief systems, and what did you become aware of, in terms of conceptions of Africa as part of a world system, and yourselves as Africans living in Africa today?’ This main question was divided into three sub-questions: (1) ‘To what extent does the film Black Panther stimulate student teachers’ perceptions of Africa and their awareness of themselves as Africans?’ (2) Can the film be used to raise awareness of social justice? and (3) To what extent can Black Panther be co-opted to open up debates around prejudices, unexamined assumptions, and unmediated reception. Data were collected from student essays and follow-up focus group interviews. The predominantly black students were enabled to delink negative perceptions and preconceptions of Africa and of African selves individually, as well as in their group identification as ‘African’. These students of English became more reflexive regarding their academic habits, as well as their own identity formation. A secondary aim of the study was to compare the response of the South African students with a group of British mostly white students at a university in the south of England. The British students were also asked to reflect on the film as part of a module on film stylistics and the forum ‘Decolonise the Curriculum’. For both the South African and British students the film provoked a heightened awareness of social justice.
