Sociology and inequalities in post-apartheid South Africa: A critical review

Introduction

As is well known and documented, South Africa prior to 1994 was an apartheid state defined by a system of racial discrimination and segregation which, while traceable to the early days of colonial white settlement, was however fully consolidated in the 1950s through the establishment of a formalized and institutionalized apartheid system. This system was characterized by systematic exclusion and marginalization of majority black South Africans in terms of access to political and economic power and/or socioeconomic and cultural rights. It created racial and ethnic divisions through separate development policies. This was however not without resistance and therefore led to a national struggle for liberation aimed at bringing an end to the apartheid system.

This historical context has had enormous influence on sociological research, teaching and practice. Between the early twentieth century (the period in which sociology first begun in South Africa) and the 1960s, South African sociology was described as more of a service discipline or a bourgeois sociology without disciplinary autonomy and in service to a racially segregatory and discriminatory political regime (see Webster, 1985, 2004). Its research agenda was government-sponsored under the leadership of prominent apartheid ideologues, and notably Hendrick Verwoerd, formerly a sociology professor and one of the apartheid architects, later to become apartheid South Africa’s prime minister between 1958 and 1966 (Ally et al., 2003). In the 1950s and 1960s, however, divisions occurred between pro-apartheid sociology in white Afrikaans-speaking universities and oppositional sociology in both the black and white English-speaking universities that challenged apartheid ideology (see Jubber, 2007: 531; Webster, 2004). This marked a shift within sociology in 1970s towards multi-paradigmism characterized by the rise of Marxist sociology, critical sociology inspired by the ideology of black consciousness, and structural functionalism (see Jubber, 1983, 2007: 538; Webster, 1985).

This shift saw sociology becoming increasingly involved in the anti-apartheid struggle. Notwithstanding this, concerns are now being raised about sociology experiencing a decline and becoming less involved in societal problems, especially in questions of inequality in the post-apartheid period. This article examines these concerns with the view to assessing their validity. The key question then is: given that in the 1970s and 1980s, issues of inequality assumed prominence in South African sociology, does the concept of inequality and concern with inequalities remain a central focus of the discipline, or has there been a shift in focus towards other sociological questions?

In the review that follows, I present what I refer to as the decline thesis and then counter it with what I call the renewal thesis. This is informed by the theoretical view that inequalities are much too complex for one to prescribe a single predetermined solution. I argue that rather than a shift in focus, sociology continues to engage issues of inequality and the concept remains central to sociological research and practice. I nevertheless argue that notwithstanding this, a much more radical public sociology, considered instrumental to fighting inequalities, is underdeveloped despite its strength and vitality in the 1970s and 1980s.

In addressing the above questions, I first provide an outline of theoretical perspectives on inequality as a concept, whereby as illustrative attention is given to class as one key marker of inequality. Also considered necessary for the later analysis and review of the decline thesis, is the theoretical understanding of sociology as a discipline and practice. This is done in the section following theoretical views on inequality as a concept.

Theoretical framework on inequality

The concept of inequality has been extensively studied yet it still remains contentious. Its significance is revealed by Jeremy Seabrook, who argues:

All societies are stratified in one way or another, in hierarchies of power and wealth. … Privilege has many methods of self-preservation, not least physical force, but sometimes through a mystical appeal to the special intellectual or spiritual powers the privileged claim to possess. Some societies are built on slavery, most upon oppression of those who perform the most vital labor of that society. Throughout history, there have been struggles of the oppressed against their ‘superiors’, although even when the ‘natural’ order has been overthrown, it has rarely been long before new powerful groups established their own supremacy, their own lineage, their own religion or power over others. (Seabrook, 2005: 10)

Among some of the most recent impressive attempts on the concept is that by Göran Therborn (2008), for whom inequality refers to how society is structured. He argues that it is a sum of resources and environments (i.e. context of access and of possibilities of choice) whereby the latter two are great determinants of capability to achieve beings or doings, what he calls the capabilities or life chances. Within the inequality discourse, he argues, the concern has always been about inequality among certain categories of people, e.g. classes, castes, races, lineages, occupational groups, genders, age groups, regions. Today, under globalization, this discourse has been expanded beyond these categories and inequality among nations of the world to inequalities within human categories, i.e. inter-community or inter-group inequalities versus intra-community or intra-group inequalities (see Therborn, 2008: 22–23).

Class, being one of the key markers of inequality, attests to complexities of inequalities in the contemporary era. Analysed by Karl Marx in the 19th century in terms of access to and ownership of the means of production and lack thereof, he identified two main social classes, being the capitalist owning class and the non-owning class of the proletariat (see Seabrook, 2005: 15). Extensive reviews of Marx’s theory of class led to further theoretical insights such as Max Weber’s, which revealed a much more complex class structure. Weber identified a third layer, i.e. the middle class. Further reviews and criticisms led to the identification of more class categories, such as the work of E Olin Wright. Here in South Africa, an example of such reviews is that of Jeremy Seekings (2000), who identified eight more class categories (cited in Hendricks, 2003: 5–6).

This approach to class analysis, which Fred Hendricks (2003) calls the gradational approach and contrasts with the relational approach, has limitations. The problem with the gradational approach, Hendricks argues, lies in the fact that it presents class and classes as observable phenomena that are a reflection of obvious wealth and power hierarchies. It fails to recognize that class and classes are social relations and unobservable, thus pointing to some serious methodological and theoretical problems with the empirical attempts to analyse class. Recognizing these difficulties, Hendricks argues that the best one can do to operationalize these concepts and generate reliable knowledge of the social reality, would be to use what comes closest to the phenomenon as explained by theory or empirical data. Hendricks (2003) however concluded that there is still, to the present time, no satisfactory explanatory framework of class or classes.

Notwithstanding this, there is consensus that class and classes are real. The implications therefore are that if we employ the concept in attempts to make sense of reality, this lack of an explanatory framework owing largely to the complex nature of inequalities should always be borne in mind. The complexities are clearly represented in the continued debate and disagreements among scholars around this concept. Recent research on the subject in South Africa attests to these complexities. Geoffrey Modisha’s (2006) research on the new stratum of African managers found that, contrary to Marxist and Weberian theories on class, these managers are in an ambiguous, contradictory class position. They do not see themselves as strictly middle class or strictly working class. The reasons for this self-definition, Modisha argues, are two-fold. First, is that they see their lives as being different from that of other races (notably whites) and believe that they could not be the middle class in a conservative sense because they are black. Second is that ‘while their occupational positions enable them to access formerly segregated and reserved white residential areas, they are however faced with challenges as they are not fully integrated into these formerly reserved white communities’ (Modisha, 2006: 21–22).

Similarly, Mosa Phadi and Claire Ceruti’s research in Soweto examining the concept of middle class found that ordinary Sowetans define their class position in ways contrary to those in the theoretical literature. More than 60% of their respondents, contrary to the conventional definition of the middle class, considered themselves middle class as they are neither rich nor poor, can afford basic necessities, have shelter and are employed – this is in contrast, in their view, to those they consider upper class/rich who live in suburban areas which were historically reserved for whites under apartheid, have cars, are educated and can afford to buy anything they want. Those living in abject poverty in informal settlements are considered the lower class (see Phadi and Ceruti, 2011: 99).

At the Conference on Comprehending Class, held at the University of Johannesburg in June 2009, some prominent scholars on class theory including Erik Olin Wright and Alex Callinicos got involved in a raging debate around class and with little consensus. Olin Wright made an attempt to reconcile what he calls competing paradigms on class and its analysis, i.e. the stratification model which he calls the individual attributes approach, the opportunity-hoarding approach within the Weberian tradition and the Marxist domination and exploitation approach. He proposes an integrated class analysis that he terms pragmatic realism (see Olin Wright, 2009).

