University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Faculty of Humanities
Director – Society Work & Development Institute (SWOP Institute)
The Society Work and Development Institute (SWOP Institute) is one of Wits’ flagship research units. With its launch as an Institute it has expanded its research agenda to include the environment, the state and society, whilst building on the 25 year reputation in the study of work, labour, informalisation, and households of its predecessor the Sociology of Work Unit. The Institute is dedicated to critical engagement with processes of transition, transformation and development in South Africa, the region and the global South, and is widely known for its in-depth ethnographic research strategies designed to analyse global transitions from below. The SWOP Institute has four main activities: scholarly research, policy research with partners ranging from the labour movement to the SA Presidency to the International Labour Organisation, public engagement, and postgraduate teaching in pursuit of our commitment to growing new generations of socially committed researchers.
Applications are invited for the position of Director. Suitable candidates will be leading scholars with strong intellectual networks within South Africa, in Africa and globally. The ability to engage with partners ranging from trade unions to senior government officials to funders is essential. The successful candidate will have the capacity to lead the SWOP Institute into a new phase of growth and expansion. S/he will provide energetic and imaginative intellectual leadership across the full range of the SWOP Institute's activities and interests. This is a three-year contract position with the option of renewal.
The Director will report to the Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, and will shape the SWOP Institute's activities in close consultation with staff, the Institute's advisory board, and the Dean. The appointment will be made at the level of Professor or Associate Professor.
Qualifications
Þ a PhD in a relevant discipline such is essential
Þ a substantial track record of research and publications
Þ appropriate administrative and fundraising experience
Responsibilities will include:
Þ providing research leadership for the Institute
Þ further enhancing its status as a cutting edge global research Institute
Þ Developing its national and international research networks and partnerships
Þ expanding its relationship with government and civil society
Þ day-to-day management of the Institute
Þ ensuring its long-term growth and development
Þ maintaining an enabling, supportive and collegial environment within the SWOP Institute
Þ forging synergies between the SWOP Institute, academic departments and other entities within the University
Þ expanding its fundraising activities, particularly to secure donor funding for core activities and salaries
Further information about the SWOP Institute is available from Christine Bischoff Christine [dot] Bischoff [at] wits [dot] ac [dot] za, or 011 7174464 or from the website, www.swopinstitute.org.za
Remuneration: dependent on qualifications and experience.
To apply: Submit a letter of motivation, a detailed CV, with the contact details (e-mail) of 3 referees, and three publications that demonstrate your intellectual qualities and interests to: Molly Orr, Humanities Human Resource Office, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, Private Bag 3, Wits 2050, South Africa molly [dot] orr [at] wits [dot] ac [dot] za
Closing date: 28 May 2010
Combining a screening of ‘Sociology as a Combat Sport’
(documentary on the life of Pierre Bourdieu)
&
Farewell to Michael Burawoy
Mellon Visiting Scholar at the Society Work and Development Institute (SWOP)
Date: Tuesday 11 may
Time: 4 p.m.-7 p.m.
Venue: Graduate Seminar Room, Southwest Engineering Building
Dress: informal/academic or preferred habitus
snacks and drinks will be provided
The Bourdieu Ball marks the final episode in the marvellous series of lectures, ‘Conversations with Bourdieu’, delivered by Professor Michael Burawoy during his sojourn at Wits University, and is at the same time our farewell to Michael as he leaves the following day.
"KARL POLANYI TODAY"
SEMINAR SERIES
led by Professor Michael Burawoy
Mellon Distinguished Visiting Scholar
Organized by Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP)
University of Witwatersrand
in conjunction with the School of Social Science
With the rise of market fundamentalism since the 1970s Karl Polanyi has become a canonical figure in the social sciences. His book The Great Transformation, written in 1944, is an attempt to come to grips with the era of the 1930s – economic crash, the rise of fascism, Stalinism and social democracy, and the conflagration of the Second World War. He traces the calamities of the twentieth century to the rise of market fundamentalism, and the extension of commodification into areas where it can only be destructive. He wrote of “fictitious commodities” – land, labor and money – whose commodification threatened to destroy society, which in turn set in motion “counter-movements” against marketisation, often in the form of reactionary political regimes, but also social movements and new forms of socialism. In recent decades his work has provided a framework for studying many countries experiencing neoliberalism, including the stripping away of welfare and labor guarantees in the United States and European countries, the shock therapies of postsocialism in Russia, China and Eastern Europe, structural adjustment in postcolonial contexts. Polanyi’s work has inspired ideas of the developmental state. It has been deployed to understand globalization and what some have dared to call counter-hegemonic globalization. His ideas have been embraced by economists such as Joseph Stiglitz, anthropologists such as Keith Hart, sociologists such as Peter Evans, Fred Block and Ching Kwan Lee. Here in South Africa Edward Webster, Andries Bezuidenhout and Rob Lambert, authors of Grounding Globalization: Labour in the Age of Insecurity, have amalgamated Polanyi’s ideas with those of Marx, which is where we start the seminar series:
Public lectures
March 31st , Noon-2p.m. MARX vs. POLANYI: Michael Burawoy and Eddie Webster discuss Grounding Globalization
April 15, 4p.m. Michael Burawoy, TRANSFORMING KARL POLANYI
Seminars
April 20, 4p.m., Seminar on Fictitious Commodities
April 29, 4p.m., Seminar on Neoliberalism
May 4, 4p.m., Seminar on Counter-Movements
All seminars take place in the Faculty of Humanities Graduate Seminar Room, South-West Engineering Building. There will be assigned readings for each seminar. So that we have some idea of numbers, we request those who are interested in attending the seminars TO PLEASE REGISTER with Shameen Govender at Shameen [dot] Govender [at] wits [dot] ac [dot] za
READINGS
Market and Society:
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Reading Karl Polanyi:
Prelims
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Conclusion
The Faculty of Humanities and the Society Work and Development Institute (SWOP) together with the School of Social Sciences Seminar Series in Social and Historical Enquiry are hosting a series of eight lectures by Professor Michael Burawoy (Department of Sociology, University of California, Berkeley and Mellon Distinguished Visiting Professor, Wits University) aiming to surface conversations between Pierre Bourdieu and diverse social theorists working in the Marxist tradition.
