Southern Theory Research Articles

Social Science on a World Scale: Connecting the Pages

Parallel projects of class analysis, emerging at different points of the global periphery at similar times, pose the problem of connection and disconnection. An outline is given of the global economy of knowledge, centered on the global North which is the privileged site of theory (including methodology). Critiques and alternatives are discussed, particularly indigenous knowledge, decolonial perspectives and Southern theory. Questions are raised about the intellectual workforce, the labour process of knowledge formation, and the circulation of knowledge. The possibility is raised of a democratic world knowledge economy, based on an epistemology of solidarity. Keywords: Knowledge economy. Class analysis. Southern theory. Indigenous knowledge.

Rethinking Knowledge Production and Circulation in Comparative and International Education: Southern Theory, Postcolonial Perspectives, and Alternative Epistemologies

Rethinking Knowledge Production and Circulation in Comparative and International Education: Southern Theory, Postcolonial Perspectives, and Alternative Epistemologies

Teaching business ethics in the global South: control, resistance, and phronesis

We explore academic literature on business ethics education and critically compare the themes emerging from different contexts. Outlining guidelines for analysis based on Southern Theory, we conduct a content analysis on a selection of English, peer-reviewed articles and then critically compare emergent themes from across the ‘Northern'–Southern’ divide. The results suggest commonality but also substantive nuances. One key difference concerns a concerted effort from the South to decipher daily business experiences in relation to prevalent business ethics frameworks focused on the North. Furthermore, using notion of phronetic science, we critically discuss our findings to highlight inherent dynamics of control and resistance. The paper concludes by suggesting future directions for business ethics curriculum development that is more sensitive to these dynamics and by suggesting an adoption of notions related to practical wisdom.

Theories of the South: Limits and perspectives of an emergent movement in social sciences

The article critically reviews the recent publications in the field of social sciences regarding the themes of ‘Southern theories’, ‘theories from the South’ and ‘epistemologies of the South’ seeking to understand the limits and perspectives of this current wave of critique to the social sciences establishment. Analyzing the works of Boaventura Santos, Raewyn Connell and Jean and John Comaroff the article defines the use of the term ‘South’ as a circumstantial project under which different notions of theory are in a dispute for legitimacy. Such disputes are bringing to the center of the sociological debate the very notion of ‘theory’ and its production in a geopolitical context where Southern social scientists are actively participating in the international debates.

‘Cruel optimism’: a southern theory perspective on the European Union's Youth Strategy, 2008–2012

European Union youth policy since the 1990s has been ostensibly committed to enhancing the social participation of young people. This study explores the reliance of the 2009 European Union (EU) Youth Strategy on a combination of OECD ‘active society’ and human capital theory which seeks to increase educational participation rates in Europe with the goal of creating more and better opportunities for young people and to promote active citizenship, social inclusion and solidarity. The authors adopt a ‘southern theory’ perspective to open up a range of problems with the EU Youth Strategy which begins to indicate why, contrary to expectations, this policy has failed to ameliorate the increasing levels of youth unemployment, underemployment and child and youth poverty. The study concludes that the EU Youth Strategy has consolidated ‘a relation of cruel optimism’ when what is desired, in this case more education, has become an obstacle to human flourishing.

Using southern theory: Decolonizing social thought in theory, research and application

Recent work in social science challenges managerial assumptions about homogenous knowledge domains, and traces the effects of a world economy of knowledge structured by the history of colonialism and current north-south global inequalities. The differentiation of knowledge rests on the very different histories and situations of metropolitan, creole, colonized and post-colonial intelligentsias. Different knowledge projects have been constructed in global space, which feed back on our understanding of knowledge itself. Less recognized, but increasingly important, are uses of southern and postcolonial perspectives in applied social science, in areas ranging from education to urban planning. Some implications of these applications are discussed: southern theory is not a fixed set of propositions but a challenge to develop new knowledge projects and new ways of learning with globally expanded resources.

