Becoming and being an academic in the post-apartheid university

The purpose of this chapter is to reflect on one key element involved in the process of becoming an academic, that of obtaining the doctoral degree - the coveted "license" in the current era for presenting oneself as an academic - in the specific context of South Africa. The interest of the chapter is not in how one should go about writing a doctoral thesis or how the degree might be obtained. It is essentially concerned with the formative or subjective issues that arise and that pertinent in the process of earning the doctoral degree. It's focus is largely on the experience of academics who self-identify as 'black' in the South African context.