Negation and Affirmation- a critique of sociology in South Africa PDF

Negation and Affirmation: a critique of sociology in South Africa Author(s): Bongani Nyoka Source: African Sociological Review / Revue Africaine de Sociologie , 2013, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2013), pp. 2-24 Published by: CODESRIA Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24487528 JSTOR is a not-for-profit...

Negation and Affirmation: a critique of sociology in South Africa Author(s): Bongani Nyoka Source: African Sociological Review / Revue Africaine de Sociologie , 2013, Vol. 17, No. 1 (2013), pp. 2-24 Published by: CODESRIA Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/24487528 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms CODESRIA is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to African Sociological Review / Revue Africaine de Sociologie This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  AFRICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW VOL. 171 2013 Negation and Affirmation: a critique of sociology in South Africa Bongani Nyoka Education & Skills Development Unit Human Sciences Research Council Private Bag X9182, Cape Town, 8000 E-mail: [email protected] Abstract This paper critically evaluates the epistemological basis of the academic discipline of sociology in South Africa. In particular, it contextualises, and therefore subjects to critical scrutiny, the assumptions made (and not made) by South African sociologists in their writings about the discipline of sociology in South Africa. Secondly, it seeks to make an epistemic intervention on the current debates on epistemological decolonisation of the social sciences in the South African academy. The issues raised in the paper no doubt go beyond the South African academy and speak to issues raised by sociologists in other parts of the African continent and in the Third World generally. Keywords: academic dependency, endogeneity, sociology, South Africa Introduction Sociology, quite like philosophy, is said to be characterised by critical self-awareness. That is to say, sociologists do not only write about societies, which are the objects of their enquiry; they tend also to write about the discipline self-consciously as sociologists. In this regard, South African sociologists are no exception. One often encounters articles dealing with the 'state of the discipline' of sociology in South Africa (Burawoy 2004, 2009; Cock 2006; Dubbeld 2009; Hendricks 2006; Jubber 1983; Mapadimeng 2012; Sitas 1997; Uys 2004; Webster 1985, 1991, 2004). Such writings, however, tend to focus on how sociology in South Africa should face up to its immediate socio-political environment rather than the epistemological issues which constitute it. The recent focus on the notion of'public sociology', inspired by Burawoy, is a case in point. This practice, as pointed out by Oloyede (2006), tends to confuse sociologists with activists. The present paper will move away from such discussions and focus, instead, on epistemological issues. This paper comprises three main parts. The first part of the paper contextualises discussions on epistemological decolonisation. The second part, which dovetails with the first, provides a brief survey of sociology in South Africa. It subjects to critical scrutiny This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  NYOKA: NEGATION AND AFFIRMATION the assumptions made (and not made) by South African sociologists - at leas have written about sociology in South Africa. While the use of (secondary this paper is comprehensive, the length limit means that the paper cannot be The third section of this paper briefly discusses measures which may be take some of the problems under critical scrutiny. II Tracing the roots of 'academic dependency', Syed Farid Alatas (2003: 600) states that: 'To the extent that the control and management of the colonised required the cultivation and application of various disciplines such as history, linguistics, geography, economics, sociology and anthropology in the colonies, we may refer to the academe as imperialistic.' For his part, Zeleza (1997: ii) argues that the literature on Africa, in the Northern academy, has always been 'self-referential, few scholars paid attention to the writings of African scholars or to what African scholars had to say'. Instead, discussions tended to centre on ill-equipped theoretical fads that gained currency in the western academy. So ubiquitous was this practice that 'each generation [of western scholars] produced its Livingstones who rediscovered Africa through the prevailing epistemological fad. Thus, Africa always appeared as nothing more than a testing site for theories manufactured in the Western academies' (Zeleza 1997: ii). Such fads range from modernisation theories, dependency theory, neo-Marxism, post-coloniality, post modernism and so on. Indeed, 'there seemed to be a reputational lottery for those who could coin the most demeaning defamations of Africa and its peoples' (Zeleza 1997: ii). There are also, in fashion, concepts, such as, 'kleptocracy', 'patrimonial states', 'primordial states', 'predatory states', 'failed states' and so on. This labelling, Zeleza argues, was the final straw between African scholars and their western counterparts. African scholars were called upon to 'negate' these existential and epistemological 'negations'. That is not to suggest, however, that there are no African scholars who engage in such labelling. Writings on Africa are replete with Africa's 'otherness' or what Mafeje calls 'negations' (when referring to the social sciences generally) or 'alterity' (when talking about anthropology in particular). Africa is almost always presented as a 'representation of the West's negative image, a discourse that, simultaneously, valorises and affirms Western superiority and absolves its existential and epistemological violence against Africa' (Zeleza 1997: iii). Let us, at this point, bring the story closer to home, South Africa. It has been suggested that the social sciences in South Africa thrive on essentially racist paradigms: that the black majority are either spoken of or spoken for (Sitas 1998:13). For Mafeje (1971, 1976, 1996), the epistemological basis for the social sciences has always been 'imperialistic'. Sociologists and anthropologists tended to produce writings which were 'doubtful, mistaken and pernicious' (Magubane 1973). Such writings are