Neither here nor there or always here and there? Antipodean reflections on economic geography

This paper emerged from discussions held over a two-day symposium hosted by the University of Western Sydney and the Institute of Australian Geographers in December 2011. Drawing on contemporary themes in economic geography around postcolonial theory and a concern with the histories of the sub-discipline, the symposium sought to triangulate these discourses using Raewyn Connell’s (2006, 2007a, 2007b) concept of ‘Southern Theory’ as a means of beginning a process of critical reflection about the types of economic geographies that are produced from and in the ‘Antipodes’. After introducing these debates and presenting a critical reflection on how Connell’s Southern Theory potentially provides a useful means of bringing them into conversation, the paper presents five considerations from geographers who have made significant contributions to contemporary economic geography understandings, drawing on, in various ways, their Antipodean positionality. The paper assesses to what extent are Antipodean economic geography knowledges: (i) unique and embedded in specific conditions and events, (ii) inexorably tied to other economic geographical knowledges produced elsewhere and (iii) how Antipodean economic geography knowledges have been exported and assembled within and beyond the discipline of geography.

Towards a southern theory of student equity in Australian higher education: Enlarging the rationale for expansion

Student equity in Australian higher education is a numbers game. While university student recruitment departments focus on ‘bums on seats’, equity advocates draw attention to which bums, in what proportions and, more to the point, which seats, where. But if the counting of ‘bums’ is crude, so is the differentiation of seats. Just distinguishing between courses and universities and scrutinizing the distribution of groups is a limited view of equity. This paper proposes an expanded conception for student equity and an enlarged regard for what is being accessed by students who gain entry to university. Drawing on Connell’s notion of ‘southern theory’, the paper highlights power/knowledge relations in higher education and particularly for ‘southerners’: those under-represented in universities, often located south of cut-off scores, and whose cultural capital is similarly marginalised and discounted. The paper concludes that taking account of marginalized forms of knowledge requires thinking differently about what higher education is and how it gets done.

Approaching Southern theory: explorations of gender in South African education

This article draws on the five other papers from South Africa in this issue of Gender and Education to consider how Southern theory has been developed and is developing in relation to gender and education in South Africa. We argue that Southern theory is not an on-the-shelf solution to global geopolitical inequalities but a work in process that is important both for the global South and to simultaneously dethrone and enrich Northern, mainstream theory. The article begins with a prologue explaining the origins and profile of the particular politics of knowledge production discussed in this issue. In the next section, we consider the notion of the ‘global South’ and trace the way in which knowledge itself is imprinted with the legacies of imperialism and colonialism, both in the North and in the South, with different agendas for theory arising from the historical positions of each. We then offer a very brief contextualisation of the issue in the specific context of South Africa, drawing on the articles to explore the particular nuances and issues raised by its particular historical and geopolitical location. In so doing, we point to some of the very difficult questions raised by the relationship between indigenous and modernist (Northern) knowledges. We move on to suggest some ways of thinking about intervening to challenge and potentially alleviate inequalities, showing that policy is not enough. In conclusion, we return to Southern theory, noting some of the limitations to which a journal like Gender and Education can contribute and the journey yet to travel while celebrating the fact and nature of this issue as a contribution to the development of Southern theory from and in South Africa.

Literacy, place and the digital world

Observing that place may be understood in a range of sometimes conflicting ways, the paper picks up on recent work within literacy studies on notions of place-making and locational disadvantage to argue for increasingly sophisticated and reflexive uses of place in the field, as a counterpoint to both increasing educational standardisation and widespread environmental concern. A key concept introduced is the notion of relative location, referring to a relational, dynamic view of where one is located in the world, whether within particular countries or at a geo-global scale. Links are made with Connell's notion of ‘southern theory’, within global fields of cultural and knowledge production. The paper comments on various aspects of the other papers presented here, in responding to and concluding the Special Issue.

