Undergraduate Studies

Sociology 114 is the orientation module to the subject areas of Sociology and Social Anthropology as two distinctive, but also complementary, social science subjects offered by the Department. After an introduction to the disciplines, students are also introduced to research methodology (the toolkit that social scientists use to generate knowledge) and social theory (the knowledge base of the disciplines). The content focus of the module is around the concept of social stratification – broadly seen as the way in which society is subdivided into different groups – specifically in relation to class, age, race and gender. This is further explored by a focus on the themes of culture, socialisation and identity. Most of the literature used in the module originates from South African research, but it also includes classical texts by key social theorists. The acquisition of academic skills, especially in relation to reading and writing, is a key priority of this module.

Coordinator: Dr Handri Walters

Sociology 144 is presented in the second semester of the first year. This module builds on Sociology 114, and has the key objective of further introducing students to the disciplines of Sociology and Social Anthropology. The main theme of this module is social issues – broadly seen as matters that can only be explained by factors outside an individual’s personal control and immediate social environment, which affect many individuals in a society. The central aim of this module is also to provide some insight on how South Africans understand and deal with social issues. It features a comparative analysis of social issues across different historical periods, and in relation to social groups according to gender, race/ethnicity, social class and culture. The Sociology focus is presented in the third term, followed by the Social Anthropology focus in the fourth term. Both sections introduce students to key South African social issues as selected by the particular lecturers from year to year, and might include themes around education, health, HIV/AIDS, religion or other issues. After completion of the module, students will have a more distinct understanding of how both the methodological and the socio-theoretical basis of the two disciplines differently inform an understanding of social issues in South Africa. Accordingly, students will be able to make a more informed decision about selecting either Sociology or Social Anthropology as a major from the second year onwards.

Coordinator: Dr Handri Walters

Poverty and inequality are pressing social challenges in most parts of the world, including South Africa.  The course will explore the three major concepts of poverty, inequality and development.  It will adopt a global historical approach to show how these concepts are closely intertwined and crucial to an understanding of contemporary society.  What is poverty and how does it manifest? Why is inequality deepening?  And how can we rethink development in a time of ecological crisis?  The course will explore these and other questions, introducing some of the most pressing social issues across the globe with a particular focus on how they materialise in South Africa.

Learning objectives

By the end of the course, students will be able to: 

• Define core concepts in the study of poverty, inequality and development
• Apply those concepts to specific case studies within South Africa
• Discuss crucial themes in the sociological debates about poverty, inequality and development

Lecturer: Dr Ilse Eigelaar-Meets

In this course, we explore common anthropological concerns related to what it means to be human, including the exercise of political power, the meanings of symbols, the structure and form of rituals, the way in which kinship is constructed and economic exchange is organised, and the role of pop culture and emotions. We explore these concerns and topics through the lens of the Anthropology of Death. The focus of the course is historically very broad and veers from the first hominids that buried their dead, Egyptian pyramids and kingly deaths during the Middle Ages to the central role that corpses play as infotainment “commodities” in contemporary popular culture. Geographically the course includes readings from every continent in the world, while the topics we will cover range from death and mourning in the animal world to sex and fertility, war, regicide, the funeral industry and South Africa’s past. While death links all of these topics, the course is not morbid; it introduces second-year students to the wonderful diversity and richness of human culture.

Lecturer: Co-Professor Ilana van Wyk

The introduction of this module is motivated by concerns to promote ‘transformation’ by encouraging students to think critically about the world around them and not simply to take differences and divisions between them for granted. A key aim of this module is to open up race, class, gender and sexuality, as well as their intersections, as topics for discussion, and to encourage students to reflect on the significance they attach to such topics in their own lives as sources of identification or disidentification, and dimensions of power or otherwise. The course engages with literature and research which disrupts race and sex categories and binaries, and questions the very ways sociologists use concepts of race, gender and sexuality. Drawing on a range of sociological literature, theoretical texts, empirical research and published student autobiographies, as well as documentaries and movies, the course challenges students to think about race and gender as verbs rather than adjectives, and to analyse ways in which race, gender and sexuality may be implicated in power relations and produced through forms of othering. We will also engage with the racialization of social and sexual relations and spaces under apartheid and in contemporary SA. Students will be encouraged to reflect critically on ‘transformation’ discourses and practices in South African education.