This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  AFRICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW VOL. 1712013 accepted as working truths, their methodological and theoretical flaws notw (Magubane 1973, 2007). For Magubane, these writings constitute little mor defence of economic and political interests of the white minority. Howev about the social sciences in general is too big a task. Hence we shall limit the academic discipline of sociology in South Africa. Following Alatas (2003 speak of the West, we refer in particular to the UK, the US and France, ins have a global reach in terms of their research output in the social sciences. It has been pointed out by various authors that the writings of black so hardly feature in the reading material in many departments of sociology Africa (Adesina 2005, 2006a; Jubber 2006). Alatas (2012a) argues that sociology textbooks, when referring to thinkers of the 19th century, make to sociologists outside of Europe. In fact, the history of sociology is equate history of western modernity; no reference is made to Ibn Khaldun to gi example. Alatas refers to this erasure as the 'New Orientalism' (Alatas 2012a so, he departs from Edward Said's notion of Orientalism in that he transc Orient/Occident dichotomy and highlights, instead, the fact that academics beyond the pejorative ways of writing about the Orient. Instead, the trend h form of marginalising writings and writers from areas other than the Wes World, Alatas (2012a) argues, is simply not seen as a source of ideas/theory of data gathering. The upshot of this marginalisation is 'Hidden Eurocentrism' (Alatas 2012 consists in (i) the desire to apply, universally, categories which come from locales (e.g. the UK or the US) to the rest of the world; and (ii) the internalisati part of Third World scholars, of ideas which are superimposed on them by orthodoxy - something which leads to lack of 'self-understanding'. The cr therefore, is for Third World sociologists to put scholarship outside of the W with western scholarship - through research and teaching. This is what A calls a 'sociological fusion' e.g. just as we borrow and domesticate art, cuisi etc. we can do the same with ideas. This is clearly no invitation to paroch Alatas argues, one of the ways of transcending 'academic dependency'or the 'division of labour'between the North and the Third World. Chief among the sociologists who champion transformation of sociology social sciences generally) in South Africa are, respectively, Adesina (2002,2 2006b, 2006c, 2008a, 2008b, 2010), Mamdani (1992, 1993, 1998a, 1998 Lebakeng (2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2010), Seepe (1998, 2004), Thaver ( Hendricks (2006). They argue that the process of knowledge-making in So ought to take Africa as its reference point or that it should be rooted in its narratives' (Adesina, 2006b: 2). It is said that presently, sociology in South characterised by a two-fold problem: 'negations' and 'extraversion' (Adesina, 2008a, 2010). At the level of epistemology South African sociologists take This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  NYOKA: NEGATION AND AFFIRMATION their main point of reference. Thaver (2002) points out that this practice d inspire the contemporary generation to study sociology. Much of this extraversion can be traced to what Adesina (2006a) calls 'stat - the unjustified worry on the part of South African sociologists abou countries of the North will say about them. Yet, as Adesina reminds us, it because the so-called 'founding fathers of sociology' (Durkheim, Marx were rooted in their locales that their works have universal appeal. This r in one's locale is fundamental to 'endogeneity' (Adesina 2006a; Hounto Hountondji (1997: 18) describes 'as endogenous such knowledge as is experi society as an integral part of its heritage.'This remark is important in the cu for epistemological decolonisation. Be that as it may, the call for epistemological decolonisation (and theref education curriculum) is not always met with enthusiasm in the South Afric Take, for example, Morrow's (2009: 37) claim that 'sometimes when people "curriculum transformation"- especially in the social sciences - they have in changing the content of the curriculum'. Unfortunately, Morrow provides n as to who these 'people' are. Nor does he substantiate his assertions. Out of would be helpful to point out in what ways proponents of transformation fa to his epistemic challenge. He goes on to tell us that 'epistemic values are th that shape and guide inquiry, which has as its regulative goal to discover the some matter...'(Morrow 2009:37).There is no gainsaying this remark. Howev ought at least to obey his own rule. In dismissing and lumping together u authors, labelling them 'people', he is not engaged in good scholarship Morrow's assertion is Sitas' (2006: 357) claim that efforts to 'indigenise'will do 'not take as its founding rules part of any canon'. He argues that socio South Africa are offered no 'creative breathing space' by 'indigenisation'. H as 'simplistic critiques' attempts at 'deconstructing' and 'negating' 'that which ones "alterity'" (Sitas 2006: 357). He argues that Southern sociologists mus from the culture of'imitation'. Yet it would seem that grounding on a 'canon writings in South Africa is itself a 'culture of imitation'. Adesina's (2005b: 257) apposite in this regard: 'Is Sociology the specific ideas of a dead "sociologist" approach to the study of society?' While it has been stated earlier that pr epistemological decolonisation and curriculum transformation are hardly ta Sitas has attempted to do so. It is for this reason that one will examine at s his intervention on this issue. Among the statements Sitas (2006: 360) make may be mentioned: 'c deconstruction [on the part of Third World sociologists] provide no sociolog to the phenomena outside the sociologist's window'. Implicit in this statem assumption that sociologists need necessarily to be politically engaged to to their discipline. Yet we know, following Oloyede (2006: 247), that 'socio This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  AFRICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW VOL. 171 2013 not have to be political activists for the discipline to be elevated to a glor What would seem critical is the importance of all perspectives in the disc the understanding of the life-world'. Sitas tells us that in critiquing Eur and imperialism Third World