(MENAFN- The Conversation) Professor of Sociology, University of Johannesburg Profile Articles Activity

Luke Sinwell is professor of sociology at the University of Johannesburg (UJ). He has published widely on popular protest and radical theories and practices of participatory governance in South Africa. Luke's work highlights the role of ordinary people in social change and he believes that separating a theory from practice undermines the potential for knowledge to contribute to transformation. He is a former general secretary of the South African Sociological Association (SASA). In 2023, he produced Our Resistance, Our History (directed by Harzard Tsepo Makoro), which vividly captures twenty years of struggle in one of the most defiant informal settlements in Johannesburg, South Africa – Thembelihle, highlighting the promises and pitfalls of grassroots democracy. The documentary is based on Luke's latest book: The Participation Paradox: Between Bottom-up and Top-down Development in South Africa (McGill-Queens University Press and UJ Press: 2023).

Experience

• 2021–2023 Coordinator, Centre for Sociological Research and Practice
• 2009–2017 Senior Researcher, Centre for Social Change

Education

• 2009 Witwatersrand University, Ph.D. in Development Studies

Grants and Contracts

• 2018 Role: Senior Researcher at the Centre for Social Change Funding Source: National Research Foundation

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