Success as a relational and structurally mediated process: A narrative inquiry of a Black African student in South Africa

This narrative inquiry challenges individualist understandings of “student success” in South African higher education. Centring the experiences of a Black African woman from Lesotho in a clinically oriented programme, the study conceptualises success as relational, culturally grounded, and shaped by structural conditions. Using Ubuntu/Botho and a structure-agency lens informed by Mills’ sociological imagination and Critical Realism, the analysis shows how funding systems, policy exclusions, and racialised microcultures constrain opportunity, while mentoring, communal study, spirituality, and family support enable situated agency. Three themes are explored: navigating structural barriers and institutional opacity, cultivating belonging through communal and relational practices, and mobilising cultural, spiritual, and narrative resources for resilience. The study argues that success is co‑produced within unequal terrains and carries embedded values. It calls for universities to stabilise structural basics, institutionalise mentoring and collaboration, address digital inequities, and integrate plural care systems to build equitable, relational infrastructures of support.