sociologists engage in a form of reductionis they ignore dissenting and critical voices in the West. That is not an entir assessment for the simple reason that: (i) Third World sociologists h polemical target those voices in the West which are imperialistic, not all scholarship; and (ii) at times Third World scholars rely on Northern scho as they criticise it e.g. the so-called political economists such as Samir Am Nabudere, Issa Shivji, Yash Tandon etc. rely heavily on Marxism even when Eurocentrism and imperialism. One may point out that Sitas contradicts hi he says in labelling western scholarship 'Eurocentric', Third World sociolo 'in one grand counter-gesture many insights, points of dissent and critical of a complex intellectual heritage' (Sitas 2006: 360). This is necessarily so (Sitas 2006:357) had already accepted that Third World sociologist rely on F Derrida, two French scholars who are part of the 'complex intellectual he most people readily accept that the two were critical dissenting voices with One may point out, too, that Sitas' idea of a 'canon is partial to Marxism as he does to Marx as 'the grand old man' (Sitas 2006: 375 fn 3). Yet he cr writings of Third World scholars for being replete with 'borrowings'. On that Sitas does not explicitly posit Marxism as the only canon, for he doe 'any canon. It is nevertheless clear from his work that he conceives of soci insurrectional discipline (Sitas 1997a, 1998, 2004, 2006). But there is, unfo nothing insurrectional in the works of Durkheim and Weber who are con known as part of the 'canon' of the discipline. Further, scholarship w insurrectional language but which is nevertheless not rooted in its locale ca be just as problematic - for more on this issue, see Mafeje's paper 'On the A of Modes of Production (1981), a critique of Harold Wolpe's thoughts on th capitalist relations and labour-reproduction in 20th century South Africa. Further, Sitas is less than charitable when he says: 'Unfortunately, the on discourses (and texts), their [African sociologists] constructions and in encouraged by postcolonial theorists, despite their critical and emancipator prove to be frustrating. By prefiguring processes of signification and discursive leave the "steering media" of money and power and more importantly the matrices that constrain social life and indeed their own claims, untouched 362).'The works of Foucault and Said, respectively, were not limited to 'disco 'text'. Said has written, sometimes at great personal risk, about the situation and Israel so much so that he had to deal with death threats and burning of 1985 (Said 1999:107). We may also mention the influence of Foucault's writi and lesbian movements. In the South African context: Mafeje and Maguba This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  NYOKA: NEGATION AND AFFIRMATION wrote works of socio-political and economic relevance but were members, r of the Non-European Unity Movement and the African National Cong That these two sociologists spent over 30 years in exile because of their wr political engagement) is a case in point. We may for good measure also ment of Ruth First, Absolom Vilakazi, Harold Wolpe etc. as some of those socia who brought to bear their political thoughts on their scholarship. Sitas (2006: 364) goes on to argue that African scholarship is charac 'contrasting essentialisms of Afrocentric intellectual thought pioneered b Americans like Asante'. This statement is not altogether justified. It is a ca of African scholarship something which Asante has repeatedly written abo 2006: 369) says the 'reclamations journey' i.e. 'negation and affirmation', e Africanisation etc. 'leads to intellectual cul-de-sac'. 'The only way out', he cou 'quietism of borrowing from antinomical and critical concepts from discour in the centre [i.e. the North]' (368). Sociologically, one might argue that t courts the charge of intellectual imperialism perceptively identified and Syed Hussein Alatas (2000). This refers to the willingness, on the part of T scholars, to be dominated, at the ideational level, by western systems of thoug the West necessarily playing any active role in such intellectual dominance. One agrees with Sitas (2006: 369), however, when he says that much of been written by South African sociologists consist mainly in 'borrowings' i uncritically western theories to African conditions. The same point was mad (2006: 88). Yet it is difficult to understand why Sitas sees this as a proble himself prescribes that the 'peripheral sociologist' should borrow from the 'c (2006: 374) concludes his paper with several recommendations. He says 'So sociology' has 'some major tasks'. One might wish to question the idiom o African sociology'. This is necessarily because precisely what constitutes So sociology as an object of inquiry, is not a given.Thus such a claim cannot be ma Additionally, given that he concedes that there is a lot of'borrowing' on the pa African sociologists, in what sense can one talk of a South African sociolog former president of SASA, also made the same mistake. In her 2003 SASA p address, audaciously entitled 'In Defence of South African Sociology' (2004 on to defend their 'contribution' to the discipline. Yet, in her defence she r on Goran Therborn's 'three spaces of identity' (Uys 2004). There is nothing borrowing, but there seems to be a discrepancy between defending a brand African sociology' while essentially regurgitating sociological theories from Let us suspend this line of enquiry and return to Sitas' recommendations. Firstly, he says sociology in South African 'can become a platform for a broa cosmopolitan project, which, for the first time will not be a study of, or t of the "other", but a project of rediscovery' (Sitas 2006: 374). This is prec Mafeje and Magubane have been doing and saying since they began their This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  AFRICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW VOL. 171 2013 the 1960s (see Mafeje 1991,1996,2001a; Magubane 1971,1973, [1968J2000) Sitas is less than generous in this regard, with no acknowledgement or awaren task Mafeje and Magubane set for themselves. This is so because, far from hi originality in his ideas, he demonstrates the concerted erasure and assiduous of African (black) scholarship in the South African academy. Such era avoidance was identified by Mamdani: 'The notion of South African excepti is a current so strong in South African studies that it can be said to have t the character of a prejudice' (Mamdani 1996: 27). It is easier for South Afri compare themselves with people from the US and the UK than to make com with people within the continent. This, to some extent, can be traced back Africa's isolation, due to apartheid, from the rest of the continent until 1994 preference for Euro-American material, on the part of South African sociolo serves to confirm the 'prejudices instilled through Bantu education - that A north of the Limpopo [river], and that this Africa has no intelligentsia with worth reading...'