Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-2lccl Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T01:05:37.750Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

DECOLONIZING SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIOLOGY

Building on a Shared “Text of Blackness”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2016

Xolela Mangcu
Xolela Mangcu*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, University of Cape Town
*
*Corresponding author: Xolela Mangcu, Department of Sociology, University of Cape Town, Upper Campus, Rondebosch, 7700 South Africa. E-mail: Xolela.Mangcu@uct.ac.za
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

On 14 June 2014 the Council of the University of Cape Town (UCT) voted to change race-based affirmative action in student admissions. The Council was ratifying an earlier decision by the predominantly White University Senate. According to the new policy race would be considered as only one among several factors, with the greater emphasis now being economic disadvantage. This paper argues that the new emphasis on economic disadvantage is a reflection of a long-standing tendency among left-liberal White academics to downplay race and privilege economic factors in their analysis of disadvantage in South Africa. The arguments behind the decision were that (1) race is an unscientific concept that takes South Africa back to apartheid-era thinking, and (2) that race should be replaced by class or economic disadvantage. These arguments are based on the assumption that race is a recent product of eighteenth century racism, and therefore an immoral and illegitimate social concept.

Drawing on the non-biologistic approaches to race adopted by W. E. B. Du Bois, Tiyo Soga, Pixley ka Seme, S. E. K. Mqhayi, and Steve Biko, this paper argues that awareness of Black perspectives on race as a historical and cultural concept should have led to an appreciation of race as an integral part of people’s identities, particularly those of the Black students on campus. Instead of engaging with these Black intellectual traditions, White academics railroaded their decisions through the governing structures. This decision played a part in the emergence of the #RhodesMustFall movement at UCT.

This paper argues that South African sociology must place Black perspectives on race at the center of its curriculum. These perspectives have been expressed by Black writers since the emergence of a Black literary culture in the middle of the nineteenth century. These perspectives constitute what Henry Louis Gates, Jr. calls a shared “text of Blackness” (Gates 2014, p. 140). This would provide a practical example of the decolonization of the curriculum demanded by students throughout the university system.