Download an outline of the conversations here.
Mon., Feb. 22, 2010: Introduction: Who's Afraid of Pierre Bourdieu?
Wed., Feb. 24, 2010: Theory and Practice: Marx Meets Bourdieu
Mon., March 1, 2010: The Nature of Domination: Gramsci Meets Bourdieu
Wed., March 3, 2010: Colonialism and Revolution: Fanon Meets Bourdieu
Mon., March 8, 2010: Pedagogy for Whom? Freire Meets Bourdieu
Wed., March 10, 2010: Antinomies of Feminism: Beauvoir Meets Bourdieu
Wed., March 24, 2010: Intellectuals and their Publics: Mills Meets Bourdieu
Mon., March 29:2010: Is there a Working Class?: Burawoy Meets Bourdieu
SCROLL DOWN FOR LINKS TO THE READINGS
Venue: Graduate Seminar Room, South-West Engineering building Time: 4 p.m.
Pierre Bourdieu
Pierre Bourdieu (1930- 2002) was the most renowned sociologist and social theorist of our time. His work ranged from politics to culture, from sport to literature, photography and painting, from economics to philosophy, from gender to colonialism. He continues to be read across the disciplines of the social sciences and humanities and increasingly in every corner of the world. Great theorist though he was, he was always committed to empirical research – from his ethnography of the Kabyle and the Algerian War to his studies of French peasants, from his correspondence analysis of consumption patterns to in-depth interviews with immigrants. He was at once a theorist of symbolic domination, a defender of reflexive science, a vehement critic of market society and a prominent public sociologist. It is not possible to grasp his work outside its relation to others, in our case relations constructed as conversations with Marxism – a tradition with regard to which he was at best ambivalent. The conversations are largely silent in his own work, and it is the purpose of the lectures to make them audible.
Michael Burawoy
Michael Burawoy has studied industrial workplaces in different parts of the world through participant observation, casting light on the nature of postcolonialism, the organization of consent to capitalism, the peculiar forms of working class consciousness and work organization in state socialism, and the dilemmas of transition from socialism to capitalism. He has developed theoretically driven methodologies that allow broad conclusions to be drawn from ethnographic research and case studies. Throughout his career he has engaged with Marxism, seeking to reconstruct it in the light of historical challenges of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He teaches sociology at the University of California, Berkeley and is the author of The colour of class (1972), Manufacturing consent (1979), The politics of production (1985), The radiant past (1992), Ethnography unbound (2000), and The extended case method: four countries, four decades, four great transformations, and one theoretical tradition (2009) Prof Burawoy is a Visiting Scholar at the Society Work and Development Institute (SWOP) at Wits University.
Download readings for the lecture series:
As its first major cooperative initiative at the beginning of 2010, the Society, Work and Development Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand wishes to announce the launch of Global Labour Journal, a new open access academic journal with a multidisciplinary scope, which explores the ways that labour activities and globalization processes shape each other. The new online journal, hosted by McMaster University Library’s Digital Commons, provides a worldwide forum for the diverse scholarly work emerging on global labour issues.
A truly ‘global’ undertaking, the editorship of Global Labour is shared between two universities, the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where Editor in Chief Edward Webster is based (at the Society, Work and Development Institute), and McMaster University, where Associate Editor Charlotte Yates (Dean of Social Sciences and Professor in School of Labour Studies) and Consulting Editor Robert O’Brien (Department of Political Science) are located. The journal is affiliated with the Labour Movements Research Committee of the International Sociological Association (RC-44).
Says Editor in Chief Edward Webster, “This first issue of Global Labour really is an amazing event – the launch of a cross-country collaborative journal by two leading universities, one in the global North, and one in the global South, in an innovative electronic journal examining one of the key issues of our time – the challenges facing the world of work and labour in the age of globalization.”