(Mamdani 1998b: 72). Secondly, Sitas argues, South Africa 'offers an exceptional social laborator entire planet' (2006: 374). Interestingly, this recommendation seeks global rec without making any reference to what local sociologists should do to addre current state of their discipline. It is silent on how Africans should generate and paradigms of their own so as to enhance African scholarship. The q not just doing research locally. Such research abounds. The issue is to theor local conditions as opposed to waiting for the West to do so. It is not unfai this recommendation perpetuates the already existing division of labour scholarship, where Africa is a place to extract data for westerners to theorise. T says 'the country [South Africa] harbours the institutional capacity to explor indigenous and endogenous know-hows within a "pluriverse" of languages can inequality, interconnectedness, organisation and social evolution' (Sitas 2 Again, the efforts Mafeje (1991,1992), Magubane (1979,1996) and others mad been primarily to explicate inequality among other things. To be fair, the paper under criticism here is not representative of Sitas' oeuvre. definitive statement on his work. It is discussed here for its relevance on the iss review in the present paper. Readers may be aware of Sitas' book, Voices That Re which carries a highly pertinent and thought-provoking message on the issues w "The book asks us to consider the possibility of a sociology "with" people. A that is emphatic to people's cultural formations, one that risks failure in its. social action and one that is pace postmodernism apodictic in its claims' (Sitas addition, '[a]s an experimental text it must be used with the playfulness it invite disagreements it warrants...' (Sitas 2004: x).The foregoing disclaimer works quite the important 'theoretical parables'which Sitas discusses in the book. This is so subsequent pages of the book Sitas states, quite correctly, that: This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  NYOKA: NEGATION AND AFFIRMATION We do have much to contribute to one another and, of course, to the rest of the world: if we could only harness what is almost there, full of potential and promise. We cannot remain data collectors, i§mmune deficiency samples, genetic codes, case studies, junior partners for others, elsewhere forever. We need to take hold of the trove of traditions and wit... that characterise our work, our failed social experiments, our distinctive voicing. (Sitas 2004: 8) This is an important message which coincides with that of many other A scholars. It should be noted, however, as we did earlier on, that while Sitas at something of an Africa-centred theoretical approach, he sees his work as prim insurrectional. Pursuing engaged scholarship and attempting grounded theory a of course, mutually exclusive. In his own words, Sitas argues: In a previous piece titled "The waning of sociology in the South Africa of the 1990s", I positioned my work within an intellectual formation that, despite boundaries, engaged with the social movements around us. Inside that forma tion subscribed to some important biases: socio-political traditions that have been militant, community-sensitive, rooted in the country's labour movement and the grassroots cultural movements that were spawned during the intense period of resistance after 1976. Within that broad area of affinity I was particu larly attracted to networks in KwaZulu-Natal that had some allegiance to the non-violent and communitarian traditions that have run in the province from Ghandi's ashrams to the present struggles. (Sitas 2004: 9) As stated earlier, the focus, on the part of South African sociologists, on po issues at the expense of the theoretical confuses sociologists with activists. It is also to look at Sitas' inaugural lecture, 'Neither Gold Nor Bile', delivered at th University of Natal in 1995, and later published in the African Sociological Re 1997. While the book is empirically-grounded and makes an attempt at grapplin some South African ontological narratives, the absences of writings by African scientists dealing with similar issues is glaring. In many ways, one might arg the book does precisely what Sitas warns against, viz. exporting data and imp theory. The prevalence of Euro-American scholars, with whom Sitas engages, approvingly and disapprovingly, is surely not likely to be missed. A cursory loo reference list confirms this point. To show just how Sitas avoids engaging with scholars, he argues thus: Honest analyses of the collapse of visions, dreams, narratives and meta-narra tives have been the preserve of novelists from Armah, Ngui, Achebe to Okri, Hove and Mahfouz, rather than the preserve of social science... (pl8) To date no sociologist has had the courage to undertake research on the quality of vision embodied in the texts such as Armah's The beautiful ones are not yet born, with its fearless airing of post-colonial corruption... (Sitas 2004: 114) This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  AFRICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW VOL. 171 2013 This is sufficient to make one cringe with embarrassment. A significant numb African social scientists hold positions in American and European universities because of their 'fearless airing' of the issues which Sitas claims they have not From Mkandawire to Mazrui to Zeleza and others, some African scholars remain in their countries of birth because of their'fearless airing'of'corruption and other issues. The issues raised by the said novelists have been the subject of em investigation and vigorous debate among CODESRIA-affiliated scholars. It is important to note that in calling for endogeneity or an endogenous appro knowledge-making, African sociologists are not calling for a return to a status qu Endogeneity, put simply, says knowledge is first local