Rethinking class and culture in Africa: between E. P. Thompson and Pierre Bourdieu

Abstract

The article considers the historiography of labour and class studies in sub-Saharan Africa in relation to the contemporary ‘cultural turn’ in sociological studies of class. It identifies three phases: from the 1960s, a highly empiricist Marxist approach which drew on Fanon’s notion of an aristocracy of labour; from the 1980s, a shift to a stress on culture, agency and identity, following E. P. Thompson; the final move has focused on the African middle classes, drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of consumption. Research on a public sector manual workers’ union in Botswana exemplifies, the author argues, the Thompsonian approach.

Citation

(2017). Rethinking class and culture in Africa: between E. P. Thompson and Pierre Bourdieu. Review of African Political Economy, 7 - 24. https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2017.1367655

• Acceptance Date: Oct 6, 2017
• Publication Date: Oct 6, 2017
• Journal: Review of African Political Economy
• Print ISSN: 0305-6244
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 7 - 24
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03056244.2017.1367655
• Keywords: African class, Botswana, trade unions, African labour, culture, identity
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03056244.2017.1367655