Disability, social inclusion and technological positioning in a South African higher education institution: Carmen's story

Abstract

In South Africa, higher education policy documents propose technology and resource-based teaching and learning to prepare youth for the knowledge and information society, and for a socially transformed society. However, the extent to which these policies are being implemented is still uncertain. This article reports on a technology-based English course that incorporates face-to-face and online modes of delivery at a South African university. The aim of the paper is to examine how the only blind participant among a group of sighted participants positions herself and engages with the technological practices of the university, as well as the course, given the recommendations of the policies. Included is a discussion of how she constructs her identity and negotiates meaning in the course. The construction of identity is explored from a post-modern view that old identities, which stabilised the social world, are in decline, giving rise to new identities and fragmenting the modern individual as a unified subject. I explore views of identity as how people understand their relationship in the world, how that relationship is constructed across time and space, and how people understand their possibilities for the future. I also draw on discussions of positioning and self. Finally, I suggest implications that such a study might have for pedagogy, practice and policy in higher education institutions in South Africa.