Anti-colonial thought and global social theory

Abstract

From the late 1980s onward, global social theory has been introduced to a new perspective variously called indigeneity, endogeneity, Orientalism, Eurocentrism, post-colonial, decolonial, and Southern sociology/social sciences. This study argues that the above-mentioned trends should be collectively termed anti-colonial social theory as all of these explore the relationship between colonialism and knowledge production. The study divides the growth of anti-colonial social theory in terms of two phases and relates it to changing geopolitics of the 20th century. It argues that these distinct trends manifest a united stance in its ontological-epistemic articulation. It also argues that anti-colonial social theory can play a relevant role in a knowledge system divided through colonial/imperial relationships, given its theorization on the same.

From Public Sociology to Sociological Publics: The Importance of Reverse Tutelage to Social Theory

“…In his recent British Journal of Sociology plenary, for example, Go (2023b) turned to the writings of Apolinario Mabini and Jose Rizal in the Philippines, Eugenio Maria de Hostos in Puerto Rico, and Frantz Fanon, Suzanne Cesaire, and Aimé Césaire in Martinique to show how each of them, in advocating anticolonialism, developed anticolonial social theories: theories that cut to key sociological problems, such as the definition of society, the relationship between culture and economy, and the possibility of social change in social structures that tend to reproduce themselves. Likewise, Patel (2023) highlights how anticolonial social thought, as an analytic and philosophical ecosystem of ideas stretching back over 400 years, very much fits the criteria for sociological theorizing in the way it "maps and interprets ideas and actions that have emerged in the political struggle(s) of the colonized peoples against capitalist colonialism's material exploitation, ideologies, and practices" and how it "collates, catalogs, and analyses the subjective experiences of being dominated by colonial and imperial economic, social, political, and cultural institutions, policies, and rules. "…”

Decentering Migration Studies: Toward a Southern Attitude

“…It is, as I have described, a professional and moral stance and commitment that is not confined to a particular space or place. It is a metaphor, used by scholars like Connell (2007) and De Souza Santos (2014) to mark a "knowledge periphery" and acknowledge the marginalization of the knowledge producers within it (Patel 2023). That means that anyone, wherever they are, can embrace this stance as a powerful tool for decentering, whether they have experienced this marginalization themselves or whether they are standing up as witnesses in solidarity.…”