The Social and Political Thought of Archie Mafeje - by Bongani Nyoka (Paperback)

About the Book

"Social scientist Archie Mafeje, who was born in the South Africa's Eastern Cape provinve but lived most of his academic life in exile, was one of Africa's most prominent intellectuals. The ground-breaking work is the first of its kind to consider the entire body of Mafeje's oeuvre and offers a much-needed engagement with his ideas. It is the most inclusive and critical treatment of Mafeje as a thinker and researcher to date and provides an analysis of his overall scholarship and his role as a theoretician of liberation and revolution in Africa".

Book Synopsis

This comprehensive treatment of Archie Mafeje as a thinker and researcher analyses his overall scholarship and his role as a theoretician of liberation and revolutionary theory

Social scientist Archie Mafeje, who was born in the Eastern Cape but lived most of his scholarly life in exile, was one of Africa's most prominent intellectuals. This ground-breaking work is the first of its kind to consider the entire body of Mafeje's oeuvre and offers a much-needed engagement with his ideas. The most inclusive and critical treatment to date of Mafeje as a thinker and researcher, the book analyses his overall scholarship and his role as a theoretician of liberation and revolution.

Author Bongani Nyoka's main argument is that Mafeje's superb scholarship developed out of his experience as an oppressed black person and his early political education, which merged with his university training to turn him into a formidable cutting-edge intellectual force.

There are three main parts to the book. Part I evaluates Mafeje's critique of the social sciences, part II focuses on his work on land and agrarian issues in sub-Saharan Africa and part III deals with his work on revolutionary theory and politics. The book engages in the act of knowledge decolonisation, making a unique contribution to South Africa's sociological, historical and political studies.