Rise and fall of the Makgoba a case study of symbolic

This article analyses the discourse of the 'Makgoba affair' - the bitter conflict between Professor M. W. Makgoba and 13 senior administrators at the University of the Witwatersrand-revealing how the controversy was symbolically constructed, understood, experienced and defended by the social communities that became engaged and mobilised through it. Employing the concept of 'discursive ecology', it offers an explanation of how what might otherwise have been an arcane administrative dispute could suddenly explode into a national crisis, only to rapidly disappear and be almost immediately forgotten. By recasting James Scott's concept of hidden transcripts in systems terms as simultaneously oppositional and collusive, it examines how structurally-embedded social and political tensions around the shape, pace and control of South African transition are overtly and covertly contested, expressed and repressed.