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From community interaction to social impact at Stellenbosch University
Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2025.
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | en_ZA |
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Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
2025
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| _version_ | 1867614120127234048 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Mlitwa, Allison Charnine |
| author2 | Hill, Lloyd |
| author_browse | Hill, Lloyd Mlitwa, Allison Charnine |
| author_facet | Hill, Lloyd Mlitwa, Allison Charnine |
| author_sort | Mlitwa, Allison Charnine |
| collection | Thesis |
| dc_rights_str_mv | Stellenbosch University |
| description | Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2025. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/134706 |
| institution | Stellenbosch University (South Africa) |
| language | en_ZA |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:46:59.291Z |
| license_str | Other — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateRange | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| publisher | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| publisherStr | Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | SUNScholar — Stellenbosch University Repository |
| spelling | oai:scholar.sun.ac.za:10019.1/134706 From community interaction to social impact at Stellenbosch University Mlitwa, Allison Charnine Hill, Lloyd Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Sociology and Social Anthropology. Stellenbosch University Community and college -- South Africa -- Stellenbosch Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Social aspects Community development -- South Africa -- Stellenbosch UCTD Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2025. Mlitwa, A. C. 2025. From Community Interaction to Social Impact at Stellenbosch University. Unpublished masters thesis. Stellenbosch: Stellenbosch University [online]. Available: https://scholar.sun.ac.za/items/f03e0ab9-ad65-47aa-8fee-0f8c80f5af06 ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study examines the evolution of university–community engagement at Stellenbosch University, with a particular focus on the institutional shift in nomenclature from Community Interaction to Social Impact. The central question guiding this research is: Why did Stellenbosch University revise its nomenclature for university–community engagement, shifting from Community Interaction to Social Impact, and what contextual factors influenced this change? In answering this question, the study explores what “Community Interaction” and “Social Impact” signify within the university’s institutional context, and how these framings reflect broader social, political, and policy environments. Employing a qualitative, interpretive approach, the study draws on a wide range of data sources. Grey literature and institutional documents, including strategic plans, reports, and audit reports, provided a rich archive of policy and practice over time. National policy frameworks, such as the White Paper 3 on Higher Education and resources from the Council on Higher Education, situated the case within the broader transformation agenda in South African higher education. To complement the document-based analysis, three semi-structured interviews were conducted with key institutional actors who played significant roles in shaping the university’s community engagement agenda. While not designed for representativity, the interviews offered deep, reflective insights, providing institutional memory and context that extended beyond what could be captured in official documents. Together, these sources enabled a historically grounded and analytically layered account of the institution’s shifting engagement practices. The findings demonstrate that the trajectory of community engagement at Stellenbosch University is deeply entangled with South Africa’s broader political and social history. From its origins as Victoria College, supported by the colonial government to advance imperial interests and later nationalist projects, the university’s engagement with society has consistently been defined by constructions of the “self” and the “other.” Initially, poor Afrikaners were cast as the primary community in need; later, this conception shifted toward impoverished coloured communities adjacent to the medical campus, and eventually to black South Africans more broadly. Despite the advent of democracy, the majority of black South Africans remain structurally disadvantaged, and as a result, the deficit conception of community, positioning communities as lacking and in need of external intervention, persists. This historical layering complicates contemporary attempts at transformation and more transformative ways of engagement. The study argues that the reframing from Community Interaction to Social Impact reflects both continuity and change. At its heart lies a shifting conception of community, shaped by historical legacies, national policy discourses, and institutional agendas. Social Impact at Stellenbosch University is currently pursued by diverse constituencies, often with overlapping but not always aligned objectives. These range from positioning the university as an entrepreneurial institution, to advancing transformation for reputational purposes or genuine social justice purposes, to embedding engagement in the core academic functions of teaching, learning, and research. While the entrepreneurial university model remains largely dominant in the framing of the third mission, alternative perspectives, including Latin American ideas of extension and African perspectives, such as President Nyerere’s notion of the university as being “in and of” the community, inform more critical and transformative understandings of engagement. This thesis contributes to scholarship on higher education and community engagement by demonstrating how institutional practices and framings are historically situated and politically mediated. In highlighting the centrality of the conception of community in shaping engagement, the study underscores the importance of critically interrogating not only what universities do in the name of engagement, but also how they construct and position the communities with whom they engage. AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaar nie. Masters 2025-12-24T09:15:44Z 2025-12-24T09:15:44Z 2025-12 Thesis https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/134706 en_ZA Stellenbosch University 72 pages application/pdf Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University |
| spellingShingle | Stellenbosch University Community and college -- South Africa -- Stellenbosch Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Social aspects Community development -- South Africa -- Stellenbosch UCTD Mlitwa, Allison Charnine From community interaction to social impact at Stellenbosch University |
| title | From community interaction to social impact at Stellenbosch University |
| title_full | From community interaction to social impact at Stellenbosch University |
| title_fullStr | From community interaction to social impact at Stellenbosch University |
| title_full_unstemmed | From community interaction to social impact at Stellenbosch University |
| title_short | From community interaction to social impact at Stellenbosch University |
| title_sort | from community interaction to social impact at stellenbosch university |
| topic | Stellenbosch University Community and college -- South Africa -- Stellenbosch Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Social aspects Community development -- South Africa -- Stellenbosch UCTD |
| url | https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/134706 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT mlitwaallisoncharnine fromcommunityinteractiontosocialimpactatstellenboschuniversity |