This article critically evaluates whether sociologists in the ‘South’ are offered any creative br... more This article critically evaluates whether sociologists in the ‘South’ are offered any creative breathing space by either the adoption of poststructuralist and postcolonial thought or the current indigenization drive of the African Renaissance initiative in South Africa. The article argues that neither does. It traces the impasse to which many of these currents lead, and the way they fail to overcome conventional sociology's derogation of intellectual work that does not take as its founding rules part of any canon. It then provides a suggestion for a way out, by moving away from a ‘culture of application’ and imitation and away from simplistic critiques or ‘deconstruction’ without substantive intellectual work to buttress such critical claims. Only then can an African Renaissance achieve its aims of creating a sociology that does not involve a dialectic of ‘self-abnegation’, one which says that what is ‘absent’ is what one's society does not possess of the ‘norm’; and that what has to be ‘negated’ is that which constitutes one's ‘alterity’ – be it indigenous norms, values or seemingly aberrant institutions.
New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy, Aug 24, 2017
The waves of student protest in South Africa in 2015 – 2016 reflect the failure of an ANC governm... more The waves of student protest in South Africa in 2015 – 2016 reflect the failure of an ANC government to deconstruct the country’s deeply embedded colonial legacy, both in ideas and in its myriad practical manifestations. The writer uncovers the effects of layers of colonial hegemony from its early onset to the present and offers some direction for government and university administrations and faculty to create new pathways for inclusive development.
Harold Wolpe launched his structuralist Marxist critique of liberalism in a 1972 article, fusing ... more Harold Wolpe launched his structuralist Marxist critique of liberalism in a 1972 article, fusing the question of race-class oppression with the theory of 'articulation of modes of production'. The times demanded this analysis, with varying influences from the left drawing liberation theorists to much more radical lines of argument. In particular, Wolpe drew attention to linkages between production and reproduction, urban and rural. Six types of criticisms emerged, which Wolpe partially addressed in subsequent work. What Wolpe left us is concern for pre-existing forms of domination and relations of production, as well as the moral imperative to interrogate the expanded reproduction of society. Wolpe would have asked very hard questions indeed about post-apartheid politics and social relations.
The author claims that there is an emergent ethic of reconciliation which influences social and p... more The author claims that there is an emergent ethic of reconciliation which influences social and political action in the recent period. This ethic of reconciliation has four sources: neo-Gandhian dispositions in the global South that provide a critique of arms and of military solutions; post-racist and pro-peace and feminist discourses in the West that emerged through significant social movements of reflexive modernization; and post-Stalinist socialist ideas and practices that have renovated Marxism and the work of the arts, literature and performance. The article goes on to point to some serious sociological reasons why this ethic of reconciliation has consolidated its presence and how the experience of war, violence and instrumental reason have been and are seriously challenged.
This article critically evaluates whether sociologists in the ‘South’ are offered any creative br... more This article critically evaluates whether sociologists in the ‘South’ are offered any creative breathing space by either the adoption of poststructuralist and postcolonial thought or the current indigenization drive of the African Renaissance initiative in South Africa. The article argues that neither does. It traces the impasse to which many of these currents lead, and the way they fail to overcome conventional sociology's derogation of intellectual work that does not take as its founding rules part of any canon. It then provides a suggestion for a way out, by moving away from a ‘culture of application’ and imitation and away from simplistic critiques or ‘deconstruction’ without substantive intellectual work to buttress such critical claims. Only then can an African Renaissance achieve its aims of creating a sociology that does not involve a dialectic of ‘self-abnegation’, one which says that what is ‘absent’ is what one's society does not possess of the ‘norm’; and that what has to be ‘negated’ is that which constitutes one's ‘alterity’ – be it indigenous norms, values or seemingly aberrant institutions.
New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy, Aug 24, 2017
The waves of student protest in South Africa in 2015 – 2016 reflect the failure of an ANC governm... more The waves of student protest in South Africa in 2015 – 2016 reflect the failure of an ANC government to deconstruct the country’s deeply embedded colonial legacy, both in ideas and in its myriad practical manifestations. The writer uncovers the effects of layers of colonial hegemony from its early onset to the present and offers some direction for government and university administrations and faculty to create new pathways for inclusive development.
Harold Wolpe launched his structuralist Marxist critique of liberalism in a 1972 article, fusing ... more Harold Wolpe launched his structuralist Marxist critique of liberalism in a 1972 article, fusing the question of race-class oppression with the theory of 'articulation of modes of production'. The times demanded this analysis, with varying influences from the left drawing liberation theorists to much more radical lines of argument. In particular, Wolpe drew attention to linkages between production and reproduction, urban and rural. Six types of criticisms emerged, which Wolpe partially addressed in subsequent work. What Wolpe left us is concern for pre-existing forms of domination and relations of production, as well as the moral imperative to interrogate the expanded reproduction of society. Wolpe would have asked very hard questions indeed about post-apartheid politics and social relations.
The author claims that there is an emergent ethic of reconciliation which influences social and p... more The author claims that there is an emergent ethic of reconciliation which influences social and political action in the recent period. This ethic of reconciliation has four sources: neo-Gandhian dispositions in the global South that provide a critique of arms and of military solutions; post-racist and pro-peace and feminist discourses in the West that emerged through significant social movements of reflexive modernization; and post-Stalinist socialist ideas and practices that have renovated Marxism and the work of the arts, literature and performance. The article goes on to point to some serious sociological reasons why this ethic of reconciliation has consolidated its presence and how the experience of war, violence and instrumental reason have been and are seriously challenged.
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