| | Introduction The question I have been asked to discuss is: What should be the relationship between the national liberation struggles in Southern Africa and the priorities determined by these, on the one hand, and research and writing on the other? This, of course, is only a specific variant of a more general question which has a long history - that is, the political role of intellectuals and intellectual work. In this debate, the question of the autonomy of intellectuals from political direction has been central. The pressure from states and governments on intellectuals and the institutions in which they work (universities, research organisations and the like) to carry out work of an applied nature required by the state, is ever present, although its intensity, character and degree of success depends on a complex structure of conditions. The increasingly successful pressure on British universities by the Thatcher government is a case in point. |