before it becomes unive takes into account the influence of other knowledge systems but says, in the M fashion: we ask 'to be taken on our own terms' (Mafeje 1991: iii). While not exclu or seeking to 'draw invidious distinctions between human beings', it nevertheles its locale very seriously. It consists in recognising that social science is ideograph nomothetic (Adesina 2008b; Mafeje 1991). It does not, it should be noted, 's substitute one erasure for another' (Adesina 2006b: 144) in a battle of essentiali For as Zeleza (2004: 26) puts it: 'The issue has never been a question of engaging world, for as African scholars we have always been engaged. Indeed, we cannot being engaged even if we wanted to. My issue is about the nature and import o engagement.'Endogeneity is at its core is an affirmation of one's locale. Ill To see the Eurocentric and 'extraverted' (Adesina, 2005, 2006a, 2010; Hountond 1997; Mafeje, 1992, 2000a) nature of the writings within and about Afri is necessary to examine briefly the discipline of sociology in South Afric 'extraverted' or 'extraversion' we mean the 'knowledge production process, where is exported and theory imported. [Where] scholarship [becomes] little mor proselytising and regurgitating [of] received discourses - left or bourgeois - no m how poorly they explain our lived experiences' (Adesina, 2006b: 138). Sociol South African universities is said to have been characterised by five different competing paradigms, viz. functionalism, Marxism, phenomenology, pluralism 'Calvinism' (Webster 1985, 1991). Whether it was in the service of the apa regime or of the 'social movements', sociology is said also to have always been public domain (Burawoy 2004, Hendricks 2006, Webster 1985, 1991). Wuat i from the literature on the nature of sociology in South Africa is that its j racti have yielded no sui generis theoretical insights. Or, their writings have never any 'epistemic rapture' - to borrow Adesina's concept (2010). This is confirm Hendricks (2006: 88-89) when he says: This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  NYOKA: NEGATION AND AFFIRMATION 1 \ Virtually all the sociological theories, all the major concepts com the continent while we are firmly rooted here and our major inte political preoccupations are located in our national and contine veloping an African sociological discourse through the promotion sociological community is an extremely difficult exercise against and in the current environment African sociologists have applied ideas and concepts without subjecting them to critical scrutiny an not, in the main, developed concepts appropriate to the study of ies. Attempts to indigenise sociology in Africa have been inchoat and anecdotal. It is not surprising that these have thus far not ac much popular acceptance by African sociologists. With regard to teaching material, Jubber (2006: 339) commen examiner in sociology departments in South Africa, Lesotho, Tanzania, I have found that most courses rely heavily on curr and British sources, often based on those from departments in studied.The indigenous and the local appears, if it appears at all, a the last section of the curriculum...'For a useful, though descrip historical review of research and publishing of sociology in South paper entitled 'Sociology in South Africa' (2007). Writing from dissimilar context, Alatas (2003, 2012a) talks about the intelle between the West and the Third World, wherein Third World s studies with little (and usually imported) theoretical grounding produce works of both theoretical and empirical significance. Some of the pitfalls highlighted above cannot be said about th of Mafeje and Magubane two sociologists who spent the bette exile. It is true that they borrowed a great deal from Marxism, notwithstanding their absence in the country, rooted in the the country of their birth (South Africa) and the African co sophisticated deployment (at times repudiation, in the cas concepts, rooted (ontologically) as it was in Africa, produced w rapture'. Conversely, their white counterparts were never able insofar as their writings were never really rooted, epistemolo in Africa - they had been strongly influenced by Euro-Americ 1983, 2006, 2007; Webster 1985, 1991). As a counterbalanc 1991,1996,2001a) and Magubane's (2000,1971,1973,1 instructive in this regard. The key issue which sociologists in South Africa fail to do is enquiry on their own terms, a fact which leads some of them their preconceived schemata on local data (Mafeje 1981, 1 perpetuate what Mafeje (1976, 1998, 2000a, 2001b) refers This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  AFRICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW VOL. 171 2013 examples will suffice. First: In South Africa, one often reads sociology article authors talk, with reference to black South African families, about 'extended or 'households' (Rabe 2008; Russell 2003a, 2003b; Ziehl 2001, 2002, 200 given that western families usually take the form of 'nuclear families', Eur sociologists in South Africa often narrate, because they cannot concei other family structure outside of the one just mentioned, of an 'extended a 'household'. Yet usapho (a family) among amaXhosa, for example, is not li one's immediate biological relatives i.e. parents and siblings - nor, for that ma limited to living in the same house/home. It also includes 'uncles', aunts, gra and even people who are not even related by blood but through isiduko ('cla Thus a man and a woman who share the same isiduko can never get married they are considered siblings. Also, in many South African languages, the co a 'cousin' or an 'uncle' on one's paternal side of the family simply does not example, my father's younger brother is not 'uncle' but utat'omncinci or uba - literally 'younger father'. Similarly, his children are not 'cousins' but my - abanta'kwethu. Thus, 'uncles' and 'cousins' - to use familiar terminology - belong to an 'extended family' or 'household' but are members of the family t This may not always be easily intelligible to some, but it makes a lot of sense immerses herself in the ontological narratives of her objects of enquiry. Second: Let us take the widely used, but manifestly misunderstood, concep - and it is usually used in pejorative terms - as a second example. uMuthi, sim means medicine. Yet by some unsociological logic - in South African public and, by extension, in the academy - the term is used to mean or is associat 