Description
Social scientists have long been resistant to the set of ideas known as "postcolonial thought." Meanwhile, postcolonial scholars have considered social science to be an impoverished discipline that is part of the intellectual problem for postcolonial liberation, not the solution. This divergence is fitting, given that postcolonial thought emerged from the anticolonial revolutions of the twentieth century and has since become an enterprise in the academic humanities, while social theory was born as an intellectual justification for empire and has since been institutionalized in social science. Given such divisions - and at times direct opposition - is it possible to reconcile the two? Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory explores the divergences and generative convergences between these two distinct bodies of thought. It asks how the intellectually insurrectionary ideas of postcolonial thinkers, such as Franz Fanon, Amilcar Cabral, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak, among others, pose a radical epistemic challenge to social theory. It charts the different ways in which social theory might be refashioned to meet the challenge and excavates the often hidden sociological assumptions of postcolonial thought. While various scholars suggest that postcolonial thought and social science are incompatible, this book illuminates how they are mutually beneficial, and argues for a third wave of postcolonial thought emerging from social science but also surmounting the narrow confines of disciplinary boundaries.
About the Author
Julian Go is Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate in Asian Studies at Boston University. He has held Visiting Fellowships and Professorships at the London School of Economics, Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, University of Lucerne in Switzerland, and the Third World Studies Center in the Philippines. His previous books on the US empire have won prizes from the American Sociological Association, the International Studies Association, and the American Political Science Association.
Reviews
"Go's main thesis is that the social sciences could and should be transformed by an encounter with postcolonial theory... wondering whether postmodernism was worth all the fuss, Go's book leaves us in no doubt as to the value of postcolonial thought for social theory... sociologists would do well to consider Go's important and provocative book." -- Joel Isaac, European Journal of Sociology "A revolution is coming in social theory, and here is one of its prophets. Julian Go's scholarly and vigorous argument shows why the global-North hegemony in social science can't survive. Even better, he shows how the bases of social science can change, with an epistemology that is realist without being dogmatic, multiple without being fragmented. Everyone concerned with the future of social thought will learn from this book." -Raewyn Connell, author of Southern Theory and Gender in World Perspective' "If ideas are shaped by social environments then the imperial culture in which American sociology was born and flourished has left its imprint on the discipline. In this wonderful, erudite, accessible, and deeply sociological look at sociology, Julian Go shows us the analytic misrecognitions wrought by its refusal to incorporate the structuring forces of colonialism into the core of its theoretical repertoire. But he does not stop at critique. Rather, he sifts through various strands of postcolonial theory, feminism, and early sociological theorizing of race and empire, to create the possibility of a new, relevant, relational, and genuinely global, sociology."-Raka Ray, Professor of Sociology and South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley "My brief summary cannot adequately capture the clarity of Go's writing, quality of his synthesis, and significance of his theoretical manifesto. Nevertheless, I hope that the wider relevance of Go's book is obvious to readers of Pacific Affairs. In my view, Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory is a key text for scholars seeking to critique the mainstream paradigms of their particular fields and create alternative approaches." --Pacific Affairs
Book Information
ISBN 9780190625146
Author Julian Go
Format Paperback
Page Count 264
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
About the Author
Julian Go is Professor of Sociology and Faculty Affiliate in Asian Studies at Boston University. He has held Visiting Fellowships and Professorships at the London School of Economics, Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, University of Lucerne in Switzerland, and the Third World Studies Center in the Philippines. His previous books on the US empire have won prizes from the American Sociological Association, the International Studies Association, and the American Political Science Association.
Reviews
"Go's main thesis is that the social sciences could and should be transformed by an encounter with postcolonial theory... wondering whether postmodernism was worth all the fuss, Go's book leaves us in no doubt as to the value of postcolonial thought for social theory... sociologists would do well to consider Go's important and provocative book." -- Joel Isaac, European Journal of Sociology "A revolution is coming in social theory, and here is one of its prophets. Julian Go's scholarly and vigorous argument shows why the global-North hegemony in social science can't survive. Even better, he shows how the bases of social science can change, with an epistemology that is realist without being dogmatic, multiple without being fragmented. Everyone concerned with the future of social thought will learn from this book." -Raewyn Connell, author of Southern Theory and Gender in World Perspective' "If ideas are shaped by social environments then the imperial culture in which American sociology was born and flourished has left its imprint on the discipline. In this wonderful, erudite, accessible, and deeply sociological look at sociology, Julian Go shows us the analytic misrecognitions wrought by its refusal to incorporate the structuring forces of colonialism into the core of its theoretical repertoire. But he does not stop at critique. Rather, he sifts through various strands of postcolonial theory, feminism, and early sociological theorizing of race and empire, to create the possibility of a new, relevant, relational, and genuinely global, sociology."-Raka Ray, Professor of Sociology and South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley "My brief summary cannot adequately capture the clarity of Go's writing, quality of his synthesis, and significance of his theoretical manifesto. Nevertheless, I hope that the wider relevance of Go's book is obvious to readers of Pacific Affairs. In my view, Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory is a key text for scholars seeking to critique the mainstream paradigms of their particular fields and create alternative approaches." --Pacific Affairs
Book Information
ISBN 9780190625146
Author Julian Go
Format Paperback
Page Count 264
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
