ABSTRACT

This Discussion Article examines the exciting, innovative new book (2022) by Owen Crankshaw. It focuses on a summary including some comments on Crankshaw‘s key findings for the Greater Johannesburg Area for 1970–2011. It focuses primarily on his book’s Part 1 on issues of “Occupational Class Structure transformations”, but with some consideration also of Part 2 on geographical housing “Spatial Order transformations” by race and class (the author’s concepts). These core findings on socioeconomic transformations over this 40-year period have very important implications for political debate about the future of South Africa. These debates are vital not only for academics, but equally for public intellectuals and social activists in our country, and also for a wider readership in other countries particularly of the South where such urban inequality questions of class, poverty and social marginalization are fundamental. With this broad audience in mind, empirical findings are summarized and its methodology assessed, in general in very favorable light. Nonetheless, critical questions are raised about the book’s reliance on comparative case studies of cities of the North with little reflection on political implications for “Southern” cities. It is also critiqued for insufficient theoretical consideration of the impact of a global post-1970s, knowledge-based Capitalist Industrial Revolution on the class structure of Johannesburg. Notwithstanding, this is a sociological book of very high scholarship whose findings about post-Apartheid South African transformation are a must-read and must-debate.

摘要

这篇讨论文章探讨了欧文·克兰克肖 (Owen Crankshaw) 撰写的令人兴奋的创新新书 (2022)。它侧重于总结，包括对克兰克肖关于 1970-2011 年大约翰内斯堡地区的主要发现的一些评论。它主要关注他的书的第一部分“职业阶级结构转变”问题，但也考虑了第二部分有关按种族和阶级划分的地理住房“空间秩序转变”（作者的概念）。这些关于这 40 年期间社会经济转型的核心发现对于有关南非未来的政治辩论具有非常重要的影响。这些辩论不仅对学术界至关重要，对我国的公共知识分子和社会活动家也同样重要。也适合其他国家，特别是南方国家的更广泛读者，在这些国家，阶级、贫困和社会边缘化等城市不平等问题是根本性的。考虑到这一广泛的受众，总体上以非常有利的方式总结了实证研究结果并评估了其方法。尽管如此，人们对本书依赖北方城市的比较案例研究而很少思考对“南方”城市的政治影响提出了批评。它还因对 20 世纪 70 年代后全球知识型资本主义工业革命对约翰内斯堡阶级结构影响的理论考虑不足而受到批评。虽然，