Lecturer: Prof Dennis Francis

This module is aimed at increasing students’ understanding of anthropological literature, which deals with the diverse healing beliefs and practices in South Africa. It also seeks to generate perspectives on the cultural nature of these South African beliefs and practices by means of generating transnational comparisons. These two goals will be reached through a critical, comparative reading of relevant, recent ethnographies of Western biomedicine and Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine (TCAM) in South Africa, India, China, Egypt, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom.

The objectives of the course are to provide an introduction to the concept of medical anthropology, and to facilitate the critical reading and analysis of texts which deal with key themes in medical anthropology, such as: the transmission of healing knowledge; divination and counselling; the relationship between food and healing; infertility and its social consequences; and childbirth-related beliefs and practices. Students’ critical thinking is also enhanced through the writing of essays about interventions aimed at bringing together TCAM and Western biomedicine.

Lecturer: Dr Efua Prah

We are currently living through a pandemic and a global economic crisis. This is an extraordinarily challenging period in our history, and we can expect major social changes in the months and years ahead. We are also increasingly dependent on remote communication, using a variety of digital technologies and devices. While the pandemic has disrupted our lives, it also provides us with an opportunity to contemplate our “new normal” and to (re-)imagine our lives in a post-COVID-19 future. In this module I hope to facilitate such a process by using the pandemic as a context for thinking about communication, as well as the past and present mediating role of communication technologies.

In this module we are principally interested in the social implications of these technologies, as well as other processes associated with human communication. More specifically, we will explore how communication technologies and communication-related ideas/ideologies have infiltrated and helped to shape “societies” (and other group constructs) in the course of the past two hundred years.

In this module you will be encouraged to think critically about: (1) the complex relationship between communication (and other) technologies and social change; and (2) the particular role that digital technologies play in the mediation of ideas about “our” present and the projection of such ideas into the future.

Lecturer: Dr Lloyd Hill

This module is aimed at understanding anthropological literature which has been addressed to wider audiences and which has dealt with issues of policy, politics and the nature of the state in South Africa. This goal will be reached through a critical reading of relevant ethnographies of post-apartheid South Africa as well as international theoretical literature.

The objectives of the course are to provide an introduction to the concept of public anthropology, and to facilitate the critical reading and analysis of anthropological texts which deal with the public and ethical roles of anthropologists as well as issues of policy, politics and the nature of the state. Furthermore, we strive to cultivate students’ skills in writing for the media on the cultural dimensions of critical public affairs, and to advance their critical thinking through the writing of essays on debates in relation to anthropologists’ public ethical obligations.

Lecturer: Dr Handri Walters

In this module the central concepts, debates and themes within the broad field of industrial sociology are introduced. The module begins with a short historical and theoretical survey of how work has changed through different eras, and how it has been interpreted by different theorists. We will use these lectures to explore how COVID-19 has influenced the working world. After this the impact of economic globalisation will be explored, before we move on to a more in-depth analysis of the ways in which global powers have restructured and transformed the working world. Finally we will study the way in which the power of trade unions has been influenced by these powers, and how management’s approach to labour relations has been affected by this. We will also conduct a lecture devoted to exploring how COVID-19 has influenced the trade unions and what the future might hold for trade unions after COVID-19. Finally we will study how these tendencies influence gender relations and employment, as well as problems surrounding unemployment and inequality.

Lecturer: Mr Jantjie Xaba

An overview of ethnographical work in South Africa, with specific attention paid to the changing theoretical and contextual dimensions. In this module we aim to understand the social and cultural dimensions of southern African society. This goal will be reached through a study of ethnographic as well as theoretical work done in the region across different times.

The focus of this course is on social anthropological approaches that help to understand social relationships, group interactions and the creation of cultural meanings within southern Africa. The history of this region was largely shaped by group interaction which was often violent, and which led to the stratification of society. The historical phases of colonialism, segregation, apartheid and post-apartheid, as well as the reactions to these, have also shaped many of the relationships and social contexts within which people are still found in southern Africa today. In this module we will look at the ways in which social anthropologists conducted their studies in southern Africa at different times, and how these studies provided insight into the social, political and cultural dimensions of societies on the subcontinent.

Lecturer: Dr Shaheed Tayob