For a postcolonial sociology Author(s): Julian Go Source: Theory and Society , January 2013, Vol. 42, No. 1 (January 2013), pp. 25-55 Published by: Springer Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23362893 JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Theory and Society This content downloaded from 94.8.206.247 on Mon, 29 Nov 2021 17:48:24 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Theor Soc (2013) 42:25-55 DOI 10.1007/s 11186-012-9184-6 For a postcolonial sociology Julian Go Published online: 29 October 2012 © Springer Seience+Business Media Dordrecht 2012 Abstract Postcolonial theory has enjoyed wide influence in the humanities but it has left sociology comparatively unscathed. Does this mean that postcolonial theory is not relevant to sociology? Focusing upon social theory and historical sociology in particular, this article considers if and how postcolonial theory in the humanities might be imported into North American sociology. It argues that postcolonial theory offers a substantial critique of sociology because it alerts us to sociology's tendency to analytically bifurcate social relations. The article also suggests that a postcolonial sociology can overcome these problems by incorporating relational social theories to give new accounts of modernity. Rather than simply studying non-Western postco lonial societies or only examining colonialism, this approach insists upon the inter actional constitution of social units, processes, and practices across space. To illustrate, the article draws upon relational theories (actor-network theory and field theory) to offer postcolonial accounts of two conventional research areas in historical sociology: the industrial revolution in England and the French Revolution. Keywords Eurocentrism • Historical sociology • Relationalism • Actor-network • Field theory In 1995, Russell Jacoby wrote that the term "postcolonial" had become "the latest catchall term to dazzle the academic mind" (Jacoby 1995). No doubt, "postcolonial theory" (aka "postcolonial studies") has been a major intellectual trend in the humanities in the United States. Driven by theorists such as Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha (just to name a few early proponents), postcolonial theory since the late 1980s has "taken its place with theories such as poststructuralism, psychoanalysis and feminism as a major critical discourse in the humanities" (Gandhi 1998: viii). The same could be said for its influence in adjacent disciplines like history or anthropology (e.g., Loomba et al. 2006). Not so for sociology. On the one hand, postcolonial theory has recently had some influence on sociology in Europe and elsewhere in the world (e.g., Bhambra 2007a; Gutiérrez Rodriguez et al. 2010; Kempel and Mawani 2009). And postcolonial J. Go (El) Department of Sociology, Boston University, 96 Cummington Street, Boston, MA 02215, USA e-mail: juliango@bu.edu £) Springer This content downloaded from 94.8.206.247 on Mon, 29 Nov 2021 17:48:24 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 26 Thcor Soc (2013) 42:25-55 themes have recently surfaced in the form of "indigenous" or "Southern" sociologies (Akiwowo 1986; Alatas 2006a; Connell 2007; Keim 2011; Patel 2010), in new interest in thinkers such as W.E.B. DuBois (e.g., Morris 2007), and in new historical sociologies of empire and colonialism (Go 2009, 2011a). But North American sociology has yet to engage directly the sort of postcolonial theory that has had such a profound influence in humanities. For example, Homi Bhabha, one of the more popular postcolonial theorists in the humanities, is referred to at least 50 times in the main humanities journal The Modern Language Review (from 1980 to 2007) but only twice in the American Sociological Review (and one of those references is from a study of intellectuals). Even the New York Times paid more attention to Bhabha than the ASR, referring to him at least 11 times since 1980. Bhabha may not be the best reference point for assessing postcolonial theory's influence in sociology, given his controversial and murky writing style. But other information is telling. Edward Said is considered one of the founders of postcolonial studies and his writing is much more accessible than Homi Bhabha. But as Steven Seidman notes, "[Edward] Said has had, sad to say, little influence in sociology" (1996, 315). While Seidman registered this claim some years ago, citation numbers reveal its persistent validity. The number of references in the two major sociology journals to Said's founding postcolonial work Orientalism are dwarfed by the number of references in the Modern Language Review and the American Historical Review. The same goes for references to the phrase "postcolonial theory" or "postcolonial studies" or "postcolonialism" (see Table 1). Other indicators tell the same story. For example, at the annual meetings of the Modern Language Association (the major professional association for the humani ties), there were at least 100 paper session titles that included the term "postcolonial" from 2004 to 2011. These included sessions titled "Is the Postcolonial South Asian?," "Postcolonial Diasporas," and "Postcolonial Theory and the Pressures of Compari son" and within each session there were three or four papers, meaning that there were at least 300 to 400 papers on postcolonial theory. However, from 2003 to 2011, there were no sessions of the American Sociological Association with the term "postcolo nial" in the title and only 11 paper titles with the term "postcolonial" (early all of which used the term "postcolonial" as a descriptor of a time period rather than a set of theories or distinct intellectual movement)—even as there were 661 papers at the Table 1 Indices of postcolonial studies' influence in major journals across disciplines Literature History Sociology