From Exclusion to Informal Segregation: The Limits to Racial Transformation at the University of Natal

In the context of higher education transformation in South Africa, this paper attempts to capture a series of observations about transformation at the former University of Natal. From a descriptive, multidisciplinary perspective it critiques racial transformation at the University as driven by concerns of representivity over the need for desegregation. We base this discussion on three sets of observations: an analysis of institutional policy, a review of demographic change in the staff and student bodies and a study of students' lived experiences of segregation on campus. During the past decade a great deal of change has occurred in the overall racial demographics of the student and staff bodies. While demographic transformation efforts at the University do echo national trends, a closer inspection of the policy, practice and lived experience of transformation at the University reveals that all is not well. In particular, institutional policy with respect to transformation has tended to be reactive and superficial and students experience campus as a segregated and racialized space. Thus, racial transformation at the University has only been partially successful: while overt racist exclusion is withering, informal segregation and attendant racialization remain.