One of the goals of the partnership between a Southern and Northern university is to increase the flow of ideas and discussion between different parts of the globe. This is especially important for scholars based in the global South who face obstacles inserting themselves in northern dialogues and for people based in the global North who lack access to perspectives and ideas from the majority of the world’s population.
Because Global Labour is an open access journal, its content is freely available online via the GL website:
Developing an electronic journal, as opposed to a traditional print journal was an appealing concept, according to Robert O'Brien. “Having this online format allows us to function independently from a large publishing house. We can maintain control of the intellectual process and quality, but also have the freedom to create author and reader friendly policies - such as allowing authors to retain copyright and providing free global access.”
As another consequence, adds Yates, “Open access ensures that students from across the globe, regardless of their financial means or institutional affiliation can read this journal.” The premier issue of Global Labour is a special issue on globalization and labour in India and China. Says Charlotte Yates, “This issue, guest-edited by Paul Bowles and John Harriss, is incredibly timely as the eyes of Canadian and world leaders turn to China and India on questions of economic growth, ecological politics and the shift in global power. These articles take a critical look at the impact of economic liberalism on these two countries, and the ways in which globalization has shaped their growth. We’re thrilled to be launching the journal with this material.”
Questions and/or submissions to the Global Labour journal can be directed to the editorial office at globallabour [at] mcmaster [dot] ca. For inquiries regarding McMaster University Library’s journal hosting platform, Digital Commons, please contact Anne Pottier at pottier [at] mcmaster [dot] ca.
A colloquium in honour of Professor Edward Webster will be held entitled Hard labour: sociology and the transformation of working life. Speakers include Michael Burawoy, Dunbar Moodie, Blade Nzimande, Jay Naidoo, Gwede Mantashe, Rob Lambert, Gay Seidman, Robert O'Brien, Karl von Holdt, and others. The keynote address will be deilivered by Professor Webster entitled There shall be work and security for all: Utopian thinking or a necessity for social cohesion and development. For more information contact Anthea Metcalfe, Antheam [at] yebo [dot] co [dot] za
The Sociology of Work Unit has been granted the status of an institute in recognition of the critical role it plays in producing groundbreaking social science research on the world of work. The new status has been accompanied by a change in name to the Society, Work and Development Institute, to reflect the new research themes that underpin the new vision and research programme. With the support of the Wits Foundation, the Institute is on a drive to raise funds for a full-time director to secure the permanence of the Institute. According to Professors Eddie Webster and Sakhela Buhlungu, Directors of the Unit, "Institute status is necessary to show the strategic niche area which the Unit has grown to occupy in its global networks and as a key knowledge producing entity in the University". The new research focus will incorporate a sharper focus on the interface between work, society and development while incorporating previous themes. "We believe the time has arrived for us to turn this research network into a vibrant, scholarly, internationally recognised Institute. Our evidence-led research programmes will contribute to grounding the dynamic relationship between work restructuring, household reproduction, state developmental strategies and the contested notions of social citizenship in a globalising southern Africa," say the duo. Over the past 23 years, the programme has established a local, regional and international reputation for high quality research. This is demonstrated by it becoming the African site of the International Labour Organization initiated Global Labour University as well as ongoing collaborative research projects with colleagues from South America, North America, Australia, Korea, Europe and southern Africa. The Institute will continue to fulfil its strong commitment to building a new generation of social researchers. Currently, two postgraduate externally-funded training programmes are underway to support this vision and the aim is to produce at least 10 high-level researchers over the next two years. As a highly-regarded research authority, the Institute also provides tailored training programmes for labour, business, government and other stakeholders wanting to utilise their expertise. The Institute is a ‘must visit' on the itinerary of international sociology scholars visiting South Africa. Buhlungu maintains that the centrality of the world of work remains the core focus of the Institute's research agenda. "The world of work shapes everything, our identities are around work and it gives structure to our lives, everything else flows from there back to the household, the community and the rest of the world." Source: Wits News.
SWOP has been running a breakfast seminar series since the early 1990s. Currently the series is sponsored by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation. Seminars start at 7.30am at Hofmeyr House on the Wits East Campus with a brief 20-25 minute input from the researchers around the implications of their research, followed by an open discussion. The seminars end at 9.00am. Attendance is free of charge.
Programme for this semester
26 February, Dr Andries Bezuidenhout: “State versus Private Regulation of Labour Standards in Garment Factories in South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho.”
23 April, Themba Masondo and Alex M Mashilo: “Labour’s Responses to Work Restructuring in the Auto Industry.”
28 May, Dr Karl Von Holdt: “Strike Violence: Why does it happen? What does it mean?”
To RSVP or to join our mailing list, contact Shameen Govender Shameen [dot] Governder [at] wits [dot] ac [dot] za, or (011) 717-4460.
How do I get there?
Click for a map of the Wits Campus or a map of the East Campus. Hofmeyr House is next to Jubilee Hall and International House.
More information on seminars.
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