Majority versus Minority: Experiences of Black female PhD candidates in South Africa and the Netherlands

This dissertation examines the experiences of Black female PhD candidates in two distinct yet interconnected higher education contexts: Rhodes University in South Africa and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Addressing a critical gap in the literature, the study brings African feminist thought into dialogue with Western-originated intersectionality to challenge dominant, Western-centric understandings of race, gender, and power. Grounded in a decolonial framework informed by Ubuntu and uKukhapha, the research centres lived experience as a legitimate site of knowledge production and conceptualises knowledge-making as relational, participatory, and contextually embedded. The study employs qualitative methods, including in-depth narrative interviews, photovoice, and reflexive writing, to foreground participants’ voices. It draws on Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality, Patricia Hill Collins’s domains of power, and Nira Yuval-Davis’s notion of situated intersectionality to explore how race, gender, class, immigration status, motherhood, culture, religion, and geography intersect in context-specific ways. The findings reveal that Black female PhD candidates navigate complex and shifting dynamics of identity, belonging, and power across the Global North and Global South. Experiences of visibility and invisibility, safety and insecurity, and inclusion and exclusion are shaped by institutional structures, funding precarity, and uneven commitments to diversity. The dissertation argues that these experiences are not uniform but deeply situated within intersecting domains of power and historical contexts. It contributes theoretically by extending intersectionality through a situated, comparative Global North–Global South lens and methodologically by advancing a decolonial, African feminist research approach that centres participants’ humanity and challenges dominant epistemic norms. The study further proposes practical, context-sensitive strategies to support Black women in doctoral education, including the development of structured doctoral communities, safe and intellectually engaging spaces, and more responsive institutional policies. It concludes by highlighting the need for ongoing decolonisation of higher education and future research on gender diversity and alternative constructions of identity.