The Possibilities of, and for, Global Sociology: A Postcolonial Perspective

Abstract

This article addresses the way in which perceptions about the globalized nature of the world in which we live are beginning to have an impact within sociology such that sociology has to engage not just with the changing conceptual architecture of globalization, but also with recognition of the epistemological value and agency of the world beyond the West. I address three main developments within sociology that focus on these concerns: first, the shift to a multiple modernities paradigm; second, a call for a multicultural global sociology; and third, an argument in favor of a global cosmopolitan approach. While the three approaches under discussion are based on a consideration of the “rest of the world,” their terms, I suggest, are not adequate to the avowed intentions. None of these responses is sufficient in their address of earlier omissions and each falls back into the problems of the mainstream position that is otherwise being criticized. In contrast, I argue that it is only by acknowledging the significance of the “colonial global” in the constitution of sociology that it is possible to understand and address the necessarily postcolonial (and decolonial) present of “global sociology.”

Citation

Bhambra, G.K. (2013), "The Possibilities of, and for, Global Sociology: A Postcolonial Perspective", Go, J. (Ed.) Postcolonial Sociology (Political Power and Social Theory, Vol. 24), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 295-314. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0198-8719(2013)0000024017