Читать книгу Essential Concepts in Sociology - Anthony Giddens - Страница 28

Unlike many other concepts in this book, the ‘postcolonial turn’ (Olukoshi and Nyamnjoh 2011) is relatively recent and is still developing in sociology. As a result, it is too early to say with any certainty exactly how the engagement between sociology and postcolonialism will develop. What is clear is that the postcolonial intervention has disrupted ‘business as usual’ and that there are many insightful studies emerging from within this perspective, particularly on what ‘decolonizing sociology’ might actually require.

Connell (2018) outlines some key issues and possible solutions. She points out that sociologists working in the Global North tend to read and cite only other Northern scholars and theorists. The discipline is also institutionally based in elite European and North American universities, where high-ranking journals and research funding agencies are focused. Social theory is similarly placed, and many of these theories speak in terms of their application to humanity as such, demonstrating the powerful position of Western sociologists to shape the discipline. A rational choice, then, is for Global South scholars simply to adopt the methods and theories of the more powerful groups and to aim their work at mainstream journals, a strategy Connell calls ‘extraversion’. Yet this extraverted sociology may simply reproduce, not challenge, the existing global division of academic labour.

Addressing McLennan’s criticism above, Connell suggests that, in practice, decolonizing sociology would involve ‘correcting the distortions and exclusions produced by empire and global inequality and reshaping the discipline in a democratic direction on a world scale’ (Connell 2018: 402). A decolonizing project would entail reshaping the curriculum and rewriting textbooks and courses in a more balanced way to include the experience of postcolonial countries. It also demands challenging the established institutional power base, changing the composition of the global sociology workforce and redistributing research funding in more equal ways.