. Burawoy , M. ( 2010 ) ‘ Southern Windmill: The life and work of Edward Webster ’, Transformation , 72/73 : 1 – 25 . Burawoy , M. ( 2014a ) ‘ Preface ’, Current Sociology , 62 ( 2 ): 135 – 9 . Burawoy , M. ( 2014b ) ‘ Introduction: Sociology as a combat sport ’, Current Sociology , 62 ( 2 ): 140 – 55 . Burawoy , M. and von Holdt , K. ( 2012 ) Conversations with Bourdieu: The Johannesburg Moment , Johannesburg : Wits University Press . Chinguno , C. ( 2013 ) Marikana and the Post-apartheid Workplace Order , Working Paper 1, Johannesburg
The idea of public sociology, as introduced by Michael Burawoy, was inspired by the sociological practice in South Africa known as ‘critical engagement’. This volume explores the evolution of critical engagement before and after Burawoy’s visit to South Africa in the 1990s and offers a Southern critique of his model of public sociology.
Involving four generations of researchers from the Global South, the authors provide a multifaceted exploration of the formation of new knowledge through research practices of co-production.
Tracing the historical development of ‘critical engagement’ from a Global South perspective, the book deftly weaves a bridge between the debates on public sociology and decolonial frameworks.
This collection of original essays explores the myriad expressions of austerity since the 2008 financial crisis.
Case studies drawn from Canada, Australia and the European Union provide extensive comparative analysis of fiscal consolidation and the varied political responses against austerity. Contributions examine such themes as privatization, class mobilization and resistance, the crisis of liberal democracy and the rise of the far right.
The potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in shaping future austerity and alternatives is signalled. Given the rapidly shifting terrain, this comprehensive handbook provides important insights into a complex and fast-changing period of politics and policy.
‘Critical engagement’, first formulated by Edward Webster, zeros in on the tension between attachment to moral and scientific principles on one side and the interests of social movements on the other. This tension is definitive of all social science that sets out from the assumption that researchers are participants in the world they study. It is clearly formulated as a founding assumption in the research agenda of the Society, Work and Politics Institute, demarcated from the alternative assumption that social science has to follow the guidelines of positivist objectivity. Given the global character of the problems the world faces, critical engagement must become the dominant principle if sociology is to retain its public relevance.
entail ‘a theoretical commitment to social justice in knowledge production’ and that ‘the time is beyond ripe for industrial relations (sic) to join other social sciences in confronting systemic bias in our scholarship’ ( 2021 : 645). We hope that WGE will be well positioned to take up this challenge. In our launch issue we are pleased to publish three articles which explore the dynamics of racialised capitalism. We are delighted to be able to publish and acknowledge the work of Edward Webster, described by Michael Burawoy as ‘a perpetual motion machine – a windmill
: ETUI pp 337 – 59 . Pernot, Jean-Marie. 2018 . ‘ France’s Trade Unions in the Aftermath of the Crisis’, in S. Lehndorff, H. Dribbusch and T. Schulten (eds) Rough Waters. European Trade Unions in a Time of Crises . Brussels : ETUI, pp 39 – 64 . Schmalz, Stefan, Carmen Ludwig and Edward Webster. 2018 . ‘ The Power Resources Approach: Developments and Challenges’, Global Labour Journal , 9 ( 2 ): 113 – 34 . Schulten, Thorsten and Torsten Müller. 2017 . ‘ Stärkere Lohnkoordination in Europa?’, Sozialismus , 10 : 45 – 8 . Seikel, Daniel and
(February): 4 – 28 . Burawoy , M. ( 2010 ) ‘ Southern windmill: The life and work of Edward Webster ’, Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa , 72/73 : 1 – 25 . Chinguno , C. ( 2015 ) The Shifting Dynamics of the Relations between Institutionalization and Strike Violence: A Case Study of Impala Platinum, Rustenburg, 1982–2012 , PhD thesis, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. Chinguno , C. , Kgoroba , M. , Mashibini , S. , Masilela , B. , Maubane , B. , Moyo , N. , Mthombeni , A. and Ndlovu , H
: Palgrave Macmillan . Burawoy , M. ( 2010 ) ‘ Southern windmill: The life and work of Edward Webster ’, Transformation , 72/73 , 1 – 25 . Keim , W. ( 2017 ) Universally Comprehensible, Arrogantly Local: South African Labour Studies from the Apartheid Era into the New Millennium , Paris : Editions des archives contemporaines . Sitas , A. ( 2004 ) Voices that Reason: Theoretical Parables , Leiden : Brill . von Holdt , K. ( 2003 ) Transition from Below: Forging Trade Unionism and Workplace Change in South Africa , Scottsville, South Africa : Natal
also intended as an introduction to the South African context and some of its sociological debates, for readers not familiar with the country’s history. It also provides contextual background for the three chapters that follow, which are written by former SWOP directors: Edward Webster, Sakhela Buhlungu and Karl von Holdt – additional elements of SWOP’s history and its research traditions are revealed in these chapters. In this chapter we discuss how, in response to changing relationships with its labour partners, SWOP researchers broadened their research foci to
, much of which informs the chapters collected in the second group of chapters in this volume. Bezuidenhout and von Holdt’s chapter on the history of SWOP is followed by three chapters by former directors of the institute, thus covering three different eras. In Chapter 3 , the founder and director of SWOP, Edward Webster, presents an account of the kind of research intervention that led him to develop the concept of critical engagement in an attempt to capture the challenging but productive tension between scholarly research and political engagement. He details two