Southern Psychotherapies

Drawing on Connell's ground-breaking and ground-affirming work, Southern Theory, published in 2008, this paper explores the concept and possibility of “Southern psychotherapy” – or, more accurately, as the author advocates pluralism in psychotherapy, “Southern psychotherapies”. The paper first discusses the significance of context, personally and in theory, and the relationship between culture and theory. From this, it then addresses the hegemony of Western theory, the arguments by which this is maintained, and the “Northernness” of general theory. The second half of the paper responds to the “characteristic textual moves” of Northern theory, identified by Connell, and offers four “textual” counterpoints as defining the theory and practice of Southern psychotherapies. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Decolonising disability: thinking and acting globally

This paper argues that the dominance of the global North in the universalising and totalising tendencies of writings about disability has resulted in the marginalisation of these experiences in the global South. This constitutes an intellectual crisis for disability studies in the periphery. The experience of colonisation and colonialism in the global South was both disabling and devastating for the inhabitants. The production of impaired peoples continues as a result of a multiplicity of phenomena including: war and civil strife, nuclear testing, the growth of the arms trade, the export of pollution to ‘pollution havens’ and the emergence of sweatshops. Yet the agendas of disability pride and celebration in the metropole may appear to stand in stark contrast to the need to prevent mass impairments in the global South. The paper concludes by attempting to articulate a southern theory of disability that challenges some of the implicit values and concepts of contemporary disability studies and includes analyses of the lasting disabling impact of colonialism.

LATIN AMERICA AND THE CHALLENGE TO IMPERIAL REASON

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Fanon (1967 Fanon, F. 1967. Black skin, white masks, London: Pluto Press. [Google Scholar], p. 188) for instance defined the ‘collective unconscious’ as the ‘sum of prejudices, myths, collective attitudes of a given group’. The term can be used in relation to all kinds of society, and in Western societies the history of Empire leaves in its wake a whole series of attitudes and values that act as a barrier to the working through of the varied meanings of the imperial experience so that new identities can be formed and fought for. Instead there is frequently a blockage preventing the processing of the imperial mentality and opposition to multiculturalism, or better expressed, interculturalism as well as new forms of racism result. For a stimulating analysis see Gilroy (2005 Gilroy, P. 2005. Postcolonial Melancholia, New York: Columbia University Press. [Google Scholar]). 2. For an insightful analysis of the role of the United States in the recent events in Honduras, see, for example, Vigna 2010 Vigna, A. 2010. Cómo Blanqear un Golpe de Estado. Le Monde Diplomatique en español, XIV(172): 24 [Google Scholar]. 3. Geo-political interventionism can be taken as a clear sign of imperial power and during the nineteenth century, before the rise of communism, the United States intervened 103 times in the period from 1798 to 1895, in a wide range of countries, from Japan and China to Nicaragua and Argentina – see Zinn (1996 Zinn, H. 1996. A People's History of the United States, New York: Longman. [Google Scholar], pp. 290–291). 4. In this sense I would disagree with Arditi (2008 Arditi, B. 2008. Arguments about the Left Turns in Latin America: a post-liberal politics?. Latin American Research Review, 43(3): 59–81. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar], p. 60) who is quoted by Escobar and who has written an imaginative paper on ‘Left turns’ in Latin America; rather than maintain that struggles against imperialism and infringements of sovereignty are in decline it can be seen that with Chávez (Venezuela), Morales (Bolivia) and Correa (Ecuador) – not to mention Cuba – these are urgent and contemporary issues. 5. Elsewhere I have dealt with this issue in some detail, see Slater (2009 Slater, D. 2009. Exporting imperial democracy: critical reflections on the US case. Human Geography, 2(3): 24–36. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 6. For a detailed review and analysis of Latin American social movements, see Stahler-Sholk et al. (2008 Stahler-Sholk , R. et al. 2008 Latin American Social Movements in the Twenty-first Century , Boulder, CO , Rowman & Littlefield Publishers . [Google Scholar]). 7. This is an extensive field of analysis, but for two recent texts which are particularly useful see Chakrabarty (2008 Chakrabarty, D. 2008. Provincializing Europe, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) and Connell (2007 Connell, R. 2007. Southern Theory, Cambridge: Polity Press. [Google Scholar]). 8. The Mexican social anthropologist Roger Bartra made the point that in many ways Latin American intellectuals are more global in orientation than their counterparts in the North, since in the global south intellectuals keep up to date with their own literature as well as that produced in the North – interview in Mexico City, April 2005. See Bartra (1996 Bartra, R. 1996. Las Redes Imaginarias del Poder Político, Mexico City: Editorial Oceano de Mexico. [Google Scholar]) for related discussion. 9. For an excellent critical review of these three international financial institutions see Peet (2009 Peet, R. 2009. Unholy Trinity, London: Zed Books. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]).