These competing paradigms are evident in Daryl Glaser’s (2009) paper presented at the same conference on why egalitarians should take class seriously. Glaser identified three class categories, i.e. the Marxist production classes defined by relations to the means of production; the Weberian market classes defined by bargaining power of labour-sellers in the labour market; and the wealth and income classes which grade people according to monetary resources, purchasing power and capacity to pursue diverse ends as buyers in markets (see Glaser, 2009: 1). Wealth and income classes, he argues, are crucial to understanding interpersonal inequalities and also to the egalitarian project against inequalities. For egalitarian struggles to be effective, he argues however, it is necessary to mobilize on the basis of larger categories such as race and gender since humans are so accustomed to wealth, income status and power inequalities that they are unlikely to act against them (Glaser, 2009: 7).

Sociology as a discipline and a practice

To best explain the role and status of sociology, it is also necessary to consider a generally accepted understanding of sociology as a discipline and practice. Michael Burawoy’s (2004) model of sociology through which he identifies four different types of sociologies, i.e. professional, policy, public and critical sociology, provides a relevant and helpful theoretical and analytical framework. This is not only because of the strength of the model, but also because it partly draws from Burawoy’s regular and sustained observations of how sociology evolved historically in South Africa up to the post-apartheid time. This he did and continues to do through active involvement in South African sociology and academy, not only as president of the International Sociological Association, but also as a regular guest of the South African Sociological Association and some sociology departments in the country.

According to Burawoy’s model, professional sociology is practised mainly in universities to produce ‘abstract knowledge, seeking scientific legitimacy, accountable to a community of peers’, while policy sociology is concerned ‘with concrete knowledge, legitimated by its effectiveness, and accountable to a client’. Critical sociology, on the other hand, ‘rests on foundational knowledge, rooted in moral vision accountable to a community of intellectuals’, while public sociology is considered as being dialogic and ‘relevant to the public to which it is answerable’ (see Burawoy, 2004: 19). Beyond these differences in sociologies, Burawoy argues, they are all mutually dependent and reinforcing.

Burawoy’s model clearly builds on C Wright Mills’s famous concept of sociological imagination, which is reinforced by contemporary accounts by other sociologists such as Jacklyn Cock’s argument that sociology is defined by intellectual curiosity about the world (i.e. explaining, questioning and refusing to take things for granted and making the invisible visible), engagement with social issues and imaginative capacity to envisage alternative social arrangements (Cock, 2007: 214). Similarly, Tina Uys (2004: 9) argues that sociology is made distinct by ‘its sociological imagination, its emphasis on unmasking deceptions and illusions and its commitment to improving the world we live in’, and that it ‘has always been associated with social intervention and social action’. The late Chachage Chachage (2004), making an assessment of the future of sociology in Africa, advocated for sociology to continue in its rich tradition of being primarily concerned with seeking to generate a body of knowledge around contemporary social problems and social movements which have always been critical to the stimulation of sociological imagination. Hence, in his view ‘our sociological knowledge will have to reflect the social conditions of struggles through which men and women simultaneously transform their circumstances and themselves’ (Chachage, 2004: 60).

Post-apartheid sociology and inequalities

The immediate post-1994 period in South Africa was characterized by intense self-reflection and self-critical debate among sociologists. The South African Sociological Association (SASA) provided a consistent platform for this debate, which continued to rage throughout the late 1990s into the mid-2000s. According to Ken Jubber (2007), sociologists engaged in this debate painted a mixed scenario of both a decline and a renewal of sociology in South Africa during this period (see Hendricks, 2004; Kyrianou and Wood, 2002; Sitas, 1997; Webster and Lipsig-Mumme, 2002; Webster and Von Holdt, 2005).

Notwithstanding this observation of a mixed scenario, greater emphasis was placed on sociology’s decline. The decline thesis suggests that sociology has increasingly come to be characterized by a lack of concern with issues of inequalities. Contrary to this thesis, I argue that further evidence on recent and ongoing sociological research and debate points to renewal whereby sociology continues to show concern with inequalities. Thus, the concept of inequality remains central to sociological research and practice in South Africa. In the next section, I make an outline of the decline thesis and then challenge it with the renewal thesis, by presenting a counter-argument.

