Prof Jeremy Seekings
Director: Centre for Social Science Research
Professor of Political Studies and Sociology
Professor Seekings has been at UCT since 1992. He has an undergraduate degree in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Oxford, an Honours degree in African Politics from the University of the Witwatersrand, and a D.Phil in Politics from Oxford. His doctorate was a study of urban political mobilization and organization in South Africa between 1978 and 1984. He is a regular Visiting Professor at Yale.
Contact details
Email: jeremy.seekings@uct.ac.za
Tel: +27 21 650 3505
Office: Rm 4.27, Leslie Social Science Building, Upper Campus
Current research
- Politics and economics of distribution and redistribution in post-apartheid South Africa
- Welfare state building in Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean and elsewhere across the global South
- Race and class in comparative perspective
- Political change in the Western Cape
- the decline of South Africa's clothing industry
- Everyday violence in South Africa
Professor Seekings currently teaches courses on: race and class; the sociology of work; social theory; the analysis of household survey research; and the comparative politics of social policy. He has also taught on contemporary South African politics and society, democratic theory, and comparative politics broadly.
His research often combines qualitative research components alongside the analysis of quantitative data.
Recent publications
His books include:
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Heroes or Villains: Youth Politics in the 1980s (Ravan Press, 1993).
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The UDF: A History of the United Democratic Front in South Africa, 1983-2001 (Ohio University Press, David Philip and James Currey, 2000), which won South Africa's top academic book prize.
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Class, Race and Inequality in South Africa (co-authored with Nicoli Nattrass, Yale University Press, 2005, and University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2006).
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Growing Up In The New South Africa: Childhood and Adolescence in Post-Apartheid Cape Town (co-authored with Rachel Bray, Imke Gooskens, Lauren Kahn and Sue Moses, Human Sciences Research Council Press, 2010).
Professor Seekings edited the journal Social Dynamics from 2000 to 2006, and the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research from 2005 to 2011. He is also on the board of Research Committee 21 (Urban Sociology) of the International Sociology Association.
