Stolp, Mareli2017-01-172017-01-172016Stolp, M. (2016). Report to the academy: power and ethics in humanities research. Acta Academica, 48(1), 1-26.0587-2405 (print)2415-0479 (online)http://hdl.handle.net/11660/5339http://dx.doi.org/10.18820/0587-2405/aa48i1.1This article discusses a case study to explore notions of academic freedom and freedom of speech in the post-apartheid South African university. The focus is on the ‘managerial turn’ in university management and in particular its utilisation of ethical regulation in humanities research. I argue that, in the case in question, managerial power mechanisms co-opted ethics into processes of censure and censorship. Ethical regulation in the humanities has been on the increase in South Africa and internationally in recent decades; I posit here that ethical regulation can be used as a managerial power mechanism in the control of research output. This has significant implications especially in the context of post-apartheid transformation of South African universities. I further posit that emergent and risk-taking research open up new spaces for exploration and investigation, and that the benefits of this kind of research must be balanced against possible ethical complexities.enArticleUniversity of the Free State