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Work and Occupations
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South Africa

The Decline of Labor Studies and the Democratic Transition

Sakhela Buhlungu

University of Johannesburg, South Africa

This article explores the ways in which a form of intellectual engagement has gone beyond merely studying society and sought to influence processes of change by engaging with actors outside disciplinary scholarship and the academy. In South Africa, the broad subdiscipline of labor studies provides probably the best illustration of this engagement, which Burawoy has termed public sociology. The article traces the emergence and growth of public sociology, initially from the position of relative privilege in the ivory tower and later to more direct forms of engagement with the new publics that emerged in the antiapartheid struggle. The discussion explains why the labor movement became the focal point of public sociology in South Africa. Finally, the article argues that the advent of democracy led to a growing assertiveness among the antiapartheid movements, including labor. Not only did this alter the terms on which public sociology was undertaken, it also resulted in a decline of public sociology inherited from the antiapartheid struggle.

Key Words: public sociology • South Africa • labor studies • democratic transition

This version was published on May 1, 2009

Work and Occupations, Vol. 36, No. 2, 145-161 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/0730888409333753
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