In Which Connell Shatters My Entire Theoretical Landscape
August 16th, 2009 by SocProf and tagged Globalization, Social Theory, Sociology
From Southern Theory:
“The underlying problem of the social-scientific approaches considered in this chapter [Ed: everything I read: Bourdieu, Beck, Bauman, Robinson...] is their geopolitical logic. They rely exclusively on the metropole for their intellectual tools and assumptions, and therefore treat the majority world as object. This closes off the possibility of social science working as a shared learning process, a dialogue, at the level of theory.
Inhabitants of the majority world are not just the objects of theory, the data mine for social science. They are also subjects – the producers of theory about the social world and their place in it. (…)
Every colonised [sic] culture produces interpretations of imperialism. Intellectuals in the majority world have been studying empire, colonisation and globalisation processes as long as intellectuals in the metropole have. This represents a huge resource for learning, which metropolitan social science currntly discards. Because of the metropole’s hegemonic position in the global organisation of social science (as Sonntag (1999) shows for sociology), this waste is difficult contest.” (68)
… Follows SocProf’s intense self-questioning.
Posted in Globalization, Social Theory, Sociology | 3 Comments »
August 19th, 2009 at 6:54 am
I have dived into this book and so far I don’t know if I’m going to end up optimistic or pessimistic about the overall situaiton.
I am not a northerner… I am extremely uncertain of my academic future so far, but also very excited…
August 19th, 2009 at 8:09 am
Let’s a bloggy discussion about this book when we’re both done with it. I would really like to have your perspective on it.
August 30th, 2009 at 7:52 am
@[Blocked by CFC] SocProf, Great, I posted some ideas in Part 2 of your review.