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 book is the first to consider the entire body of Mafeje's oeuvre and offers much-needed engagement with his ideas.

The most inclusive and critical treatment to date of Mafeje as a thinker and researcher, it does not aim to be a biography , but rather offers an analysis of his overall scholarship and his role as a theoretician of liberation and revolution in Africa.

Bongani Nyoka argues that Mafeje's superb scholarship developed out of both his experience as an oppressed black person and his early political education. These, merged with his university training, turned him into a formidable cutting-edge intellectual force.

Nyoka begins with an evaluation of Mafeje's critique of the social sciences; his focus then shifts to Mafeje's work on land and agrarian issues in sub-Saharan Africa, before finally dealing with his work on revolutionary theory and politics. By bringing Mafeje's work to the fore, Nyoka engages in an act of knowledge decolonisation, thus making a unique contribution to South studies in sociology, history and politics.

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.

About the Author
Bongani Nyoka is a senior researcher fellow at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study, University of Johannesburg, and a 2013 laureate of Codesria (the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, based in Senegal).


Book Information
ISBN 9781776145942
Author Bongani Nyoka
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Wits University Press
Publisher Wits University Press
Weight(grams) 500g
Dimensions(mm) 234mm * 156mm * 15mm