‘When it rains [our house] rains too’

Despite enormous change over the past quarter-century, endemic poverty and growing inequalities characterise post-apartheid South Africa, the ramifications of which are felt across higher education campuses. Many students enter university burdened by socio-economic constraints which continue to impact on their progress through their studies and affect their ability to participate as equals with their peers. This chapter draws on the economic dimension of Nancy Fraser’s framework of participatory parity to deepen our understanding of the complex and multifaceted contexts which impact on students at a ‘historically disadvantaged’ university in Cape Town. The data is drawn from students’ own submissions whilst engaged in a participatory photovoice research project as part of a gender studies final year module in 2017. Students were tasked with documenting, through two photographs and short accompanying narratives, the factors which had constrained their progress and enabled their success in their higher education journeys. Fraser’s conception of mal/distribution allows for a deep reflection on and illumination of the multiple and complex constraints highlighted by students that deny participatory parity, and the resources they draw on to mitigate and overcome these challenges.