Higher Education 46: 491–505, 2003. © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 491 The role of (dis)trust in a (trans)national higher education development project LESLEY LE GRANGE University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Matieland, 7602, South Africa (E-mail: llg@sun.ac.za) Abstract. In this article I describe how socio-political change in South Africa (in the 1990s) and processes of globalisation and internationalisation provided opportunities for professional engagement among South African and Australian academics. I specifically reflect on the role that (dis)trust played in knowledge production processes involving South African and Australian academics in a project entitled, Educating for Socio-Ecological Change: Capacity- Building in Environmental Education. The article expands on the work of Turnbull (1997) who argues that the basis of knowledge might not be empirical verification (as the orthodox view would have it), but trust. The article provides some insights as to how the social organisation of trust might be changing in post-apartheid South Africa. Keywords: distrust, globalisation, internationalisation, knowledge production, socio-political change, trust Introduction Shelton, Catley and Schmulow (1998, p. 1) point out that South Africa and Australia have in common their shared heritage of British colonialism that left a similar legacy of English speaking European communities, in uneasy relationships with indigenous people. The two countries were tied closely to Britain by means of trade, strategy, head of state and institutional forms. Both South Africa and Australia fought on the side of the allies in the two World Wars. However, after the Second World War the paths of the two countries began to diverge with the 1948 implementation of the apartheid policy by the Afrikaner led National Party in South Africa. The apartheid policy resulted in South Africa being isolated from the international community. Shelton et al. (1998) argue that by the 1980s the bilateral relationship between the two states had diminished to almost nil. They point out that both the conservative and social democratic governments of Australia became vociferous advocates and implementers of policy aimed at thwarting the race-based laws of the Afrikaner-nationalist government.