The decline thesis

Remarking on sociology in South Africa in the early 1990s, Sitas (1997) argued that sociology’s prowess had waned. He attributed this to, among others, the global collapse of a left hegemony which shattered confidence, to professional sociologists becoming consultants, to the poaching of talented sociologists by the corporate sector and to the research agenda no longer being determined through broad dialogue and contestation but instead by policy structures with generous resources, as well as to the fragmentation of social movements which were active during the anti-apartheid struggles and the financially challenged non-governmental organizations, and deteriorating conditions of service for academic sociologists and escalating student numbers (Sitas, 1997: 17). These observations were echoed by Webster (2004: 35) when he argued: ‘the advent of democracy in 1994 had indeed shifted the centre of stage away from the social movements that led to the democratisation process, towards the state whose demands were for technical policy-oriented research’.

Sitas reiterates this observation in his recently published text The Mandela Decade (2010). Using the case study of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal province as the example of a complex and diverse as well as cruel city in the post-apartheid South Africa, he notes the exponential growth in the ‘new poor’. His main concern is that not only have popular cultural formations in the form of trade union and civic movements lost the capacity to mobilize and represent these new poor, but also that sociology is failing to provide a guiding theoretical analytical and compassionate framework for remedial interventions and to amplify the plight of the new poor, or those he calls the subaltern (Sitas, 2010: 153–154).

Similarly, Hendricks (2006) lamented: ‘since the discipline has so effectively severed its links with civil society, there are no longer any cutting edge debates emerging from its ranks. Ideas about the future trajectory of our society are now private affairs, discussed in sociology staff tearooms, but not articulated in any systematic debate or ongoing discourse about the problems confronting the country. The discipline has splintered into a myriad of different atomised opinions and unconnected perspectives’ (Hendricks, 2006: 92).

It is in view of these remarks that David Cooper (2009) advances the argument for what he calls the ‘fourth helix’, defined by research links between universities and civil society (an equivalent of public sociology). This, he argues, requires that both university research groupings and civil society organizations adopt a ‘learning-in-collaboration’ approach. This approach requires that both sides mutually adapt and align their respective goals and methods without undermining their respective core businesses. Cooper however also argues that for such relationships to occur and be sustained there is a need for ‘significantly different university-based research structures and systems – and values and norms – compared to those established at universities during a period of about 200 years’ (see Cooper, 2009: 24–25). The non-establishment of such structures with new values and systems, coupled with the demobilization of popular formations, probably accounts for the underdevelopment of public sociology in the post-1994 period.

While in the preceding reviews, some sociologists bemoan a lack of what Sitas (2010) calls ‘a real sociology of practice sensitive to the social dynamics and aspirations of the local population’, another sociologist, Bernard Dubbeld (2009), mounts an even stronger criticism of South African sociology as lacking radical, emancipatory theory. Marxist-inspired industrial sociology in South Africa, he argues, provides a limited interpretation of Marx’s theory of capitalism. He proposes a different interpretation that sees the capitalist system as a dynamic social totality wherein all social life is mediated by the commodity or as a socially and historically specific form of life (Dubbeld, 2009: 216). Such a reading would depart from the restrictive one held by industrial sociologists according to which workplace conflicts, working-class consciousness and extraction of surplus value are central to critique of capitalism. The latter’s main weakness, he argues, is its failure to recognize that labour is a social form that serves as ‘a locus of domination’ under capitalism and that any theory that purports to be liberatory should have as its goal to eliminate labour rather than support it (Dubbeld, 2009: 217).

He argues that South African sociologists provide simplistic accounts, shying away from broader enquiries into questions of the relationship between society, politics and structural transformations. Instead, they have become functionalist in orientation, presenting Marx to students in summary forms, yet flying the flag of radical sociology (Dubbeld, 2009: 218). Dubbeld is not alone in such criticism. Following the 2009 South African Sociological Association annual conference, non-academic sociologist Andile Mngxitama launched an attack on the SASA, arguing that the terrain of sociological scholarship has remained essentially the same and that sociology suffers an identity crisis. This, he argued, was so as it has retreated from engaging with larger questions affecting South African society, and especially race (Mngxitama, 2009).

