From Classroom to Class Struggle: Radical Academics and the Rebirth of Trade Unionism in the 1970s. (October 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Friedman, Steven
• Is Part Of: Journal of Asian and African studies. Volume 49:Number 5(2014:Oct.)
• Page Start: 526
• Page End: 543
• Publication Date: 2014-10
• Subjects: Apartheid -- class -- intellectuals -- Marxism -- trade unions; Social change -- Africa -- Periodicals; Social change -- Asia -- Periodicals; Economic development -- Africa -- Periodicals; Economic development -- Asia -- Periodicals; Africa -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; Asia -- Social conditions -- Periodicals; Africa -- Periodicals; Asia -- Periodicals; 950
• DOI: 10.1177/0021909614522590
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0021-9096

Abstract

In the early 1970s in South Africa two developments coincided. Workers in the port city of Durban struck, triggering a union movement which was crucial in defeating apartheid and which remains the society's largest organized force. And radical scholars began to analyse apartheid as a system of class domination. The two were related, for the scholarship helped convince middle-class radicals to join the union movement. It also made democracy and a critique of private economic power key themes for the movement. The relationship between the ideas and the movement show the limits and possibilities of academic influence on social movements.