Abstract
This paper examines the critical debates and discussions on the Eurocentric nature of sociology in its origin, diffusion, dominance and practice on the one hand and counter discourses that have emerged from disparate groups of sociologists from different parts of the world, on the other. In the process, this paper explores the unequal nature of global knowledge discourse and its impact on the sociology debates and practice in the global periphery with a focus on South Asia. The work of several sociologists who have contributed to the discourses on postcolonial theory and sociology, alternative, indigenous and pluralist sociology, are reviewed with a view to highlighting the predicament of conventional metropolitan sociology as it is practised in the colonised periphery. Ideas for a fresh sociological imagination consonant with indigenous intellectual traditions in South Asia are discussed along with the need to retool methodology. Usefulness of new approaches such as relational and connected sociologies and Southern Theory are discussed. Several approaches and strategies that sociologists in the region can utilise in formulating a knowledge field that is integral with the needs of the people and consonant with their own intellectual or knowledge traditions are also surveyed. The need to go beyond essentialist binaries constructed by imperial/colonial sociology is emphasised along with the need for forming epistemic communities in centres of learning with a view to examine emerging proposals from critical sociologists for a new sociology imagination rooted in the South Asian context.
Highlights
Sociology invokes a set of assumptions, concepts, theories, rationale and methodological tools
In the arguments, theorisations, and assumptions governing sociology and sociological thinking, Western sociologists did not acknowledge the importance of imperial-colonial relations in the emergence and growth of sociology as a discipline or a practice
In addition to examining Eurocentrism and dominance exercised by metropolitan sociology, the author discusses suggestions made by social scientists from Asia and elsewhere to encourage emerging sociologists in the region to be innovative and creative as well as critical in their search for a sociology practice relevant to South Asian context while moving beyond the received wisdom by way of disciplinary knowledge, perspectives, theories and methods from Western centres of learning, starting from the British colonial period
Summary
Sociology invokes a set of assumptions, concepts, theories, rationale and methodological tools. In addition to examining Eurocentrism and dominance exercised by metropolitan sociology, the author discusses suggestions made by social scientists from Asia and elsewhere to encourage emerging sociologists in the region to be innovative and creative as well as critical in their search for a sociology practice relevant to South Asian context while moving beyond the received wisdom by way of disciplinary knowledge, perspectives, theories and methods from Western centres of learning, starting from the British colonial period. “ (S)elf reflective sociologies need to break open the binaries on which they were constructed, interrogate the divisions embodied in the construction of knowledge of society, move away from the universalisms of classical theorists of early modernity and assess the many different ways to understand the consequences of this modernity both in terms of social processes and their knowledge systems” It is a useful account of the history, challenges and personalities involved in the project
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have