Dubbeld’s criticism of what he terms non-radical Marxist-inspired sociology is clearly levelled at the sociology that has been in practice in South Africa since the 1970s. This is the sociology that is praised by many for having contributed immensely to the anti-apartheid capitalist struggle and the eventual collapse of the apartheid order. This sociology is termed by some as neo-Marxism and by others as Western Marxism (see Jubber, 2007; Maree, 2006; Nash, 1999). Western Marxism, Nash (1999) argues, has since declined. He attributes this decline to the weakening of Western Marxism in the advanced capitalist countries which had served as its inspiration. According to Nash, the political weakening of this Marxism in advanced capitalist countries ‘impacted on its interpretation of the struggle against apartheid, and in turn on the ways in which participants in that struggle interpreted their own role’ (Nash, 1999: 78). ¹

Could it be that what is considered a decline in radical Marxism and Western Marxism within the South African sociology is vindicated by studies that appear to have shifted from concern with inequalities such as Deborah Posel’s on conspicuous consumption and consumerist desires, and Melissa Steyn’s on whiteness? While there could be temptations to advance such an argument, a closer and more careful reading of these studies suggests that in discussing and examining these respective questions, they remain concerned with persistent and new forms of class-based and race-based inequalities in the post-1994 South Africa. Posel, for instance, locates her analysis of conspicuous consumption among the new black elite and the desire to consume among the poor and the marginalized within the ‘longer history of racially polarized consumption’. This, she argues, constituted the ‘regulation of people’s aspirations, interests and powers as consumers’ (Posel, 2010: 160). Such regulation effectively constitutes the regulation of inequalities. Pointing out the need for more research ‘on the compelling question of ethics and politics of conspicuous consumption’, she calls for the need to ensure that such research and the attendant analysis exposes the link with the broader questions of global exploitation and the ‘local politics of class, power and deepening inequality and poverty’, as part of struggle for ‘a humane and just society’ (Posel, 2010: 173–174).

According to Melissa Steyn (2001), the world over, whiteness was constructed on the ‘self-ennobling’ belief in white superiority enabled and supported by economic advantages resulting from colonial subjugation of others considered to be deficient. Whiteness was thus, she argues, based on unequal power relations. In South Africa, this was enabled by state-enforced apartheid policies (Steyn, 2001: 86–87). Her concern is that white South Africans are today failing to recognize this reality and that instead they are preoccupied with the preservation and protection of their historical privileges, perceived to be under threat from the post-apartheid dispensation. She is concerned about this attitude among whites which seeks to preserve rather than transform and eliminate historical economic inequalities. Hence she appeals to whites to make a paradigm shift from denialism and defensiveness towards active involvement in processes of transformation and deracialization, while rejecting perpetuation of past inequalities and advocating development for all (Steyn, 2001: 99–100).

Renewal thesis

As can be seen from the preceding review, the decline thesis suggests that South African sociology has since the collapse of the apartheid regime come to be characterized by a decline. This is attributed to, among other factors, the collapse of the global left; deteriorating conditions of service for academic sociologists (which have seen some sociologists becoming consultants and others joining both the private and public sector); and demobilization of social movements and/or civil society organizations. The result, the decline thesis asserts, has been sociology’s failure to forge links with civil society organizations around issues of socioeconomic injustices, to develop an independent research agenda in dialogue with civil society organizations, and to lead and advance a radical theory aimed at confronting deepening inequalities and injustices.

Contrary to the decline thesis, I argue that the last decade presents evidence of renewal and active response by South African sociology to pressing questions in the society including growing inequalities. Tina Uys, for instance, argued in defence of sociology, that sociology has made progress towards the creation of new intellectual formations. Hence, in her words, sociology is ‘responding creatively to the challenges of our society’ but that for this to be sustained, there is a ‘need to strengthen our discipline through institutional and intellectual engagement’ (Uys, 2004: 9).