'witchcraft', so that when one uses umuthi s/he is, ipso facto, practicing wit Yet, properly understood, even a cough syrup or an aspirin from a 'western' pharmacist is itself umuthi (insofar as it is medication). We do not here wish to discussion about how the concept came to be equated with witchcraft (in Sou public discourse and academia) largely because that is not very puzzling - co racism had a lot to do with that, very much like the idea of a 'witchdoctor'. C used the latter term when referring to African herbalists and 'traditional doc We cite the example of umuthi to highlight the kind of erasures prevaili post-1994, in South African media and in the social sciences. Note, too, the ways in which we spell the word - the Anglicised, and therefore pejorative reads 'muti' when the word really is umuthi. Related to this is the problemat 'muti killings/murders' that we often read about in the newspapers and anth and sociology journals. Cruel murderers kill innocent people, remove their bo and then 'analysts' and journalists refer to such murders as 'muti killings/mur brutal murders as Northerners would most likely call them. The assumption i 1 I do not deny that even black people have come to adopt this negative usage of the term. But my vi 'witchcraft', properly understood, is ukuthakatha not umuthi. This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  NYOKA: NEGATION AND AFFIRMATION 13 course, that such practices have a lot to do with black people's w fact that such killings are associated with umuthi is a case in po umuthi with brutal murders gives offence, since most accounts oUm rely on tabloids and hearsay. For an academic account (in our vie killings/murders' see Vincent's paper 'New Magic for New Tim of course, not alone in these kinds of negations (see Bishop 201 Steyn 2005; Turrell 2001). Vincent, relying on Jean and John ComarofF's (1999) notion continues to propagate 'negations' by associating umuthi with w (Vincent 2008a: 43) acknowledges that umuthi is medicine, she 'the epistemology of alterity' upon which her chosen theoretical she continues to lump together medicine with the alleged use o indeed the case that people who claim to be 'traditional healers we are no longer talking about medicine, we are talking about ubu (should there be such). That these purported traditional healers n murders themselves, but simply delegate or hire people for th (Vincent 2008a: 43), should itself raise questions about their aut A minor but related point is that Vincent (2008a: 43) states that umuthi meaning tree'. That is not entirely accurate. Her definitio from isiXhosa. Yet even in isiXhosa a tree is not umuthi but umthi urn not umu. In the same language, medicine is not umuthi but refers to medicine, is isiZulu not isiXhosa and a tree, in the fo umuthi. This may appear trivial or pedantic but it is necessary in and grossly inaccurate manner in which some white academics w counterparts in South Africa. Even when they evince a genuine and writing about black people, they fall short of paying careful authentically to represent their objects of enquiry. Part of the reason why some white scholars, and some of the continue with these inaccurate assumptions is that they conflate spirituality or mysticism. There is no reason to suppose that t embedded or mutually reinforcing. Indeed these are two differen of thought or a logical fallacy to suppose that they are one and mistake' as Gilbert Ryle would have it. Strange as it may sound not be isangoma or a 'traditional healer' to have knowledge of he result of the negations is self-hatred (which manifests itself in var of black people. For example some people would make fun of an umuthi - thereby implying that there is something wrong with s Here is a third example: Standard writings about the cultural variously refer to it as 'traditional circumcision', 'initiation' or 'r 2010; Peltzer 8t Kanta 2009; Vincent 2008b, 2008c, 2008d among This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  AFRICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW VOL. 171 2013 with these categories is that this practice becomes nothing more than a m procedure which is marked by a public ceremonial event - for circumcision is a m procedure, the removal of the foreskin, and initiation is a ceremonial event wh marks membership of a group. Quite apart from these standard categories, this p is, properly understood, a social and educational process - an articulation of a p way of living. AmaXhosa refer to this practice as ulwaluko. Neither circumcisi initiation comes close to capturing what is meant by this concept. Ulwaluko, far being a ceremonial event which marks membership of a group, and a medical proc is an educational process which marks a transition from childhood to adulthood purpose of ulwaluko is to build strong character traits, independence, teach responsi etc. Similarly, it is not uncommon to find in the literature on ulwaluko refere those who have returned from esuthwini - 'initiation school' - as 'recently initiate or 'newly initiated men (see Bottoman 2006; Vincent 2008b, 2008c, 2008d). this category falls short of capturing what it means to partake in ulwaluko. Her it is wise to adopt the isiXhosa concept of amakrwala rather than 'recently init men'. This is so because talk of recently initiated men suggests an end product event. Yet being ikrwala (singular for amakwrala) suggests a continuation, not an of the education process. Further, while the literature abounds with talk of'trad nurses' and 'traditional surgeons', amaXhosa speak, respectively, of amakhankath iingcibi. While these writers may get away with talk of traditional surgeons, th not justified in talking about traditional nurses. This is necessarily so becau people they refer to as nurses, play, above everything else, the role of educators. Fu instead of speaking about 'initiates' when referring to boys esuthwini, amaXhosa of abakhwetha or umkhwetha (singular). This is so because far from being an ini umkhwetha is akin to a pupil or a student. Against this background, it become that ulwaluko is not a mere 'medical procedure'but an educational/sociological pro These are only three examples, more may be enumerated. The abovementioned negations are not merely acts of omission or failure adequ to analyse how black people live (as suggested by Webster (1985, 1991)), the more importantly, the problem of the 'ontological disconnect' (Adesina 2011, P Communication) between white