Sociology and post-colonialism

another "missing" revolution?

Bhambra

pp. 125-140

in: Judith Burnett, Syd Jeffers, Graham Thomas (eds), New social connections, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010

Abstract

Sociology is usually represented as having emerged alongside European modernity. The latter is frequently understood as sociology's special object with sociology itself a distinctively modern form of explanation. The period of sociology's disciplinary formation was also the heyday of European colonialism, yet the colonial relationship did not figure in the development of sociological understandings. While the recent emergence of post-colonialism appears to have initiated a reconsideration of understandings of modernity, with the development of theories of multiple modernities, I suggest, however, that this engagement is more an attempt at recuperating the transformative aspect of post-colonialism than engaging with its critiques. In setting out the challenge of post-colonialism to dominant sociological accounts, I will also address "missing feminist/queer revolutions", suggesting that by engaging with post-colonialism there is the potential to transform sociological understandings by opening up a dialogue beyond the simple pluralism of identity claims.