The contribution of radical Western Cape intellectuals to an indigenous knowledge project in South Africa

This paper examines the writings of Cape Town intellectuals Ben Kies and Neville Alexander to pose the question about the possibility of an emergence of an indigenous, or to use a term which Australian social theorist Raewyn Connell has recently used, a ‘Southern Theory’ for the social sciences in South Africa. The paper is an early exploration into what the essential and constituent parts of such a theory would consist of and against this attempts to explicate the views of Kies and Alexander in theoretical terms, and it draws on recent biographical work on Alexander. For the purposes of the study within which the paper is located, delineating these views and representing them in a closer theoretical exposition is an important first step.

The Return of the Decolonized: The Legacies of Leopoldo Zea's Philosophy of History for Comparative American Studies

Leopoldo Zea's philosophy of history constitutes a cogent interrogation of the colonial legacy in Mexico and thus also serves to demonstrate the importance of Latin America as a site of theoretical enunciation. This essay addresses Zea's early work on Mexico and his “Discourse on Margination and Barbarism,” putting them in dialogue with Gloria Anzaldúa's more recent theoretical engagement of border culture in order to assess their value as models for what Raewyn Connell calls “Southern theory.” This essay concludes with a discussion of several theorists who present models of comparative American studies compatible with the Southern theory discussed in the previous pages.

Centenary Paper: The poor and the land: poverty, property, planning

Here is a story from the roadside. A woman, accompanied by two children, is squatting on the sidewalk of a busy Gulshan street in Dhaka, Bangladesh (Figure 1). One child is a toddler, the other a little boy. The woman, while cleaning up the toddler, makes the most of a lamppost's shadow to protect the children from glaring sunlight. The group crouches on a piece of cloth or paper spread out on the pavement in front of a painted wall. The wall marks the boundary between private land and the public street. Since the woman and the children are poor, the commons are essential for their land use practices, even if the roadside offers little comfort to them. The behaviour of humans in deprived and desperate circumstances shapes the spatiality of poverty. Bangladesh, with a Human Development Index (HDI) of 0.547, ranks 140 in a HDI country list of 177 (UNDP, 2007, 231). In 2005, the HDI average for OECD countries was 0.916; for the UK it was 0.946 (rank 16), for Germany 0.935 (rank 22), and for Sierra Leone 0.336 (rank 177). The HDI considers several indices: life expectancy at birth, the adult literacy rate, the combined gross enrolment ratio for primary, secondary and tertiary education, and gross domestic product per capita (UNDP, 2007, 229-32). How does our ability to measure poverty actually improve the lives of the poor? Meanwhile, the unnoticed woman carries on with her business. In Bangladesh, the poor are considered invisible by the elite and do not demand profound political changes (Hossain and Moore, 2005). Here is another story from the roadside. Travellers who have checked in at Vienna International Airport can feast their eyes on a luxurious spectacle of caviar. Figure 2 shows four cases of caviar. Each has a prominent price tag. The price of each case - containing a little over 400 grammes of caviar - exceeds Bangladesh's GDP per capita ($2.05 in 2005). Caviar boutiques invite high-end consumers. Retailing, which relies on passengers' impulsive shopping behaviour, has grown into many an airport's main business. The behaviour of humans in an affluent and already highly satiated state shapes the spatiality of wealth. International airports, once used for transition only, today have more shops and conference rooms than arrival and departure gates. To avoid the consequences of the economic crisis, luxury brands seek 'new modesty' and 'sustainable luxury' (Kahn, 2009, 12). Caviar retailers, however, still promote their products among travellers, who, after all, are credit cards on feet. The spatiality of poverty and wealth is grounded in plural perceptions of land and the social production of land uses by the wealthy and the poor. Figures 1 and 2 help us to perceive land, among other things, as a territory, an economic commodity and an environmental resource. The images invoke land rights, scarcity, value, purity and other qualities of land that planners must not replace with abstract notions of space. The captivating book Southern Theory criticises social theory for its lack of interest in place, material context, and specifically the land Disregarding the land is not just one theoretical choice among others; it emerges as a feature of the ideology of neoliberal society. (Connell, 2007, 196 and 208) Although most spatial planners position themselves as promoters of social and ecological issues, they often neglect the relationship between the poor and the land. Does it suffice to provide space for social housing? Although housing is critical for the poor, the current global discourse on poverty and property is not confined to social housing, but includes the vulnerability of land uses by the poor, informal settlements, the land rights of women, land reform, the contested spaces of urban commons, or new types of ownership for spaces of social exchange. This discourse - including the discussion of sustainable development, poverty reduction, the Millennium Development Goals, or the World Bank's pro-poor land policy - contemplates the poor and the land comprehensively. …

