This thesis begins with the assumption that the theory of academic dependency provides an
adequate framework within which the relationship between social science communities in the
North and South can be understood. Present problems of social scientists in the South have
very often been attributed to this dependence and it has been concluded that academic
dependence has resulted in an uncritical and imitative approach to ideas and concepts from
the West (Alatas, 2000). This dependence has also resulted in the general regression among
social scientists based in the South and in a marginalisation of their works within the social
science community no matter how significant and original they may be. The problematic
invisibility of the works of prominent South African scholars is a dimension of a wider crisis
of academic dependence, if unchecked this current trend will also reinforce academic
dependence. From the nature of the problems generated by academic dependence, it is
obvious that there is a need for an intellectual emancipation movement. This movement may
take different forms that may range from but are not limited to a commitment to endogeneity
which involves among other things, knowledge production that takes South African local
conditions seriously enough to be the basis for the development of distinct conceptual ideas
and theories. This requires transcending the tendency to use ‘the local’ primarily as a tool for
data collection and theoretical framing done from the global north. Secondly, there is a need
to take the local, indigenous, ontological narratives seriously enough to serve as source codes
for works of distinct epistemological value and exemplary ideas within the global project of
knowledge production. Endogeneity in the context of African knowledge production should
also involve an intellectual standpoint derived from a rootedness in the African conditions; a
centring of African ontological discourses and experiences as the basis of intellectual work
(Adesina, 2008: 135). In this study, it is suggested that the recommendations highlighted
above can only succeed if scholars make an effort to actually engage with locally produced
knowledge. There is therefore a need to make greater efforts to know each other’s work on
Africa. This demand is not to appease individual egos but it is essential for progress in
scientific work. African communities will benefit from drawing with greater catholicity from
the well –spring of knowledge about Africa generated by Africans. In the South African
context, transcending academic dependence in the new generation of young academics
requires engagement with the work of our local scholars who have devoted their lives to
knowledge production. This thesis explores the scholarship of Professor Bernard Magubane
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by engaging with his works on race, class and inequality by locating his works within the
wider debates on race, class and inequality in South Africa. The specific contributions of
Professor Magubane to the enterprise of knowledge production are identified and discussed in
relation to his critique of Western social science in its application to Africa. The making of
Professor Magubane’s life, his career, scholarship and biography details are analysed with the
intention of showing their influence on Magubane as a Scholar. The examination of Professor
Magubane’s intellectual and biographical accounts help to explain the details, contexts and
implications of his theoretical paradigm shifts. This helps prove that Professor Magubane’s
experiences and theoretical positions were socially and historically constituted. The research
from which this thesis derives is part of an NRF-funded project, on Endogeneity and Modern
Sociology in South Africa, under the direction of Professor Jimi Adesina.