Towards a South African Sociology of Professions

Bonnin, Debby; Ruggunan, Shaun

doi:10.1080/21528586.2013.802533

Cited by 14 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…Such an understanding situates the professions within a broader historical, economic, social, and political context. Within Southern Africa, the professions were further shaped by race and gender (Bonnin & Ruggunan, 2013, 2019. While there have been efforts toward transformation, the professions continue to be shaped by these factors within post-apartheid South Africa (Bonnin & Ruggunan, 2013).…”

Section: Social Embeddedness Professional Identity Formation and Slpmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emerging Professional Identity Formation: Exploring Coloniality in the Rehabilitation Professions

Abrahams

Abdullah

Pillay

et al. 2022

P&P

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This paper explores professional identity formation in undergraduate education. The paper positions professional identity formation within coloniality. A qualitative case study was conducted using critical theory as a guiding conceptual framework. Data collection included document reviews, observations and arts-based research methodologies. We present a case study of a speech-language pathology student, Aqueelah, transitioning from a traditional clinical placement to a learning site which encourages the development of an emerging practice. The paper focuses on how Aqueelah forms her emerging professional identity through her learning. We foreground the concept of “centring the self” as essential in developing patient-centred care and challenge coloniality of being embedded in clinical education. The paper argues that liminal spaces are necessary to allow students to explore different ways of thinking and doing to support new ways of being. The paper advocates for arts-based methodologies and critical reflection as essential pedagogic tools in shaping professional identity.

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Section: Social Embeddedness Professional Identity Formation and Slpmentioning

confidence: 99%

Emerging Professional Identity Formation: Exploring Coloniality in the Rehabilitation Professions

Abrahams

Abdullah

Pillay

et al. 2022

P&P

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“…My concerns were amplified by the Marxist social science tradition in southern Africa that is associated with the dispossessed and is inherently deeply suspicious of powerful people and institutions. There has been very little social science research about professional groups in the country 4. My anxieties were also fuelled by my experience of medical anthropology.…”

Section: Commentarymentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenging perceptions of disciplinary divide: an ethnographer’s experience of collegiality, collaboration and crisis

Wiel

2018

Med Humanities

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Warned by social scientists about ‘the disciplinary divide’ and the hostility of medical professionals to qualitative research, I was pleasantly surprised by the collegiality I experienced while conducting fieldwork among clinician-researchers in South Africa. This commentary is a challenge to common discourse, historically dominant in a global (north) anthropology, that biomedical practitioners are necessarily antagonistic to the humanities. Drawing on my field experiences, I propose an optimistic outlook for collaboration and inclusivity in developing medical and health humanities in Africa. While conducting anthropological fieldwork among doctors producing medical research, I gained access to elite professional spaces, even presenting anthropological work in medical research forums. I established relationships with leading figures in various clinical departments and research institutes. There were, unsurprisingly, times when I had to rigorously defend my methodology. I had to revise my methodological knowledge including on quantitative methods to explain varying epistemologies to both sympathetic and doubtful medical colleagues. But, I was often treated as a fellow researcher, a colleague. Some clinician-researchers accepted me as having different, valuable expertise to analyse human complexity and proposed opportunities for possible collaboration. I argue that these clinicians appreciated this expertise because of their pervasive perceptions of crisis in healthcare and an awareness of the complexities of biomedicine in an African context of social heterogeneity, medical pluralism and legacies of social injustice. These concerns around crisis and complexity may be points of leverage for expanding interdisciplinary collaboration and facilitating access to research sites and research forums.

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“…Professional closure is a particular genre of social closure (Chua & Poullaos 1993;Hammond et al 2012;Kim 2004 (Annisette 1999;Bonnin & Ruggunan 2013). Through accredited education programmes, stringent examinations, prescribed practical training and the registration or licensing of those then deemed worthy of being called professional practitioners, closure or exclusion continues to be held in place in today's South African accounting profession (Heathcote 2012).…”

Section: Social Closure Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

An audit evidence planning model for the public sector

Mentz

Barac

Odendaal

2018

J. econ. financ. sci.

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Orientation: Auditors have to exercise complex, multi-dimensional evidence-planning judgements. Research purpose: Drawing on social closure theory, the aim of this study is to develop a model to inform the flexible exercise of judgement regarding the types, extent and combinations of audit procedures implemented to gather sufficient appropriate audit evidence to respond to the assessed risks of material misstatement. Motivation for the study: The exercise of considerable judgements by auditors may mean that little consistency is achieved regarding the quantity and quality of the audit evidence obtained, especially in the public sectors of developing countries (which are often plagued by corruption), and where auditors and auditees have limited skills and experience. Research approach, design and method: The study employs a theory-building approach to develop a model intended to guide public sector auditors (following an audit risk approach), to exercise planning judgements for a class of transactions, account balance and/or disclosure. Main findings: The model clarifies the audit evidence decision-making sequences, interrelationships and contingent dependencies of the different audit procedures, and quantifies the compensatory inter-relationships between the types of audit procedures to be performed and the overall levels of assurance desired in response to the assessed risks of material misstatement. Practical and managerial implications: The model could aid public sector auditors to reduce uncertainty, ambiguity and judgement errors during their planning decision-making. Contribution or value-add: The model has been incorporated into the audit methodology of the Auditor-General of South Africa, and has been assessed for compliance with the International Standards on Auditing by the Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors in South Africa.

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Towards a South African Sociology of Professions

Cited by 14 publications

References 13 publications

Emerging Professional Identity Formation: Exploring Coloniality in the Rehabilitation Professions

Emerging Professional Identity Formation: Exploring Coloniality in the Rehabilitation Professions

Challenging perceptions of disciplinary divide: an ethnographer’s experience of collegiality, collaboration and crisis

An audit evidence planning model for the public sector

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