In 1974, under the authorship of the Institute for Industrial Education (IIE), a booklet was published to report and reflect on the 'Durban strikes - 1973'. Through the book, I returned to introduce the events, their context and importance in changing apartheid South Africa at an event to reflect on the strikes 50 years later, in January 2023 at the Durban University of Technology.1 A summary introduction to the strikes is followed by a description of the book itself, the context, process and participants: my brief for the 2023 event. In conclusion, I reflect on the very different world and country 50 years later, and the relevance to the present of what had been hoped for in 1973.

Acta Academica is an accredited, open access South African journal dedicated to scholarship in the humanities. The journal publishes independently refereed research articles in the humanities. It promotes the perspectives of critical social theory and engagements with postcolonial and post-developmental debates with special references to (Southern) Africa. The journal is thereby in support of scholarly work that examines how the humanities in the twenty-first century respond to the double imperative of theorising the world and changing it. The journal appears twice a year and is published in English. Acta Academica charges no submission and article processing fees.

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsGerhard MaréGerhard Maré is professor emeritus at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Acta Academica is an accredited, open access South African journal dedicated to scholarship in the humanities. The journal publishes independently refereed research articles in the humanities. It promotes the perspectives of critical social theory and engagements with postcolonial and post-developmental debates with special references to (Southern) Africa. The journal is thereby in support of scholarly work that examines how the humanities in the twenty-first century respond to the double imperative of theorising the world and changing it. The journal appears twice a year and is published in English. Acta Academica charges no submission and article processing fees.

Mxolisi Mchunu’s Violence and Solace is a significant contribution to understanding the singularly important period of Natal’s bloody civil war, which emerged towards the end of apartheid and into ...

Platform: In Theory Gerhard Maré (bio) and Peter Vale (bio) As regular readers of this journal you will know that Platform: In Theory was launched in Transformation 104. On that occasion, we made an introductory argument for the deliberate exploration and employment of theory and also the implications of the absence the clear relevance and application of theory for our understanding of the social world. What would we like to see happening, through contributions, in this section in future editions of the journal? The first, is self-reflection: in the previous issue we suggested that the ‘rich tradition of theorising on (and around) public discourse and public policy’, in South Africa, ‘has still to be fully explored’ (which would include recognising important individuals, fields of theory development, published work, and university courses and departments, and the part theoretical contestation played – and plays – in intellectual, organisational practice and policy formulation). The second is recovery: as Transformation has regularly editorially noted (#1 (1986), #38 (1999), #50 (2002), #75 (2011), #90 (2016), #100 (2019)), we remain interested in critique and the ‘critical’ exploration of the social, of explaining social concerns, of exposing and engaging with theories which ‘underlie systems of domination, exploitation and oppression’; but also theories which will assist in shaping engagement with transforming such a state of affairs. This sense of critical engagement will shape our selection of submissions for this regular section in the journal – Platform: In Theory. This is not to imply that there is a single position – such an absurdity would go against notions of complexity, nuance and articulation. The third is the exploration of new arenas: so, the next issue (Transformation 106) will carry an article on the notion of ‘keywords’, first expressed in the now famous book Keywords: a vocabulary of culture and society (published in 1976, by Fontana in their ‘Communications Series’), in which ‘Theory’ is but one word which is subjected to deep analysis. [End Page 116] The approach has since been adopted and adapted many times, also in publications in South Africa. The article will serve to launch an on-going project through Platform: In Theory, soliciting contributions on what are argued to be words key to understanding this region and its place globally, and – importantly – to changing it. And, of course, we will welcome contributions to this platform, including debate and comment on what appears here, and to wider issues. It is to serve as a Platform, after all. [End Page 117] Gerhard Maré Gerhard Maré is an emeritus professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. His 2020 book is Ethnic Continuities and a State of Exception: Goodwill Zwelithini, Mangosuthu Buthelezi and Jacob Zuma. Peter Vale Peter Vale is Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, University of Pretoria. Recently he has published a chapter on cartoons and Afrikaner Nationalism; a book (with Vineet Thakur) on the Johannesburg origins of International Relations; and contributed to an Oxford Handbook on ‘South Africa and the idea of peaceful change’. pgmare@gmail.com petercjvale@gmail.com Copyright © 2021 Transformation: Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa

Keywordsan invitation Gerhard Maré (bio) and Peter Vale (bio) In the previous issue of Transformation we indicated that we would revisit the 'keywords' approach to discussing changes in discourse, ideology, and common sense. This approach has long been employed towards developing social theory. For this issue, therefore, we asked John Higgins to introduce the unfolding notion of 'keywords' to a contemporary readership, a full 13 years after the previous contribution of the technique to South African society (Shepherd and Robins 2008). Higgins was specifically asked because he has had a long interest in Raymond Williams, and has written about the issue and debates raised by that theorist since his ground-breaking work, Keywords, appeared in 1976. The essay which follows provides a clear guide to the history of the term and the approach it signifies (itself a changing keyword as is clear from his essay). But, as a close reading of the essay suggests, it explains why, when and how Raymond Williams' exploration of keywords is of direct relevance to Platform: In Theory, appearing in a society in great flux, South Africa: [A]s with theory, there is something in Keywords which is deliberately unsettling, something which actively challenges the consensus, and the apparently secure ground of common sense on which we stand in the world. Keywords threatens precisely the structure of meaning that Williams saw at work in Gramsci's famous notion of hegemony as something 'which is lived at such a depth, which saturates the society to such an extent, and which… even constitutes the substance and limits of common sense for most people under its sway'. (Higgins, in this issue) Williams employed 'theory' as a keyword in his own book (1976:266-8). One of us still has the 1976 Fontana paperback (loose pages, and all) which was used in teaching sociological theory in the 1980s–later to be updated by the welcome production of Emile Boonzaier and John Sharp's [End Page 87] South African Keywords (1988). And Williams, as will become clear in reading the Higgins essay, is central to what will always be on on-going project, reflecting on keywords in a post-1994 South Africa, and during a pandemic of tragic proportions. The essay demands and rewards a close and careful read, as much theoretical exploration does. In relation to our motivation, which now follows, we wish to alert the reader specifically to some aspects that struck us as crucial. Higgins notes that (emphases added): Keywords are best understood as both the stake and the site of conflicts over meaning in, and the consequent possibilities for the understanding of a social order. He also draws attention to dimensions of employing the keywords approach, namely that … the first step in a keywords-style analysis is to provide a historical survey of the uses of the term, in order to better understand both how we have come to that contemporary usage, and what exactly is taken up or marginalised in and through this usage. The aim of keywords analysis is to resist–by becoming aware of them–the active forgettings and marginalisations often at work in the pinning down of meaning; and later that the critical study of language and its use can show us not just what a dominant world view is, but how that worldview can come to feel like 'normal reality'. Further points to note, especially for the South African context, is the attention given to comparing not only terms across time, but as used in different contexts, and as terms appear in different languages; and the relevance to the educational context: Williams' recommendation, …, for comparative research, and [the] emphasis that 'key developments…can only be understood when other languages are brought consistently into comparison'. Higgins motivates for 'rereading' and 'reactivating' Keywords and what it illustrates: There are two broad sets of reasons … in the present moment. The first set lie in the theoretical insights that Keywords embodies, and the lessons these have for contemporary social, cultural and political activists, particularly in the academy. The second resides in the occasion any such active rereading gives for a better understanding of the ways in which theory is always generated from and within...

There lies great danger in the facile use of such generalising terms as “the African worker”, “the African village”, “the Afrikaner”. This applies to everyday life and many other situations; no less so for political practice and social understanding. The employment of such homogenising and essentialising notions often stand in the way of analysis of otherwise complex issues and of appropriate intervention.