Beyond the Grant: Reimagining Academic Futures through the Lens of Precarity
In South Africa’s evolving higher education landscape, where talk of transformation is widespread, but implementation remains uneven, one critical body of research is shining a light on the invisible challenges faced by many scholars navigating the system. At the centre of this timely and necessary work is Professor Mlamuli Hlatshwayo, based at Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies, University of Johannesburg; whose research interrogates the often-overlooked experiences of older early career academics, individuals who enter or return to academia in their 40s and 50s. Supported by the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS), this work addresses urgent questions of equity, institutional recognition, and the structural exclusion baked into the university system.