Sociology’s response to the challenges of inequalities is evident in some of the recent sociological publications in South Africa. Reference is hereby made to only few of such publications due largely to limited space. One such publication is the edited text by Rob Pattman and Sultan Khan (2007). The main drive behind it, the editors argue, was to go beyond the tourist gaze, i.e. the image of South Africa and Durban presented by tourist agencies which often present the attractive, beautiful and exotic aspects of the country sidelining the unattractive, disturbing images of extreme inequalities such as people living in abject poverty and dehumanizing conditions. The text, rather than hiding the inequalities and ugly side, has its key focus being ‘on social groups, identities and relations which made Durban and defined its spaces, rather than the sun, the beaches, the nearby wildlife, the beautiful scenery, open spaces and exotic others’ (Pattman and Khan, 2007: 16). Its chapters present evidence at odds with the rainbow metaphor that tends to underplay inequalities. Persistent socioeconomic injustices and inequalities stand in sharp contrast to the country’s democratic constitution and could undermine political democracy. The editors thus argue that despite progressive changes made since the collapse of apartheid, ‘in some instances certain communities find themselves in states of constant helplessness and frustration to a point of no hope, confined to the hovel of poverty with little prospect of any change … there have been increasing levels of contestation from those excluded from rewards of interventions that claim to address the social ills of the city’ (see Pattman and Khan, 2007: 20).

Further evidence of sociology that speaks to the poor and is sensitive to locality lies in the story presented by Ashwin Desai (2002) of the role played by the late Professor Fatima Meer, an internationally renowned sociologist and activist for socioeconomic justice. According to Desai, Meer’s visit to the poverty-stricken Chatsworth, an area historically reserved for the South Africans of Indian descent, as part of the 1999 general democratic elections campaign, prompted her into further investigations on the socioeconomic conditions of the residents. The study she conducted with the help of the activist civic organization that accompanied her known as the Concerned Citizens Group (CCG), together with daily interactions with community members, revealed shocking living conditions, i.e. poverty and high unemployment levels coupled with harassments by the local authorities in the form of water cuts, cuts in electricity supplies and evictions of those who cannot afford monthly rents.

This, Desai reports, propelled Meer and the CCG into action in support of the poor of Chatsworth, i.e. compiling research report as evidence of the appalling living conditions for presentation to the ruling party, the African National Congress and its local government structures, to urge them to immediately stop evictions and cuts in water and electricity supplies. This Meer did relentlessly despite being labelled and vilified by local government officials. The experience in Chatsworth, Desai points out, taught Meer and CCG members that conceptual categories that they operated with such as race were irrelevant to the local community since both black Africans and those of Indian descent identified with each other on the common basis of deprivation as opposed to a divisive racial basis. Their daily interactions with the community is also said to have instilled confidence and hope among its members who began to volunteer participation in the struggle for socioeconomic justice in various capacities (see Desai, 2002: 13–19).

A book by one of South Africa’s eminent activist sociologists, Jacklyn Cock, published in 2007, concerns itself with socioeconomic and environmental injustices. It provides sociological analysis of the often poorly understood concept of nature and its relations with human actions. While nature is not external to human existence and as humans we live in nature and interact with it daily in terms of the food we eat, the water we drink and the air we breathe, she argues that our threat to nature and indeed to all forms of life is often invisible. She argues that people, for instance, do not understand that electricity is generated through environmentally unsustainable and damaging human actions such as coal-burning that emits carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. She raises concerns about the commodification of nature by global corporations through measures such as pre-paid water meters with detrimental health and social effects on the poor communities, and the long-term devastating but hidden effects of industrial production processes which result in pollution of underground water from chemicals used in the process. She thus advocates for an ‘inclusive politics that brings together peace, social and environmental justice activists who believe that another world is possible and necessary’ (Cock, 2007: 2).

The book, according to Cock, was inspired both by her belief that sociology has the ability to address the ongoing crisis of nature by exposing its underlying social causes and consequences on humanity and by mobilizing social action. The book has also been inspired by her own experiences as community activist. While she acknowledges that the book is scholarly, her intentions are for it to be widely read by the public as that would encourage them to ask some important questions about their daily interactions with nature. It is thus meant to stimulate consciousness among the people about their relationship with nature which could see the public taking positive steps towards preservation of nature in their interaction with it.

