Challenges of Doing Sociology in a Globalizing South: Between Indigenization and Emergent Structures

Abstract

As sociology emerged from the womb of the industrial revolution in Europe and the challenges of the anomic socio-economic environment, the concern of its founding fathers naturally gravitated around Western ideologies and challenges. The modernization paradigm facilitated the hegemonic ascendancy of Western sociology in the South until the recent ideological impasse, when the South began to grope for fresh insights. Currently, attention is still being drawn to the sociological significance of emancipation from systemic inequality created by social structural variables in the development process globally but particularly in poorer countries. This study, therefore, draws from Professor Peter Ekeh’s “Colonialism and Social Structure” and his theoretical statement on the two public to highlight the consequences of uncritical engagement in the Periphery with the sociology of the Core, the importance of agency in post-imperialistic thinking in sociology, and the implications for repositioning sociologists in the South for the task of a more creative local engagement with globalizing ideologies that are integral to mainstream sociology in the North. The paper also highlights the roles of international, regional, and national associations such as the International Sociological Association (ISA), the African Sociological Association (AFSA), the Nigerian Sociological and Anthropological Association (NASA), and the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in setting the agenda.

Oju and Inu: Solidarity in the Informal Market Space in Ibadan, Nigeria

“…The theory prescribes association as the whole essence of human existence, which is used to achieve human survival, progress, and development (Akiwowo, 1986b; Burawoy, 2011; A. O. Omobowale & Akanle, 2017; Onyeonoru, 2010; Payne, 1992). Akiwowo (1999) encapsulates sociation in the concept of isuwa.…”

Asuwada Epistemology and Globalised Sociology: Challenges of the South

“…While it is often common to implicate northern epistemologies of hegemonic complicity in southern epistemic marginalisation in sociology (Bhambra, 2013; Connell, 2007; Keim, 2008a, 2008b, 2011) and canvass for a southern counter-hegemony, there is a need to understand the sociointellectual landscapes of the South as a unique and problematic context that may not represent a homogenous theoretical front ready to present and accept a common theoretical narrative against the North. Southern scholars and scholarship may therefore not be an objectively homogenous category ready to present a common theoretical and epistemic category contrary to what many may assume or imagine (Onyeonoru, 2010). This is the issue we somewhat engage in this section as a counter-narrative to present a more balanced perspective from the South.…”

“…The transposition and application of western theories in the study of the indigenous population was aimed at understanding the culture of the native within the context of mainstream (universal) ideology. European anthropologists were thus the precursors who pioneered the study of the natives and wrote numerous intelligence reports based on their findings (Blommaert and Bulcaen, 2000; Errington, 2001; Onyeonoru, 2010). By the time the social sciences were established in Nigerian (and African) universities, it followed the pro-western Universalist precedence of colonial anthropology.…”

“…Many in this category neglect the fact that all knowledge started as a local idea of an individual at a time in history be it Marxism and Structural Functionalism or even Structuration, Macdonaldisation or Ethnomethodology in more recent times. Sociology syllabi in the South still regurgitate universalistic knowledge and do not interrogate such intellectual universalism especially as many southern intellectuals see sociology as northern and conformity to the northern universalistic models is the only way to guarantee acceptability of southern sociology certificates/knowledge in the standard North (Olutayo et al, 2013; Onyeonoru, 2010; Uche, 2011) especially when transcripts will be requested for further study or employment in the North – dream lands of most southerners. How then will such scholars teach what may be considered local 7 and not taught in the North; southern interventions ?…”

Indigenising Eurocentric sociology: The ‘captive mind’ and five decades of sociology in Nigeria

“…This is because of the more visible social tensions and disorders associated with allegiance to ethnic and ethno-religious groups to the detriment of the nation-state as well as primarily self-interested political elites and parasitic ruling classes, whose attitudes are antithetical to the public interest. As Onyeonoru (2010: 275) argues further, ‘the character of the parts is in contradictory relation to the whole, suggesting difficulties in the operation of the Western-dominated sociological paradigm for explaining and interpreting emergent structures in Africa’. Hence, the need to revisit the theories and, if need be, domesticate them to the point that they become relevant in attending to local problems and challenges of development.…”