Original Articles
Reproducing criticality: South African social-cultural anthropology's contemporary challenge—the UCT experience
DOI:
10.1080/23323256.2007.11499955
Abstract
For many who were drawn to the discipline during South Africa's apartheid years, social anthropology offered a means for a cohort of primarily middle class persons to crystallise an otherwise inchoate criticality about the regime, in large part by providing opportunity for what has been called exposé. For a while after the collapse of apartheid, such exposé seemed to have become passé because it was assumed that the new democratic government would address the problems that such work had exposed and find means to remedy them. Moreover, it seemed inappropriate, at least in the early years of the new government, to be seen to be attacking its policy implementation. Although such criticism is often labelled as reactionary racism, continuing inequalities suggest a need to re-open the door for such critique and to return to the fray, drawing our students with us.
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