Sociology and its social context: The case of the rise of Marxist sociology in South Africa

Abstract

This paper, by considering the rise in Marxist sociology in South Africa, challenges the validity of the claim that the university teaching and research of sociology in south Africa furthers the interests of the dominant groups in this society. The paper briefly traces the history of sociology in South Africa and the emergence in the early 1970s of “Marxist” sociology. It is suggested that a wide variety of factors accounts for this development of which the determination by immediate social context is but one. The data indicate that while a great deal of sociology in South Africa is shaped by and supportive of dominant interests, some South African sociology, because of the relative autonomy enjoyed by its practitioners has been shaped by and is supportive of other interests. Marxist sociology constitutes the major variety of this contradictory sociology and its rise and existence illustrate the limits and the complexity of the thesis that thought is existentially determined.