Universities in the Global South, such as those in South Africa, are under the obligation to set themselves on a research and teaching path that addresses contextual issues by drawing on knowledge traditions of the Global South (Santos, 2014). This entails the emancipation from problems and solutions, forms of knowledge, practices of knowledge generation and institutional structures originating from the Global North. It also entails the generation of knowledge from and for the own context, and the articulation of a voice that addresses local and global issues. Universities encounter, however, various internal and external obstacles such as corporate institutional cultures, minds and practices caught in the grips of coloniality and the homogenising demands of ‘world-class standards’ and ranking leagues (see Mbembe, 2016). The processes of decoloniality as ‘delinking’ (Mignolo, 2007) and of Africanisation as construction need to filter through in all academic and professional fields.
