Reclaiming Prof Fatima Meer’s legacy today

AS WE prepare for the 2025 Professor Fatima Meer Memorial Lecture, themed Leadership, Activism and Justice, we are called to reflect not only on the life of an extraordinary South African but on the enduring relevance of her contributions to public sociology.

- PROFESSOR MARIAM SEEDAT-KHAN AND DR JAYANATHAN GOVENDER

Professor Meer was an academic of distinction, a committed activist, a pioneering feminist and a fearless critic of injustice, both during apartheid and in the democratic era.

Her life’s work offers vital insights into the contemporary challenges facing South Africa as the nation continues to confront deep-seated inequality, political disillusionment and the erosion of public trust.

Long before “intersectionality” became common academic language, she practised a form of sociology that recognised the interconnectedness of race, gender and class in shaping lived experience.

She paid particular attention to the realities of poor black women, advocating for an inclusive and intersectional vision of liberation. Her commitment to social justice and community-rooted scholarship resonated with the pedagogical principles of Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire (1970), who envisioned education as a process of liberation rather than transmission. For Professor Meer, the university was not a refuge from politics it was a site of struggle.

A sociologist of beginnings

Professor Meer can rightly be called a sociologist of beginnings. Her theoretical perspectives emerged from and responded to the lived experiences of communities fragmented by apartheid’s racial and spatial ideologies. She challenged the state’s systematic privileging of white citizens while the majority of people lived in subjugation. Yet her intellectual and activist legacy transcends her historical moment. Her work continues to inspire new generations seeking to confront the contradictions and injustices of a post-apartheid, post-postmodernist society.