1 Higher Education Research in African Contexts: Reflections from Fieldwork in Flagship Universities in South Africa, Mozambique and Ethiopia Addisalem Tebikew Yallew Institute for Post School Studies, Faculty of Education, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa, email: 3743398@myuwc.ac.za// addisalem.yallew@gmail.com, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5275-6430 Paul Othusitse Dipitso Institute for Post School Studies, Faculty of Education, University of the Western Cape, Cape Town, South Africa, email: 3742432@myuwc.ac.za , ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002- 8351-6971 Corresponding author: Addisalem Tebikew Yallew email:3743398@myuwc.ac.za/ addisalem.yallew@gmail.com This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article to be published by Taylor & Francis in Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) Journal. Link to published article: https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2021.1877626