From friction to fruition

Abstract

Scholars linked to the field of postcolonial studies emphasize the contrasting character of social theory, with its colonial past and imperial present, and postcolonial studies, which have been supposedly associated with social emancipation since their very origin. Some social theorists respond to this critique by affirming the necessity of social theory and the internal contradictions of postcolonial studies, as theory which discursively refuses the very idea of theorizing. This chapter shows that these antagonistic discourses contrast with concrete patterns of interaction between postcolonial studies and social sciences and more specifically social theory. To do so, it discusses developments observed in three fields in which cooperation and competition between postcolonial studies and social theory have taken place in a more intensive way: scholarship on the knowledge production in the social sciences, research on modernity, and cultural theories. In these fields, the postcolonial critique has not led to the implosion of established social theory, to the contrary, it has contributed to relevant adjustments, revisions, and corrections in certain colonial-imperial, sexist, racist, and heteronormative assumptions of social theory.