Course Title: Honours Research
Course Code: SOCL4028A
In this one-semester research methods course, through in-class sessions, individual supervision and practical tasks, students will be trained in a variety of research methods that will enable them to embark on an applied research project. Students will conceptualize and design a research project and conduct a pilot study that will culminate in a written research essay. With a focus on design and data collection, the research essay will include conceptual and empirical components. The research essay will be a stand-alone piece of work that could be used further for an advanced research project at the Honours or MA level.
Course Title: Advanced Honours Social Research (by special permission only)
Course Code: SOCL4002A
Please contact the PG Honours Coordinator if you are interested in doing an extended research project during your Honours year.
Course Title: Advanced Research Methods
Course Code: SOCL7050A
This course is divided into two parts: research design and proposal writing. The first part of the course aims to allow students to formulate, clarify and focus their research questions; understand and develop explanatory models for their projects, and become familiar with various research designs. This will lead to the second part of the course where students will be required to prepare draft proposals for their Masters’ research reports, within the framework of the course, and in addition to individual supervision. This course also covers different data collection methods through a series of assignments.
Course Title: Collective Action and Social Movements
Course Code: SOCL4006A/7008A [Not offered 2026]
Post-apartheid South Africa is seen as an extraordinarily violent society, with violent clashes between protesters, strikers and the state, outbreaks of xenophobic violence, and high levels of violent crime. This course will explore the histories of state and popular violence in South Africa, and place this in the broader context of changing patterns of violence historically and globally. The focus may be on collective action, violence and contentious politics – including policing – rather than individual, criminal or gender-based violence. We may consider violence in relation to power and disempowerment, colonialism and post colonialism, democracy, domination, social hierarchy, and social order and fragmentation, and the ways in which forms of violence shed light on the nature of society. The course will consider case studies of social movements that have adopted violent practices, as well as social movements that mobilise against violence. In recent years, seminars have explored concepts of structural violence, symbolic violence and collective violence, and grapple with different theoretical and interpretive approaches to understanding of the causes, meaning and impact of violence, including, centrally, the work of Frantz Fanon.
Course Title: Development as Ideology and Practice
Course Code: SOCL4009A/7009A
What is “development”? The course will explore the different meanings of the term, review the theoretical debates on “development,” and examine elements of the policy and practice of “development.” The course will track the trajectories of the successive “development” models, looking at their origins, influence, and strengths and weaknesses, and the manner in which “development” is imagined. Theoretical models have real implications, and the course will therefore also examine specific areas of “development” policy and practice. Case studies of particular “development” sectors will provide something of a picture of “development” in operation and provide students with insights into “development” work. Where possible case studies will be linked to issues of contemporary concern.
Course Title: Economic Sociology: Institutions, Capitalism and Markets
Course Code: SOCL4014A/7010A
This course will introduce students to the main paradigms that shape modern economic policy debates and positions. Although it is not an economics course, it will, nonetheless, provide post-graduate students in the social sciences with a solid grounding in economic and social theory in a manner that will enable effective policy advocacy and critique. Sophisticated theoretical discussion, plus detailed reading, plus policy analysis, forms the core of the course, which is designed to give students an in-depth understanding of the capitalist system, and its limitations. This course does not require any prior knowledge of economics or economic theory. Without understanding the larger models that frame discussion and debate, it is impossible to develop an effective grasp of quite elementary questions relating to economic and social justice; and, when trapped within our assumptions, we struggle to develop critical thinking and analysis. Regardless of whether one opposes or supports the capitalist system, one will be in a position to argue one’s position, understand its political implications and its applicability to real-world policy issues, and appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of alternative assessments. The four main paradigms that will be dealt with are, respectively, economic liberalism, Keynesianism, Marxism and anarchism.
Course Title: Feminist Theory
Course Code: SOCL4029A/7036A [Not offered in 2026]
Feminist Theory introduces students to key and cutting-edge debates in Women’s and Gender Studies as well as Feminist Theory and Politics today, particularly from a postcolonial perspective. The course may cover topics including transnational feminism, governance feminism, 第一吃瓜网 and Islamic feminism. We may equally interrogate key concepts like Ethics, Politics, and Subjectivity from a feminist perspective.
Course Title: Environmental Sociology: The Political Economy of Nature and Development
Course Code: SOCL4015A/7011A
Sociology has made important recent progress in addressing environmental questions. Environmental sociology has posed fresh theoretical and policy departures for the discipline, questioning inherited assumptions and contributed to a radical rethink of numerous issues relating to sustainable development. The course will illuminate a number of global, regional, national and local environmental issues, through a political economy and sociological lens, drawing on a wide range of theorists. Linkages between the environment and development will be drawn, as will those between the natural and social sciences. The rise of a global environmental social movement will be traced, including the environmental justice movements in South Africa and elsewhere. Students will be encouraged to address a particular environmental problem as part of their written contribution to the course. This course is also relevant to students of Geography, International Relations, Politics, Town and Regional Planning, and the Natural Sciences.
Course Title: Global Institutions and Economic Restructuring
Course Code: SOCL4016A/7012A [Not offered in 2026]
This course examines the involvement of global institutions in development as a process of establishing intellectual hegemony of influencing individuals and groups; shaping ideas, discourses and debates; and affecting institutional arrangements inside and outside the state. In respect, the study of their effect on development is simultaneously an investigation of the sociology of knowledge and the sociology of bureaucracy and institutions. The course focuses on global institutions which are involved in promoting development in developing societies, including South Africa. These include, in particular, formal institutions such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organisation. In addition, the course examines the role of the new social movements that have emerged in opposition to these institutions.
Course Title: Race
Course Code: SOSS4050A/7075A [Not offered in 2026]
This course provides a provisional introduction to historical and contemporary theories of, and approaches to, blackness. In recent years, the course has explored the specificity of blackness to colonial modernity from the ‘New 第一吃瓜网(ism)’ of Tiyo Soga and Sol Plaatje to the poetry and philosophy of Négritude, from the psychoanalytic of Fanon to post-colonial theories of ‘hybridity’, and from the problem of ‘gender’ in Black Studies and the contemporary debate between so-called Afro-pessimism and ‘Black Optimism’, to ideas around ‘Afro-futurism’. The course tries to direct students to fiction, film, music and other radical experiments with blackness as forms of theory. Overall, the course tries to think through the significance(s) of the colony, the plantation, and the “middle passage” as spaces for theorising ‘blackness’ both as ‘afterlife’ of colonialism and slavery and as radical claims for forms of ‘freedom’ that exceed and undo the liberal subject of recognition and the liberal politics of representation. Broadly, the course may explore the following themes: blackness and left radicalism, the aesthetics of blackness, Africa and blackness, blackness and slavery, the erotics of blackness, black feminism, Afro-pessimism, black optimism, and Afro-futurism.
Course Title: Current Epidemics in Africa
Course Code: SOSS4065A/7101A
This course adopts a multi-disciplinary approach to explore the historical, social, and cultural context of global epidemics and pandemics experienced on the 第一吃瓜网 continent. The course aims to equip you with insights and skills to understand the complexity of epidemics and pandemics better and to be able to make more meaningful contributions to combat their specific and devastating effects. By drawing on up-to-date material, it provides a general overview of the facts, theoretical debates, and the latest policies surrounding the central epidemics/pandemics of our time, with a specific focus on South Africa.
The course may examine, amongst others, critical and intersecting epidemics that illustrate; are impacted by; and exacerbate political, socioeconomic, biological and environmental conditions and the crises of the health system. We may explore some of the following: HIV&AIDS, gender-based violence; the migrant labour system; tuberculosis; Ebola and/or COVID-19. We explore epidemics within global and local disease burdens; make connections between private (intimate) and public orders to explain disease distribution; and examine the social and historical roots and their social impact. In doing so, we explore a variety of meanings (including lay interpretations), and stigmas associated with disease, treatment, and interventions.
Course Title: The Sociology of Health and Illness
Course Code: SOCL4039A/7042A
The Sociology of Health and Illness is concerned with ‘health’ as a social phenomenon. It poses critical questions about the rise and ongoing global dominance of biomedicine and its assertion that disease and conversely health is merely biological, physiological and/or genetic in nature. It proposes more comprehensive models of health that focus on the centrality of the social determinants of health (including both the PSE and BPS models). We discuss theoretical approaches within the Sociology of Health, including how these inform key concepts such as health and help-seeking behaviour, illness experiences and narratives, medicalisation and de-medicalisation, chronic illness, disability, health- related stigma, amongst others.
There is a growing demand for experts who grasp the complexities of the Sociology of Health and Illness - the kind of experts who can participate in: i) expanding teaching programs at universities, ii) do sociological research in this field, iii) rethink and implement new health and social policies, and iv) implement projects to further integrate the social dimensions of health within practice. This course aims to address this gap in the training of such specialists and is suitable for post graduate students in the social sciences, humanities, health sciences and other approved allied disciplines.
Course Title: Labour and Development
Course Code: SOSS4022A/7021A
Much of the literature that explores the determinants of economic development has focused either on the market and its social carrier, employers, or on the developmental state and its technocratic elites. This developmental literature has tended to see peasants and workers as either victims or beneficiaries, but rarely as active agents of economic and political transformation. Our approach will be to analyse the role of labour in the development process both historically and in the current epoch of globalisation. Our focus will be on labour and development in Southern Africa and the Global South. A key challenge facing labour is its relationship to the post-colonial state, especially the role of labour in economic policy formulation and implementation. Another important concern is the relationship of trade unions (which traditionally organise mainly permanent or ‘core’ workers) to other civil society organisations, the working poor, peasants and the informal economy. To answer these questions, it is necessary to understand labour as an independent actor, by examining its evolution and the dilemmas it faces in developing societies.
Course Title: Work And Labour In The Global Economy
Course Code: SOCL4045A/7048A
This course focuses on how work and labour in the global economy are changing. It engages with theorisations of ‘capitalist development’ through comparison and connections, with particular consideration of post-colonial/global Southern conditions. It is an intensive reading course which requires students to think critically and to apply conceptual arguments to concrete examples of work and employment and worker and labour globalisation. The course specifically interrogates how race, gender and class are constituted in place conjuncturally to explain global processes of the circulation of capital as well as labour movement and worker globalization and political subjectivity.
Course Title: Social Transitions
Course Code: SOCL4030A/7039A
Social Transitions is an intensive critical theory seminar. The course lays a foundation from which to think about ‘social theory’, by critically examining the histories of social thought in relation to various topics, such as Western modernity, colonialism, post-colonialism, and decoloniality.
Course Title: The Making of the South 第一吃瓜网 Social Order
Course Code: SOCL4038A/7041A [Not offered in 2026]
The course provides an overview of 20th century South 第一吃瓜网 history, as shaped by the varying legacies of indigenous modes of organisation and colonial rule. It outlines the challenges and opportunities that faced social and political actors in the course of the century, and that have left their mark on contemporary developments. From a theoretical perspective, it pays particular attention to the areas of state formation and resistance, economic development and class relations, and collective identity. Against this background, and drawing on comparative and historical literature, the course will examine developments in South 第一吃瓜网 society since the 1970s, with a particular focus on the politics of transition of the last decade and a half. The readings for the course will combine historical overviews and discussions of key issues and current debates in South 第一吃瓜网 studies.
Course Title: Sociology of Land and Agrarian Reform in Southern Africa
Course Code: SOCL4038A/7041A
This course introduces students to the contested terrain of rural development, land and agrarian reform in Southern Africa. Close to three decades into democracy, apartheid spatial geography remains firmly in place in South Africa. Colonial and apartheid policies of dispossession, exploitation and exclusion relegated the majority of the population to areas with limited exploitable resources. More than one-third of the population resides in these rural areas, most of whom still experience limited access to resources, quality services and opportunities to participate in the broader economy. Thus far, approaches to rural development, land and agrarian reforms have made limited inroads in advancing spatial de-fragmentation. Key facets of South Africa’s land question (restitution, redistribution, tenure and land development), will be analysed beyond the basic policy precepts of the respective programmes and reviews but in addition, draw from critical scholarship that has engaged on questions of tenure regimes, rural livelihoods, property rights, traditional authority, rural development etc. These issues will further be explored through a comparative study of Kenya, Namibia and Zimbabwe where questions of property rights, land reforms and rural development remain contentious. In sum, the primary aim of the course is to equip students with the knowledge base, conceptual/theoretical tools and skills required to critically engage with current development questions on land, property rights, rural development, and key, the legacy crisis of social inequality, rural structural transformation, as understood through the lens of the land reform question.