Modem Victorian studies American American journal American language review (1980-2011) historical review of sociology3 sociological review (1980-2007) (1980-2011) (1980-2011) (1980-2011) No. Articles referring to 131 162 270 47 Orientalism by E. Said No. Articles using the phrase 127 86 149 109a "postcolonial theory", "postcolonial studies" or "postcolonial ism" a Majority from book review section Ô Springer This content downloaded from 94.8.206.247 on Mon, 29 Nov 2021 17:48:24 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Theor Soc (2013) 42:25-55 27 American Sociological Meetings with the term "race" in the title. Similarly, the Modern Language Association's list of "executive committees," which represent "the primary scholarly and professional concerns of the association," shows at least one committee with the term "postcolonial" in it: "Postcolonial Studies in Literature and Culture." The American Sociological Association's parallel committees (aka ASA "sections") have none. Academic job lines are also indicative. From the late 1980s through early 1990s, jobs in the humanities with titles or descriptors that included "postcolonial studies" or "postcolonial literature" became increasingly common (Hasseler and Krebs 2003, p. 94). In contrast, a search of the American Sociological Association's job listings (in the online ASA Job Bank) reveal that while job lines include everything from "comparative-historical" and "race and ethnicity" to "gender" there is nothing for postcolonial studies. It follows that while courses on "postcolonialism," "postcolonial literature," or "postcolonial theory" could be found in most literature, language, and history departments, parallel courses in sociology are relatively absent.1 None of the five best-selling introductory textbooks in sociology have sections on postcolonialism or have postcolonialism or postcolonial theory in their indices (even though they have entries on "postmodernism"). None lists Edward Said's Orientalism in their bibliog raphy or include Edward Said in their indices; nor do they include other postcolonial thinkers like Homi Bhabha or Frantz Fanon.2 Texts and readers on contemporary theory, which would seem the natural candidates for discussions of postcolonial theory, are also lacking. The best-selling top five contemporary theory readers devote lengthy separate sections to "Feminist Theory," "Postmodern Theory," or "The Body" but they have no comparable sections on postcolonial theories and thinkers.3 In short, Jacoby's (1995) claim that the term "postcolonial" had become "the latest catchall term to dazzle the academic mind" cannot be said to apply to sociology. Sociology's relative indifference to postcolonial theory in the humanities is prob ably unsurprising. Sociology is under no obligation to follow trends in other disci plines. More importantly, some have suggested that sociology and postcolonial theory are essentially incompatible; and postcolonial theory in fact contains a strong critique of sociology (Seth 2009). Still, there are elements to postcolonial theory that would make it a potentially fruitful area for sociologists to mine. Postcolonial theory addresses matters such as colonialism, race and ethnicity, identity, inequality, and global structures just as sociology does. Furthermore, a large part of postcolonial 1 A simple google search of "postcolonial theory" and "syllabus" shows a huge number of literature courses. Alternatively, this author has only found two sociology courses in the U.S. devoted to postcolonial theory. 2 The American Sociological Association does not have data on best selling introductory textbooks. I used the best-selling lists from Amazon.com. The textbooks I consulted are Conley (2008), Henslin (2009), Macionis (2008), Schaeffer (2011 ), Ferris and Stein (2009), and for comparison Giddens et al. (2011 ). 3 Top five best sellers are from Amazon.com's sales rankings. They are Calhoun et al. (2007), Ritzer (2009), Applerouth and Edles (2007), Allan (2010) and Johnson (2010). One exception (Applerouth and Edles 2007) includes E. Said and G. Spivak, but this is not a separate section on postcolonial theory; rather just a subsection of the section on "The Global Society," which is about globalization and includes Wallerstein and Sklair (Applerouth and Edles 2007). I have found one book, Seidman and Alexander's New Social Theory Reader (2008), that has a brief section on "postcoloniality." But this is not a best-seller nor is it a standard textbook on sociological theory; its purpose is explicitly to cover niche areas of social theory such as "performativity" and "biopolitics." Springer This content downloaded from 94.8.206.247 on Mon, 29 Nov 2021 17:48:24 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 28 Theor Soc (2013) 42:25-55 theory has been aimed at assessing, rethinking, and analytically reconstructing the historical formation and dilemmas of modernity. Sociology was founded upon the same goal. As Adams et al. (2005) poignantly remind us, one of the questions driving sociology has long been: "How did societies come to be recognizably 'modern'?" (Adams et al. 2005, p. 3). Given such commonalities, perhaps sociology and post colonial theory might productively interact. Building upon recent calls for a postcolonial sociology from Bhambra (2007a) and Magubane (2005), the goal of this article is to see what postcolonial theory might have to say for sociology. As noted, some scholars outside of the United States have already been influenced by postcolonial themes. But as indicated in the information given above, few if any direct dialogues between postcolonial theory in the human ities and sociology can be found.4 So what exactly is postcolonial theory and how might it be relevant for sociology? And how might sociologists interested in taking up the postcolonial challenge