The role and place of research and intellectual discourse in the reproduction of social relations of racial domination in South Africa

The South African research community which undertakes all research activity in the social and natural sciences, with and without state and corporate sponsorship, draws its membership mainly from the dominant social group. In this country, the dominant group is both economically and racially determined. Consequently, the white minority dominates the research community and intellectual discourse as it does other socio‐economic and political spheres of society. This situation guarantees the constant reproduction and perpetuation of the social relations of racial domination.

As an agent that generates knowledge and new ideas, research as an academic and intellectual tool of enquiry is an instrument of social control, producing new concepts, language and theoretical abstractions which are not accessible to those outside its multi‐farious disciplines. Insofar as the largest proportion of practitioners of these specialised disciplines is drawn from the dominant group, research has itself become a pivotal part of the dominant ideology. Its role is inevitably and inextricably bound up with the processes of systematic reproduction of the relations of domination.

The aim of this viewpoint is therefore to explore various ways in which research bodies and intellectual discourse in general in South Africa can be deracialised and be made more representative of the social make‐up of society.     

Ecology and development

There is an increasing realization, world‐wide and in Southern Africa, that conservation and development are compatible.

Because human communities in the less developed rural areas are dependent on a renewable group of resources, including soil, water and forests, it is imperative that land use systems that protect these resources are introduced.

The predominance of subsistence agriculture in these areas is the most difficult syndrome of under‐development. An overall rural development strategy is required that integrates human development with resources management Where the population carrying capacity of the land has already been exceeded, a process of rapid villagization/urbanization is required. Village/urban growth and agricultural development require a carefully co‐ordinated programme of land capability analysis and planning, as well as active investment in infrastructure and the introduction of appropriate technologies and institutions.     

The brain drain and education opportunity in less developed countries

The impact of the brain drain on the educational systems of the countries of origin is examined, with particular reference to governmental decisions concerning education subsidies and the market for educational services. Two hypothetical cases are considered, one in which governments increase expenditures for education in the presence of a widespread brain drain, the other in which they decrease such expenditures.     

The current state of development sociology in South Africa and its contribution to development studies

Like sociology, development sociology is currently torn between several perspectives, each of which accentuates a completely different view of the discipline. The systems, conflict and humanist perspectives are providing dominant theoretical approaches in the search for an appropriate theory. It is maintained that the current theoretical controversy impedes the development of such a theory.

Systems theory corresponds with neo‐evolutionary development theories and these are largely influenced by the works of Talcott Parsons. Neo‐Marxist development theory, on the other hand, follows the general argument of conflict theory, the accent being on the dialectic relationship between development and underdevelopment. Development theory related to humanism is still in an embryonic stage.

A plea is made for an attempt to design a Weberian‐based orientation which will embrace the current perspectives in order to develop a workable alternative for Southern Africa.     

A model of the Dutch labour market (AMO-K)

Summary So far, the labour market has not received any special attention from macro-econometric model builders. In this article an attempt has been made to describe the labour market in detail, paying attention to such important phenomena as the friction between labour supply and demand, the heterogeneity of labour, the dependence of labour supply on the labour-market situation, the Phillips mechanism and the impact of real wages on labour demand. To make it suitable for policy simulations, the model has been extended to a complete macro-econometric model, taking account of the fact that both labour and capital limit the production possibilities.This paper summarises an extensive Dutch report on the construction of a model for the Netherlands labour market. The title of the original report is AMO-K: Een arbeidsmarktmodel met twee categorieën arbeid; (AMO-K, A labour-market model with two categories of labour) ; it was published by the Netherlands Economic Institute (NEI) in Rotterdam in the so-called Olive Series, 1982-2, pp. 403ff. Some details of the model presented in that report were changed after its publication; see G. den Broeder, AMO-K 81-12, Tussenrapport betreffende de verdere ontwikkeling van het arbeidsmarktmodel (Interim report on the further development of the labourmarket model), Rotterdam, September 1983. Since then, only minor changes have been carried through. The model reproduced in this paper is the modified version. The model was developed within the National Programme of Labour-Market Research (NPAO) (now defunct), the NPAO organisation having granted a commission to the NEI in Rotterdam.