Abstract:There are different ways to read sociological theory “against the grain”, as Walter Benjamin put it in 1940. The issue of invisibility - or invisibilization - is certainly the most important one. The mainstream and canonical narrative of the history of sociology and of sociological ideas and theories hardly leaves any room to non-Western appropriations and indigenizations from the late 19th century onwards. The article wants to offer another disciplinary history and another chronology by relying on instances f… Show more
“…The history of the whole discipline is then restricted to the sociological theories, practices, methods, and meanings that developed in these five countries from the mid-19th century onwards. I have described this phenomenon-which is not limited to Francophone works (Dufoix, 2022b)-as a restrictive synecdoche, one part of the sociological world being seen as worth the whole. As a consequence, a sociological geo-epistemic core has been produced, with "founders" or "pioneers" of the discipline only coming from it.…”
From the late 18th century onwards, France has delivered a universalistic discourse about politics, society, rights and also science. The emergence of social science largely confirmed this trend. Nowadays the growing challenging of Eurocentrism that has become more and more visible since the early 1990s remains most often untranslated, untaught, uninvestigated and undebated. The disciplinary structure of the university as well as the lingering isolationism of French social science accounts for part of this situation, the latter requires some further explanations. If some opening has recently been visible in the field of gender, race and discriminations, it has usually meant a greater influence of some—White or Black—American anthropologists, sociologist or philosophers, but hardly ever of non‐Western thinkers. The very issue of a social science canon is not even raised. The main reason for this is the weight of French neo‐republicanism as it was born in the early 1990s at the very same time when anti‐Eurocentric alternatives discourses became more widely heard. It results in a persistent denial of these discourses as being scientific and a widespread ignorance of them in the academic field.
“…The history of the whole discipline is then restricted to the sociological theories, practices, methods, and meanings that developed in these five countries from the mid-19th century onwards. I have described this phenomenon-which is not limited to Francophone works (Dufoix, 2022b)-as a restrictive synecdoche, one part of the sociological world being seen as worth the whole. As a consequence, a sociological geo-epistemic core has been produced, with "founders" or "pioneers" of the discipline only coming from it.…”
From the late 18th century onwards, France has delivered a universalistic discourse about politics, society, rights and also science. The emergence of social science largely confirmed this trend. Nowadays the growing challenging of Eurocentrism that has become more and more visible since the early 1990s remains most often untranslated, untaught, uninvestigated and undebated. The disciplinary structure of the university as well as the lingering isolationism of French social science accounts for part of this situation, the latter requires some further explanations. If some opening has recently been visible in the field of gender, race and discriminations, it has usually meant a greater influence of some—White or Black—American anthropologists, sociologist or philosophers, but hardly ever of non‐Western thinkers. The very issue of a social science canon is not even raised. The main reason for this is the weight of French neo‐republicanism as it was born in the early 1990s at the very same time when anti‐Eurocentric alternatives discourses became more widely heard. It results in a persistent denial of these discourses as being scientific and a widespread ignorance of them in the academic field.
“…provocações é nevrálgico que a academia se debruce e reflita sobre este período histórico fundacional, investigando e mapeando as publicações e seus respectivos conteúdos, afastando qualquer intento conservador de uma "resposta refratária" e "antissociológica" por desconhecimento, ao mesmo tempo em que reconhece a resistência que se pretende fundada num olhar científico descolonizado (CARVALHO e KLEIN, 2023). Inobstante, também é requisito basilar promover a reflexão sobre o próprio processo discricionário de recepção e da não problematização sociológica deste fato que está fartamente documentado e acessível (CONNELL, 1997;2019;BURAWOY, 2021;DUFOIX, 2022).…”
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“…Sem essa identificação e debate ampliado não teremos como promover o reconhecimento de suas obras que possuem conteúdo "sociológico" e quais dentre elas se impõem enquanto "clássico", mesmo às expensas do cânone e seu sistema. Ou seja, a tarefa é mais complexa do que se concebe e parece inegável que a politização acerca dos processos de entrada nas universidades, as políticas afirmativas e os movimentos sociais implicaram também em um processo de politização dos currículos e na demanda por outras atividades dentro das instituições de ensino superior (DUFOIX, 2022;CARVALHO e KLEIN, 2023). Impende também lembrar que este não é um movimento apenas das Ciências Sociais, mas que pode ser verificado de modo muito fortalecido na Filosofia (HENNEMANN e LESSA, 2022).…”
This article critically examines the idea of global sociology in relationship to the discipline of Sociology. While the discipline initially emerged in Western societies, in the post-1945 era, the field extended its reach to the rest of the world. The intellectual project of global sociology emerged in the 1960s and has been on the agenda of the International Sociological Association since at least 1990. Delving deeper than the mere notion of a sociology that is applied to the world, global sociology requires the re-examination of the role of core sociological concepts and narratives, especially regarding the extent to which these reflect Eurocentric preoccupations. Global modernisation (alongside Global Studies) and Postcolonial Sociology, two of the most widely known research fields claiming global intent, are examined as to whether they provide meaningful blueprints for global sociology. Both offer promising insights but also suffer from important drawbacks. Instead of attempting to unearth new grand narratives that would displace the narrative of Western modernity, though, it might be possible to envision a plurality of such narratives coming from different regions of the globe. Sociology can thus be conceived not as exclusively global but also as local and glocal.
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