Knowledge as Enablement: Engagement between Higher Education and the Third Sector in South Africa

Knowledge as Enablement: Engagement between Higher Education and the Third Sector in South Africa Edited by Mabel Erasmus and Ruth Albertyn Bloemfontein, South Africa: Sun Press, 2014. 327 pp. ISBN: 9781920382629According to its preface, Knowledge as Enablement: Engagement Between Higher Education and the Third Sector in South Africa aims:1) to stimulate debate around issues at the interface between higher education institutions and the third sector of society, and 2) to highlight the unique role of such relationships in contributing to knowledge enablement, (p. 18)It seems appropriate, then, that the book should be reviewed from the perspective of both those within and outside the academy. One of us is an activist scholar (D'Souza, 2009), based in a South African university, and one of us works outside of the academy in what we term uncivil society as well as in bits of civil society. Over the years, we have chosen to work together on a fairly regular basis, reflecting on and learning from this engagement with each other. We bring our resultant thinking to this review.As is clear from its title, the book is concerned with issues of knowledge, enablement, and engagement, primarily between the university and the third sector. By the third sector, the book means that sector which is not the public (government) or private (business) sector. The editors consider this concept to be inclusive of many types of organised civil society, not simply formally registered nonprofit organisations. Enablement is used in contrast to empowerment, as explained in the first chapter of the book. Whereas empowerment implicitly suggests that one more powerful entity (the higher education institution) transfers some of its power to the less powerful entity (the community), enablement is about making something possible, and is "collaborative, reciprocal and focused on mutual transformation" (Janze van Rensburg, 2014, p. 41).The editors argue that community engagement (CE), as the third core function of higher education institutions (alongside teaching and learning, and research), often involves relationships with the third sector. "However, what happens at the interface between higher education institutions and third sector organisations has not been explored in any depth in the South African context" (p. 22), and "there remain conceptual and theoretical gaps in this knowledge field [of community engagement]" (p. 17). The book tries to fill these gaps, drawing on collaborative research activities and working from the premise that there is an essential link between enablement and knowledge creation, and that through CE, both higher education and third-sector organisations can potentially create knowledge to solve relevant problems.Bringle's foreword to the book clearly situates the book within a "fundamental epistemological shift in higher education," from the academy as the creator of knowledge, which is then disseminated to communities in order to fix problems, to "a new model of civic engagement that emphasises partnerships that are democratic (just, participatory, inclusive), reciprocal, and transformative" (2014, p. 19). The term, enablement, attempts to capture this. It thus critiques the model of communities as dependent, and seeks to shift the power relations between universities and communities by offering both a critique of existing forms of CE, and models of alternatives.The book is divided into three sections. The first is primarily conceptual, whilst the second focuses on the third sector (to address a limited understanding of the sector). The final section considers specific case studies and new approaches, including a variety of possible forms of CE. Most of the contributors to the book are either from the University of the Free State, or formerly from this institution, or with links to it. Two contributors are from nonprofit organisations, whilst the remainder are from other universities in South Africa and the United Kingdom. …