and black people in South Africa; particularly the on the part of white sociologists to root themselves locally not only epistemologicall culturally and existentially. For example, Webster (1985,1991,2004) writes abou white sociologists were heavily influenced by theoretical trends in the UK and Am universities. He (Webster 1985: 45) writes that, 'South Africans studying abroad to play an important role in introducing these [Marxian] ideas, particularly thr Southern African Studies, into the university curriculum when a growing num returned to university posts in South Africa.' He says that this rise in Marxian i the South African sociological scene coincided with the rise of Black Consciousn (BC) in the 1970s. Adding that Marxism gave them (white sociologists) a 'co This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  NYOKA: NEGATION AND AFFIRMATION 15 alternative'. In the context of apartheid, it is difficult to und white sociologists sought a coherent alternative from outside joining forces with their black counterparts. Writing about t South Africa, Jubber (2007: 536) observes: In South Africa, during the most oppressive years of Apartheid writing in this field was hazardous due to the enactment of legi tailed the freedom of speech and publication and hence a fair a ogy dealing with politics was published by people in exile (e.g. M While seditious or insurrectional political sociology was proscrib less threatening publications were tolerated. One field in which were particularly productive was in counting the human and ec Apartheid, and in proposing alternatives to it, or at least ways in be humanized. The least politically threatening kinds of politica the studies inspired by American studies of voting behaviour. The last sentence in the foregoing quote is surely telling. I Address of the South African Sociological Congress, Ade plausibly in our view, that: The first line of research is premised on taking ourselves serious how eagerly we adopt every new concept and author that reache from the global North - the rapid uptake on the idea of "Public the most recent case. Yet we hardly give ourselves, our scholarsh resources the same degree of scholarly attention. It is interesting to note that, while in the 1970s and 1980s W a coherent alternative to Black Consciousness, he has today notion of'Public Sociology' (see Webster 2004). The problem of this idea is not simply that it denies endogenous alternatives, South African sociologists what they have been doing along. W this fact but does not see it as a problem. Indeed he says: 'While South African sociology, by naming some of its activities "publi giving these activities legitimacy' (Webster 2004: 27). It is not (as opposed to self-determination) is really what is at stake and do has relevance for our humanity, its international rele Zedong quoted in Mafeje 2000a: 67). So just as presenting Marxism as an alternative to liberalis critiqued by BC members) was itself a preservation of whiten to be of Africa, presenting public sociology as an alternative is i a source of knowledge. Marxist sociology in South Africa had between race and class (Magubane 1979). It only saw aparthei This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  AFRICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW VOL. 1712013 racial terms - it equated black workers' struggle with that of their white co thereby assuming, problematically, that they were both only fighting agains In doing so, the question of whiteness (a category of supremacy) was left u Ashwin Desai (2010:123) observes: 'It was almost as if since their [Marxist s emphasis was class, race did not exist and therefore did not have to accou under-representation.' Mafeje observes: Southern African Whites, as a general category, not isolated individuals, are no willing or prepared to relinquish their hegemony established since the conque of the sub-region. This includes white intellectuals of all persuasions. The diffe ence between the right and the left amongst them is how their vested interest are rationalised. While right-wing intellectuals make no bones about their belief in the inherent inferiority of the Africans, liberals and left-wing advocates recognise only the incompetence of the Africans and reserve the right to guide them until they attain the required standards... This is so self-evident that such do-gooders do not have to account for themselves. (Mafeje 1997c: 1) It is not surprising, then, that even in the r.1-1994 period, Andile Mng newspaper columnist, would accuse white South African sociologists, w class analysis at the expense or race, of 'hiding white privilege' (Mngxitam Akpan 2010:117-8). For Biko (2004), as with Mngxitama, the point was/is ultimately to whiteness - liberal or not - irrelevant. This message was never taken s Marxian sociologists, yet one suspects that had they done so, a real 'alternat have been found. This is so because in adopting Marxism, or Burawoy's publi (white) South African sociologists were, epistemologically speaking, no less (or academically dependent) in their writings than their functionalist, plu 'Calvinist' counterparts. Mafeje (2000a: 67) makes a similar point when 'Southern African white settlers... are unable to deal with their Africanity fo persistently played "European" to the extent that they unconsciously grante were aliens whereas blacks were "natives'". IV One of the measures which may be taken to reverse some of the problems we have discussed is not simply to generate insights from empirical studies but also to engage other African scholars on how they attempted to theorise on these issues. One such scholar whose works remains pertinent is Archie Mafeje. Briefly, Mafeje's (1981, 1991, 1996 2001a) approach is simply that epistemological assumptions should not be allowed to dictate what people make of the conditions in which they live. Most of the time researchers get caught up, when conducting research, in their theoretical This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  NYOKA: NEGATIONAND AFFIRMATION 17 schemata rather than try to build theory from the ground up. this view: that there is a sense in which this approach invariab framework' or an 'epistemological assumption' in itself. In th adopting it, guided by the view that he should not superi it seems, is ipso facto a 'framework' in itself. In the preface and Ethnography of African Social Formations, Mafeje (1991: academic work and believe in academic