Higher Education Transformation in South Africa: Reflecting on Michael Cross's Intellectual Legacy

This chapter explores what is arguably the main theme that characterised the academic journey of Michael Cross in South African higher education transformation, namely, epistemological interrogation. The chapter pays particular attention to Cross's interrogation of the very notion of higher education transformation itself and then explores his fundamental proposition for the transformation of higher education in South Africa. This involves the development of new epistemologies and conceptions of knowledge, linked to the habitus of researchers and the academic or epistemic experience of students. Although he explored these passions in the broader global context, he was particularly enamoured with higher education transformation in Africa, specifically from his South African vantage point. His epistemological interrogation was grounded, not merely in a narrow theoretical sense, but located in solid empirical work - both in the many research projects he led and in his writing. A fundamental reason for drawing on the intellectual legacy of Michael Cross is that he insisted on grounding theory with practice and inserting - within the broader decolonisation context - the real-life experiences of the marginalised other into the agenda of higher education transformation. He prioritised inclusivity, cognitive justice, and social justice, all of which came to form the basis of his theoretical and methodological propositions, and the sharing of knowledge through the power of research and publications.