ABSTRACT
In this chapter, I lay the groundwork for an examination of how global political-economic mechanisms of power play a significant role in shaping conceptions of ‘independence’ through their power to dictate policy in countries in the global south, including South Africa. This power, exercised through dominant Washington Consensus institutions, such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), informs knowledge and identities at a local level through the adoption of neo-liberal macro-economic strategies, such as Growth Employment and Redistribution (GEAR). As a result, there is no local without the global. The engagement with issues of power, identity, and knowledge and their relationships to how ‘independence’ is understood ensures that meanings of ‘independence’ are contested and that ‘independence’ is not an immovable edifice. ‘Independence’ is only a product of an evolving matrix, in which the staff of the SABC, who are divided into four different tiers, construct their own interpretations of ‘independence’, shaped by their understandings of both organisational and external factors, such as politics and advertisers, in relation to their work.
