The Humanities and Social Sciences in SA : crisis or cause for concern?
Date
2011-12
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Academy of Science of South Africa
Abstract
The publication of two high-level reports on the state of the Humanities in South Africa in recent
months1,2 is in itself a historic event. If scholars in the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) had
been concerned about the lack of appreciation and recognition by the government and senior
decision-makers in the science system for their fields and disciplines, just the fact that these
reports have been commissioned and published should go some way to allaying any fears of
their imminent ‘demise’. But of course the rationale behind these two studies is to be found in
more serious concerns by scholars in these fields: that there are systematic biases in the national
science and higher education system which explicitly (and sometimes not so explicitly) constrain,
weaken and disadvantage the HSS. These concerns relate to matters of funding, publication
support, expenditure on R&D, reward systems and many other key components of these systems.
Description
CITATION: Mouton, J. 2011. The Humanities and Social Sciences in SA : crisis or cause for concern? South African Journal of Science, 107(11/12),
Art. #961, doi:10.4102/sajs.v107i11/12.961.
The original publication is available from http://sajs.co.za
The original publication is available from http://sajs.co.za
Keywords
Humanities and social science -- South Africa
Citation
Mouton, J. 2011. The Humanities and Social Sciences in SA: Crisis or cause for concern? South African Journal of Science, 107(11/12), doi: 10.4102/sajs.v107i11/12.961.