Abstract
Background: The use of digital technology in higher education is overwhelmingly positively
assessed in most recent research literature. While some literature indicates certain challenges
in this regard, in general, the emphasis is on an encouragement and promotion of digital
technology in higher education. While we recognised the positive potential of the use of digital
technology in higher education, we were cautious of an instrumentalist and disembodied
understanding of (digital) technology and its potential impact on higher education – as a
sector of education and as a body of students.
Aim: To re-conceptualise the way in which technology is understood for its use in the higher
education sector, as is argued, would be of benefit for transformation in higher education.
Setting: South African Higher Education sector.
Methods: Phenomenology of embodiment.
Results: An embodied understanding of technology through the embodied phenomenology
of Merleau-Ponty and an explication of its potential for transformation in higher education via
the working concept of the Embodied Screen leads to a full understanding of the student as
embodied and socially-embedded individual.
Conclusion: A more holistic and embodied understanding of digital technology serves
to supplement transformation in higher education, especially if transformation is
itself understood in concrete social and bodily terms as is the case in the South African
context.