standards, I do not be is another way of inhibiting the deprived and disadvantaged f know and think)...' More important are the words in pare eloquently not only to the theme of the book but really to hi which, he tells us, is not predicated on any epistemology. The idea of taking objects of analysis on their own terms lies scholarship. He referred to this approach as 'authentic interl theoretical representation' in social scientific writings (1981, 2001b). His method is explicitly 'discursive' (Mafeje 1991: adopted the same method when conducting archival research chosen authors and their texts to speak for themselves in the s through their field notes, allow their subjects to speak.' In a Mafeje, as with Magubane, is not refusing to be analytically uni an attempt to study societies or 'social formations' from 'inside o to 'relate them to their wider social environment' (Mafeje 1991 Several of Mafeje's critics (see Moore 1998; Nabudere object that this approach is no different from positivistic or old colonial anthropologists. They take issue in particular with As I conceive it, ethnography is the end product of social texts a the people themselves. All I do is to study the texts so that I can make their meaning apparent or understandable to me as an inte "other". What I convey to my fellow-social scientists is studied a interpretations of existing but hidden knowledge. In my view, th break with the European epistemology of subject/object... It was nition of the other not as a partner in knowledge-making, but maker in her/his own right (Mafeje 1996: 35). Mafeje never spotted the double-standard in what he was say analytic philosophers would have it) a tu quoque fallacy i.e. mo your opponent while you are guilty of the same offence. For observe, this was predicated on positivistic notions of a 'neut Mafeje's approach was brilliant, it was not at all new. Still, his p for it. Critics of Marxism cannot hope to overthrow 'dialectica pointing out that the idea of 'dialectics' is derived from Heg This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  AFRICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW VOL. 171 2013 do more than that. At any rate, one is inclined to think that the critical is sociology in South Africa remains that of the 'ontological disconnect' betwe centric researchers and their objects of enquiry or, indeed, local researchers w existentially and epistemologically, to be of this continent. It is interesting to note, however, parallels between some black writers in Africa, the rest of the African continent and the Third World generally. For Adesina recommends, in an attempt to extirpate extraversion, that we '[make] the objects of critical scholarly engagement' (2006: 257). Elsewhere, he 2008a: 148) advises the new generation of African scholars to (i) have 'deep fa with the literature and subject'; (ii) 'an artisanal approach to field data and (iii) 'immense theoretical rigour'; and (iv) 'an unapologetic and relentless com to Africa'. Mafeje (1994: 210), for his part, argues that 'as African history un must prepare ourselves for new intellectual tasks and not a mere repetition of been conceived elsewhere... It is incumbent upon transcendent African inte to develop new concepts and organisational forms for dealing more effectiv the emerging African reality.' For Hountondji (1997: 36), 'in order to de-ma Africa and the Third World, scholars in these areas ought to make a consci towards a critical but resolute reappropriation of [their] own practical and heritage, a negation of the marginality of [their] endogenous knowledge an how...' This is not dissimilar to Alatas' recommendations for a reversal of academic dependency. Assuming that mechanisms have been put in place, Alatas argues that to reverse the problem of academic dependency Third World sociologists ought first to conduct serious research on the said problem. This could take the form of teaching, publication and organising and sharing knowledge at international conferences. Second, this can be achieved through writing textbooks which, in addition to featuring the usual 'founding fathers of sociology' i.e. Marx, Weber and Durkheim, feature marginalised thinkers from the Third World e.g. Ibn Khaldun, Jose Rizal, W.E.B. Du Bois etc. We include Du Bois on this list of Third World sociologists insofar as he was self-referentially African - at least in the latter part of his life. Thirdly, collaboration among Third World scholars would be of great assistance. In the African context, one might mention the pan-African social science network, Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) based in Dakar, Senegal. For Mafeje (1992: 27), 'to achieve the so-called indigenisation of the arts and sciences in Africa, African researchers and intellectuals must find a base within their societies and the region in general - something which some African organisations are seriously attempting.' This content downloaded from 41.193.168.77 on Thu, 01 Aug 2024 09:27:47 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms  NYOKA: NEGATION AND AFFIRMATION 19 It is clear from the foregoing sections that the major pr in South Africa is that it is characterised by West-centred frameworks. To the extent that these theories explain South only succeed in presenting it from the perspective of wes is that of academic dependence' on western categories (par problem, it has been argued, has two interrelated features terms, respectively, negations' and, following Hountondji, 'extraversion' for short. In addition, while western scholars and theoretical research, African scholars tend to engage i in turn entails global intellectual division of labour in t social scientists, so it is argued, export empirical data to t import theories to the continent without due regard to wheth Interestingly, western scholars tend to conduct studies both of other countries (academic imperialism?) while Third Wo their studies to their countries. Yet in spite of being conf World scholars have no problem importing theories instead The above notwithstanding, Mafeje's and Magubane's attem and others, is to build a case for a 'home-grown' approach t Correcdy, they do so in an attempt to do away with the pra from the North and using them uncritically to analyse loc practice of academic dependency, it has been argued, has t of producing graduates who have no critical understand (Adesina 2005). 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