5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

This session aims to critically interrogate the role of professional work in society, particularly in relation to the perpetuation of inequality and importantly, to address a continuing gap in scholarship and theory development on professions in the Global South. We not only offer an opportunity to extend the compendium of Southern African work on professions; but we also want to stimulate epistemological and theoretical reflection towards theorising and critically engaging epistemologies reflected in largely Global North narratives on professions.

The gap in sociological literature on professions from the Global South has been well noted. Most recently Chorev & Shrank (2017, p. 197) indicated that “in spite of the evident importance of professionals and the professions in the Global South, the sociological literature on the subject is almost entirely confined to the developed market economies...”. Further, the tendency towards case studies of particular professions, without attempts to theorise the role of professions in society has been a major and continuing critique. Even in their 2019 contribution, Bonnin and Ruggunan reflect on Johnson’s (1972, p. 128) statement that “the sociology of professions, as a specialist field... stands almost alone in ignoring the third world”, whereupon they assert that “forty-seven years later, it feels as if not much has changed.”

We aim to provide such a platform for extending the scholarship through this session with the intention that it will culminate in a journal special issue.