Culture, Society & Masculinities

I am most pleased to introduce The Men's Studies Press's fifth scholarly periodical, entitled Culture, Society & Masculinities. CSM indeed, here lies an ongoing historical project falling securely within the scope of CS&M. How questions of scale relate to theoretical mobility remains a highly interesting topic for discussion as well. Raewyn Connell, one of the leading theorists of as a plural formation, has proposed a macro-sociological appraisal that would have to move beyond what had been the field's ethnographic moment in the 1990s, and proceed with increasingly global topographies of institutions and networks- exemplified by the transnational corporation of late capitalism. Yet globalization, or more broadly the worlding of ideas, narratives and opinions, continues to intrigue sociologists, anthropologists, and economists of gender, thus inviting ongoing dialogue and critique on how it should or may relate to theoretical ambition. Connell's recent work on Southern Theory (2007) in fact caters very well to this question of theoretical plurality, and Connell agrees there is no single formula that accounts for men and globalization (2005, p. 1805). Others including Charlotte Hooper (2000) signal that internationalism necessarily translates to multiple masculinities. To anthropologists, moreover, masculinity pertains to profound as well as subtle variability in how local semantics of gender are thought to coagulate with global political discourses around and about genders. To proceed, then, may require an enduring attempt to map theory formation and mundane identity practices onto each other, to see at what scale both may (and perhaps: should) operate. That is to say, querying will refer as much to theories of culture as to cultures of theory. Rather than assuming that universal theories can be translated across different cultures, we need to appreciate within a globalised world that we must engage with cultural, religious and spiritual traditions, writes Victor Seidler (2006, p. …

Southern theory: The global dynamics of knowledge in social science ‐ by R. Connell

Southern theory: The global dynamics of knowledge in social science ‐ by R. Connell

The South in Southern Theory: Antipodean Reflections on the Pacific

A Reading of Southern Theory In her recent book, Southern Theory, Raewyn Connell has challenged the domination of social theory by those in the metropoles of Europe and North America. She argues that this has entailed a view of the world from the skewed, minority perspective of the educated and the affluent, whose views are then perpetuated globally in educational curricula. The South appears in such global theories primarily as a source of data for Northern theorists rather than as sites of knowing and self-conscious social reflection, places where important social theories are also developed. Through a survey of nineteenth and twentieth-century ‘Southern theory’ from Latin America, Iran, Africa, India and Indigenous Australia, Connell aspires to restore the fullness of the world to social science, to include its many voices in a more democratic global conversation.

How Can a "Southern Theory" Perspective Contribute to New Zealand Counselling?

Raewyn Connell's new text, Southern Theory, is described here as a background perspective for counselling teaching and practice. The first half of the article explores the idea of southern theory and New Zealand culture, seeing parallels to it in the relation between Māori and non-Māori New Zealanders. Several points are then raised about perspective in general, suggesting that a southern perspective helps inspect truth claims of counselling concepts and practices. The second half of the discussion is framed around what Connell sees as four key assumptions that northern theorymakes about the world which adversely affect southern societies like New Zealand. The southern challenge to these assumptions is linked to counselling in this country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of New Zealand Journal of Counselling is the property of New Zealand Association of Counsellors and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)