Keywords

DecolonizationAffirmative ActionRaceSociologyCurriculumUniversity of Cape TownTiyo SogaPixley ka SemeS. E. K. MqhayiSteve Biko
Type
State of the Discipline
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , Spring 2016 , pp. 45 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Hutchins Center for African and African American Research 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alexander, Neville (Sizwe, No) (1979). One Azania, One Nation. London: Zed Press.Google Scholar
Attwell, David (2006). Rewriting Modernity. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press.Google Scholar
Benatar, David (2015). Those Who Seek Changes Must Show They Are Desirable. Cape Times, July 17. <www.iol.co.za/capetimes/those-who-seek-change-must-show-they-are-desirable-1.1886695> (accessed July 17, 2015).+(accessed+July+17,+2015).>Google Scholar
Bernasconi, Robert (2000). Introduction. In Bernasconi, Robert (Ed.), The Idea of Race, pp. vii-xviii. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Biko, Steve (1972). Introduction. In Biko, Steve (Ed.), Black Perspectives, pp.7–8. Durban: Spro-Cas.Google Scholar
Biko, Steve (2004). I Write What I Like. Johannesburg: Picador Africa.Google Scholar
Bindman, David, Louis Gates, Henry Jr., and Dalton, Karen C. C. (2010). The Image of The Black in Western Art. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Blum, Lawrence (2015). Race, Racialized Groups, and Racial Identity: Perspectives from South Africa and the United States. In Mangcu, Xolela (Ed.), The Colour of Our Future, pp. 25–44. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burawoy, Michael (2005). For Public Sociology. American Sociological Review, 70(1): 4–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chalmers, John K. (1865). What is the Destiny of the Kafir Race. Indaba, April.Google Scholar
Davis, Joanne (2012). Tiyo Soga: Man of Four Names. PhD Dissertation, Department of English, University of South Africa.Google Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (2000). The Conservation of Races. In Bernasconi, Robert (Ed.), The Idea of Race, pp. 108–117. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Fuze, M. M., and Cope, A. T. (1979). Abantu Abamnyama Lapha Bavela Khona: The Black People And Whence They Came. Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press.Google Scholar
Gates, Henry Louis Jr. (2014). The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of African American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford (1973). The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gouldner, Alvin Ward (1970). The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Guinier, Lani, and Torres, Gerald (2003). The Miner’s Canary. Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hall, Stuart (1996). Gramsci’s Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. In Morley, David and Chen, Kuan-Hsing (Eds.), Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies, pp. 411–440. New York: Routledge Press.Google Scholar
Jansen, Jonathan (1998). But Our Natives Are Different!: Race, Knowledge, and Power in the Academy. Social Dynamics, 24(2): 106–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Magubane, Bernard (1999). The African Renaissance in Historical Perspective. In Malegapuru Magoba, William (Ed.), African Renaissance: The New Struggle, pp. 10–36. Johannesburg: Mafube Publishers.Google Scholar
Mangcu, Xolela (2013). UCT’s Senate is the Problem. Cape Times, February 23, p. 11.Google Scholar
Mare, Gerhard (2014). Declassified: Moving Beyond the Dead End of Race. Johannesburg: Jacana Media.Google Scholar
Masilela, Ntongela (2011). The Transmission Lines of The New African Movement. In Mangcu, Xolela (Ed.), Becoming Worthy Ancestors: Archive, Identity, and Public Deliberation in South Africa, pp. 17–45. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mokoena, Hlonipha (2011). Magema Fuze. Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mphahlele, Eskia (2004). Eskia Continued: Literary Appreciation, Education, African Humanism, and Culture, Social Consciousness. Johannesburg: Stainbank and Associates.Google Scholar
O’Meara, Dan (1996). Forty Lost Years. Randburg: Ravan Press.Google Scholar
Omni, Michael, and Winant, Howard (2000). Racial Formation in the United States. In Bernasconi, Robert (Ed), The Idea of Race, pp. 181–212. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Opland, Jeff (2009). Abantu Besizwe. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.Google Scholar
Polanyi, Karl (1957). The Great Transformation. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Price, Max (2013). Dr. Mangcu Has Insulted Senate With His Presumption. Cape Times, February 23, p. 8.Google Scholar
Rubusana, W. B., and Satyo, Sizwe (2002). Zemnk’ Inkomo Magwalandini. Claremont: New Africa Books.Google Scholar
Saunders, Christopher (1973). Early Days: 1870-1900. In Wilson, F. and Perrot, D. (Eds.), Outlook on a Century: South Africa, 1870-1890, pp. 13–17. Alice: Lovedale Press.Google Scholar
Saunders, Christopher (1988). The Making of the South African Past. Totowa, NJ: Barnes & Noble Books.Google Scholar
Seekings, Jeremy (2005). Class, Race, and Inequality in South Africa. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Seme, Pixley (1906). The Regeneration of Africa. African Affairs, 5(XX): 404–408.Google Scholar
Sobukwe, Robert (1949). Completers Social. Speech. <http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/robert-sobukwe-speech-university-fort-hare-president-students-representative-council-21-oct> (accessed March 29, 2016).+(accessed+March+29,+2016).>Google Scholar
Soga, John Henderson (1930). The South-Eastern Bantu. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Soga, Tiyo (1862). A National Newspaper. Indaba, (1)1, August 1: 9–11.Google Scholar
Soga, Tiyo (1865). Reply to Chalmers, King William’s Town Gazette and Kaffrarian Banner, May 11.Google Scholar
Sollors, Werner (1996). Theories of Ethnicity: A Reader. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Soudien, Crain (2015). Transformation in Higher Education. In Mangcu, Xolela (Ed.), The Colour of Our Future: Does Race Still Matter in Post-Apartheid South Africa?, pp. 153–168. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tanner, Jeremy (2010). Introduction to the New Edition, Race and Representation in Ancient Art, Martin Bernal and After. In Bindman, David, Louis Gates, Henry Jr., and Dalton, Karen C. C. (Eds.), The Image of the Black in Western Art, pp. 1–39. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Vercoutter, Jean (2010). The Iconography of the Black in Ancient Egypt: From the Beginnings to the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty. In Bindman, David, Louis Gates, Henry Jr., and Dalton, Karen C. C. (Eds.), The Image of the Black in Western Art, pp. 41–94. Cambridge, MA: Belknap of Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
von Herder, Johann Gottfried (2000). Ideas on the Philosophy of The History of Humankind. In Bernasconi, Robert (Ed.), The Idea of Race, pp. 23–26. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
von Holdt, Karl (2013). Bourdieu in South Africa. In Burawoy, Michael (Ed), Conversations with Bourdieu, pp. 46–50. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.Google Scholar
West, Cornel (1999). The Cornel West Reader. New York: Basic Civitas Books.Google Scholar
Worger, William (2014). The Tricameral Academy: Personal Reflections on Universities and History Departments in “Post-Apartheid” South Africa. Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies, 38(1): 193–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar