Translating E.P. Thompson’s Marxian critique: contesting “context” in South African studies

Abstract

This paper revisits some of the writing of E.P. Thompson, a British historian held to have been influential in the development of social history in South Africa. Differently to debates that seek to establish the extent of his direct influence, the paper is concerned with the concepts Thompson used, and seeks to understand his theory and method for approaching historical transformation. The paper suggests that Thompson’s reception in South African studies has generally ignored his materialism and used his concepts empirically without reckoning with some of their broad theoretical arguments. The paper then shows how Thompson’s Marxian critique resonates with the historical anthropology of Jean and John Comaroff. Yet, the paper shows, this historical anthropology has been the object of attack by social history for its alleged failure to contextualise. The paper argues that what is at stake in this Africanist debate are two understandings of context that turn on the character of the empirical in research and the place of capitalism in contemporary studies of South Africa.