EDITORIAL – by David Cooper, member of new reconstituted 5-Editorial Collective

Abstract

We are pleased to report that during our South African Sociological Association (SASA) annual conference this July at the Sol Plaatje University, Kimberley, the AGM of association members, followed by a meeting of the SASA Council, approved two newmembers of our Editorial Collective. We are now joined since August by Dr Asanda Benya (Sociology, University of Cape Town) and Dr Mosa Phadi (Sociology, University of Free State), thus making up our new five-member editorial group. We are also happy to report that collectively this year, we have succeeded in completely removing the backlog of articles we faced when our new Collective took over in May 2021 after the “COVID-19 academic crisis” (at the time we faced a backlog of over 50 articles with, moreover, some reluctance of academic reviewers to undertake reviewing). As a reflection of our current positive situation for the SARS journal, this issue 52(3) of 2022 provides a set of extremely valuable and high-quality articles (to be followed at the beginning of 2023 with 52(4), a Special Issue on “Families in Africa”). We are positive too about the fact that nearly half the articles in this current issue are by authors about issues outside of South Africa, thus helping to achieve one of our goals: a sociological and social science journal which provides insights into social questions not only of South Africa, but also the continent of Africa as a whole (and in future years we hope to attract more articles from other countries of the South too). Of the three articles focusing on South Africa, the one by Jantjie Xaba as a case study of the county’s parastatal steel corporation, Iscor, before and after 1994, is particularly relevant—not least indirectly for current debates about our electricity parastatal, Eskom. Xaba highlights how with the growth of Iscor after World War II, the role of Afrikaner Economic Empowerment (AEE) played a crucial role: not only were “poor white workers” provided jobs within Iscor, but they were (alongside all white employees within Iscor) culturally encouraged to join the Iscor-based social club and allied churches established in the new town there. Essentially, as Xaba says in his abstract, “My doctoral study found there was a strong connection and positive relationship [within Iscor] between the [Apartheid] state, [white] business and [white] CSOs [Civil Society Organisations] under Afrikaner Economic Empowerment...”. This all provided an economic–political–cultural (white–Apartheid) framework for a “functioning” Iscor national steel corporation. Equally important, after 1994 under the new ANC democratic government, this Afrikaner-led framework shaping the “old” Iscor essentially dissolved; but crucially, he argues, this has not been replaced by a new and viable, similar “democratic-non-racial” or even Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) framework. We suggest that this has relevance also with regard to current national debates about Eskom electricity-based problems? Next is Mondli Hlatshwayo’s article on the “35 days of COVID-19 [hard] Lockdown Level 5”, which South Africans experienced as an economic-and-social-life shutdown during the period from 25 March to 30 April 2020. Hlatshwayo uses his Internet-based interviews during this moment in time as well as reports from media sources (TV, radio, newspapers, etc.) to provide a fascinating account of peoples’ experiences during these 35 days, focusing especially