An edition by Sakhela Buhlungu (2006) had its focus on South Africa’s biggest union federation, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), examining members’ perceptions and attitudes towards their union federation and its role in South Africa’s democracy. It has chapters on topics such as trade unions’ organization of the working class, i.e. not just formally employed workers but also those in the informal sector and other vulnerable employed groups, notably young workers and women. One of its findings is that while formally employed and organized workers are actively involved in the strengthening of democracy within their respective trade unions, there is a failure on the part of the unions to organize vulnerable sects of the working class such as the self-employed. A chapter by Eddie Webster attributes this failure to the small-scale, isolated and competitive nature of the new forms of precarious work which calls for a different organizational strategy that goes beyond the current forms of traditional unionism. This may include exploring new forms of relationships between trade unions and the new social activist movements (see Webster, 2006: 37–39).

Other organizational challenges include poor representation of women in senior leadership positions. This is so despite women’s long history of active involvement in unions and COSATU’s expressed commitment to gender equality. This poor representation is attributed both to the anti-apartheid struggle which gave primacy to racial and class oppression with gender issues considered as secondary and potentially divisive, and to patriarchal societal values. Hence there is a need to mainstream gender issues whereby gender analysis becomes part of the broader agenda on inequalities (see Tshoaedi and Hlela, 2006: 111).

Beyond these sociological studies and research, the annual congresses of the SASA have served too as platforms for robust debates around highly topical and relevant societal questions. In the last decade, SASA congresses have addressed themes such as citizenship, living rights and the public intellectual; globalization, inequality and identity; the renewal of sociology in South Africa; society, power and environment: challenges for the 21st century; making sense of borders: citizenship, identity and power; and gender in question: rights, representation and substantive freedom. At some of these conferences, community activists were invited to share their daily experiences in their fight against socioeconomic injustices, while at others, senior officials in government were invited to make presentations on policy trends and government’s efforts to eliminate inequalities. Such presentations often led to more heated debates, pointing to gaps between research and policy practice. Complementary to the SASA congresses are successful and sustained seminar series programmes hosted by sociology departments such as in the Universities of Johannesburg and Pretoria, which also feature diverse topics and speakers derived from both within the university community and outside.

Analysis

The preceding reviews on the state of sociology in post-apartheid South Africa point to two contrasting perspectives, i.e. one which argues that sociology is in state of decline and the other which points to a renewal in sociology. The debate so far has however placed much greater emphasis on the former perspective than on the latter. A closer and much more careful analysis of the evidence suggests that the latter perspective, largely ignored and unsubstantiated, is compelling. This is particularly so when one considers the nature of sociology both as a discipline and a practice, as well as the complex nature of societal inequalities to which no single prescribed solution would suffice. Guided by this theoretical framework, and evidence of sociological research and debate in the last decade, I argue that sociology continues to show interest and to engage in issues of inequality in post-apartheid South Africa.

All the four varieties of sociology in Burawoy’s model are evident. Universities remain academic centres in which both professional and critical sociology continue to be practised, with sociologists still actively doing research on current and topical questions. Both the annual SASA congresses and the seminar programmes within university departments of sociology serve as platforms for robust debates around topical questions, especially those pertaining to inequalities. This is a challenge to the harsher criticism by Hendricks that there are no longer cutting-edge debates within sociology.

Criticisms of sociologists being involved in consultancy are telling. They point to the existence and practice of policy sociology. Likewise, elements of public sociology in practice are evident in the example cited by Desai about Meer and the Concerned Citizens Group making interventions in Chatsworth. It is evident in the sociology that Cock not only advocates for but also practises. These are indications of public sociology that Sitas is calling for, i.e. sociology that amplifies the plight of the poor and shows sensitivity to locality.

While there is evidence of a renewal of sociology in the post-1994 period and its engagement with issues of inequality, it is however also clear that public sociology is not fully developed to the same levels as in the 1970s and 1980s during the era of anti-apartheid struggle. It exists only in pockets. Sociologists have not fully developed and forged sustainable synergies with the labour and civic movements, the latter of which are characterized by general demobilization as presented in the decline thesis. What we currently have is a scenario whereby professional and critical sociologies are not complemented by an active and highly developed public sociology. South African sociology is not therefore necessarily ignoring issues of inequality nor is it in a state of decline. Some of those holding the view that sociology is in decline seem to be arguing so largely due to this apparent underdevelopment of public sociology, while others are disappointed with the role that sociology is seen to be playing as opposed to their expectations of what that role should be.

