Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home AfricaBib Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:From Liberation to Reconstruction: Theory and Practice in the Life of Harold Wolpe
Author:Burawoy, MichaelISNI
Year:2004
Periodical:Review of African Political Economy
Volume:31
Issue:102
Period:December
Pages:657-675
Language:English
Geographic term:South Africa
Subjects:nation building
intellectuals
national liberation movements
biographies (form)
History and Exploration
Bibliography/Research
Politics and Government
About person:Harold Wolpe (1925-1996)ISNI
External links:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0305624042000327813
http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=U8FQLXNYYBHE22FNWWYU
Abstract:Harold Wolpe (1925-1996) was an anti-apartheid activist and academic in South Africa, and in exile in the UK. Ten years after the inauguration of the Government of National Unity, the present author assesses the fate of Harold Wolpe's vision for a new South Africa, examining his texts not only to hold up Wolpe as an exemplary theorist, but also to demonstrate their contemporary relevance. Starting from Wolpe's 1985 statement of the relation between intellectuals and politics, the author interrogates Wolpe's three propositions: that social research should take as its point of departure the priority of the liberation movement; that the study of social consciousness should be left to political organs; and the equivalent position of politically committed intellectuals under liberation and reconstruction. He examines the first two propositions in relation to Wolpe's own 'theoretical practice', first in England and then in South Africa. This serves as the basis for assessing his third proposition - the political equivalence of liberation struggle and national reconstruction. The author argues that in the last years of his life Wolpe was groping toward an alternative vision of the intellectual as interpreter rather than as legislator. Notes, ref., sum. [ASC Leiden abstract]
Views
Cover