Such criticisms fail to consider the complex nature of inequalities as signified by the lack of consensus on class theory. Hence Hendricks’s assertion about a lack of adequate theoretical framework on class. This suggests that solutions to inequalities would be equally complex. Any prescribed, single-focused solution would thus be inadequate and unsustainable. The complex nature of inequalities therefore demands a broader understanding of public sociology as likely to yield diverse outcomes under different circumstances. This could be the reason for Burawoy’s (2004: 25) argument that the post-apartheid era ‘calls for a very different sociology, one that forsakes the singular goal of liberation for the infinitely more complex exploration of alternative trajectories’. Such outcomes could be radical, transformative, liberal, or worst, conservative and retaining the status quo. The experience in South Africa proves this point. While Marxist interpretations defined sociology’s position and role in the liberation struggle against apartheid, the post-1994 outcomes have not been radical. As Seabrook (2005) accurately observed, in history, struggles against domination have failed to yield egalitarian orders as new forms of domination and inequalities always re-emerged in place of the old ones.

That public sociology could yield diverse outcomes also brings into question the earlier review by Shireen Ally (2005) whereby she looked at two perspectives on relationships between intellectuals and power. One perspective describes this relationship as characterized by ‘ideological subservience’ of intellectuals to authority structures which constrain their activities, and the other one places emphasis on ‘moralistic resistance’, i.e. that intellectuals exercise critical independence from authority structures. Her argument is based on her analysis of the rise of oppositional Marxist sociology in South Africa in the 1970s, led by white English-speaking sociologists. This oppositional sociology, she argues, promoted race–class analysis in reaction to the threat posed by the black consciousness philosophy which ‘made race the centre of political discourse and Blacks the only legitimate spokespersons for race’ (Ally, 2005: 78). Thus, for Ally, this oppositional sociology ‘was not a product of a “freedom from social determination”, and power, but instead was deeply implicated in the emerging politics of race and class at the time’, in a way that gave its advocates a comfortable discourse for interrogation of power structures that were beginning to exclude them as illegitimate (see Ally, 2005: 72–74).

While Ally’s assessment may be correct, this should however not lead to outright dismissal of significance of that oppositional sociology. Such dismissal fails to consider the importance of the context in shaping different approaches, choices made and outcomes thereof. For instance, it may well be that white English-speaking sociologists in the 1970s, rather than being simply reactionary, also identified analytical gaps in the black consciousness’s overemphasis on race as the only explanatory concept. Rather than simply dismissing race, they recognized the racially structured nature of capitalism, i.e. apartheid capitalism, whereby race and class were intertwined. This may explain why the independent black trade union movement found relevance in this oppositional Marxist sociology and thus aligned with it to strengthen its struggle against apartheid capitalism (see Maree, 2006).

Conclusion

This article set out to answer the question of whether or not sociology is still actively involved in struggles against inequalities in the post-apartheid era, as was the case in the 1970s and 1980s. The question comes against the backdrop of expressed concerns about South African sociology being in a state of decline since 1994 which has seen it becoming less involved in pro-poor struggles for socioeconomic justice. These concerns were expressed despite the view that the scenario painted both decline and renewal. In my assessment of both perspectives, based on the universally accepted understanding of sociology and the complexity of inequality as marked by a lack of consensus on class as one key marker of inequalities, I find that the view which overemphasizes decline in sociology less compelling. Rather, I argue that sociology in South Africa exists in all four main forms, i.e. professional, critical, policy and public; and therefore that this is in support of the view about sociology being in a state of renewal rather than decline. I also argue that sociology is not only in renewal but is also involved in struggles against inequalities as part of the voice of the poor. Notwithstanding this, I argue however that the extent to which this involvement in pro-poor and anti-inequalities struggles occurs is limited. This is due mainly to the underdevelopment of public sociology which exists only in pockets, unlike in the 1970s and 1980s during the anti-apartheid capitalist struggles.