do so effectively? As it is difficult if not impossible in the space of a single article to speak of "sociology" in its entirety, the discussion here focuses upon social theory and historical sociology in particular in the United States. Historical sociology is of special relevance because it is one of the more likely candidates in sociology for engaging postcolonial theory. Historical sociology has been long interested in "how people and societies became modern or not—what it was that changed in the series of the 'great transformations' and how these manifold processes are continuing to reshape the contemporary world" (Adams et al. 2005, p. 2); and this is one of the issues that postcolonial theory also takes up. So how might postcolonial theory be relevant for historical sociology's longstanding interest in these and related issues? Furthermore, a new literature has begun to reinvestigate questions of colonialism and empire (Go 2009), which would seem to make historical sociology even more amenable to postcolonial theory. But does this new work meet the challenge posed by postcolonial theory? I argue that while a certain strand of postcolonial theory sees sociology and postcolonial studies as fundamentally incompatible, this claim about incompatibility is untenable and other elements of postcolonial theory have direct relevance. Specif ically, I argue that postcolonial theory offers a powerful critique of sociology, helping us recognize sociology's tendencies towards analytic bifurcation. I further suggest that a postcolonial sociology can overcome these problems by incorporating rela tional theories to give new postcolonial accounts of modernity. This sort of postco lonial sociology does not entail only studying non-Western societies, postcolonial social formations, or imperialism and colonialism but rather insists upon an over arching theoretical approach and ontology that emphasizes the interactional consti tution of social units, processes, and practices across space. The argument concludes with brief examples, using actor-network theory and field theory to show how 4 Calls for postcolonial sociologies have emerged in the European context (Bhambra 2007a; Boatcâ and Costa 2010). Other sociologies informed by postcolonial theory, such as "indigenized" or "Southern" sociologies that I discuss later, have been largely restricted to the non-North American context, finding most relevance, for instance, in journals such as Current Sociology and International Sociology rather than the dominant U.S. journals. As noted, the dominant U.S. journals in sociology have not paid serious attention topostcolonial theory, though one notable exception is the works by Connell (Connell 2006, 1997). ß Springer This content downloaded from 94.8.206.247 on Mon, 29 Nov 2021 17:48:24 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 29 Theor Soc (2013) 42:25-55 relational theories can lead to postcolonial accounts of industrialization in England and the French Revolution. But first, what is postcolonial theory anyway? What is postcolonial theory? The delineation of "postcolonial theory" in this article should be clear: I am interested in postcolonial theory as it has emerged in the humanities (including history) and its influence on sociology in the United States.5 Alternative genealogies can be traced, such as the indigenous sociology schools (see Alatas 1974, 2006a) or critical race studies in England (e.g., Gilroy 1993). These are discussed below. However, the goal of the present article is to consider postcolonial theory in the humanities. This is of primary interest here partly because, as I discuss below, postcolonial theory in the humanities articulates a strong critique of sociology but as yet few sociologists have responded (cf. McLennan 2003). Thus, presumably, postcolonial theory remains something for humanists with social scientists remaining the passive targets of critique. The goal of this article is to take up this particular challenge posed by cross-disciplinary interaction. So what exactly is postcolonial theory? While it is difficult to boil it down to simple terms, postcolonial theory/postcolonial studies as it emerged in the humanities can be defined as a loosely coherent body of writing and thought that critiques and aims to transcend the structures supportive of Western colonialism and its legacies. The structures targeted by postcolonial theory are economic and political structures, which is where postcolonial theory shares ground with Marxist theories of depen dency and the world-system. But one of postcolonial theory's distinct contributions is to emphasize cultural, ideological, epistemic, or even psychological structures (Gandhi 1998; Go 2006; Young 1990; Young 2001, pp. 337-426). The work of two theorists considered to be among the founders of postcolonial studies, Frantz Fanon and Edward Said, exemplify this innovation. Fanon's innova tion was to highlight the cultural and psychological dimensions of colonialism. He was particularly interested in the virulent racism of colonialism, racism's psycholog ical impact upon colonized peoples and colonizing agents, and the mutual constitu tion of the colonizer and colonized (Fanon 1965, 1967[1952], 1968 [1961]). In this way Fanon, joining others like Memmi (1965) and Mannoni (1964), brought ques tions of culture and identity to the table. Years later, Edward Said took up the mantle, arguing that Marxist stories of imperialism overlooked "the privileged role of culture in the modern imperial experience" (Said 1993, p. 5). Orientalism accordingly unearthed how epistemic structures representing the Orient (as regressive, static, singular) served to support Western imperialism (Said 1979). Rather than epiphe nomenal or a sideshow to imperialism, binary categories of Orientalist knowledge facilitated and enabled it in the first place. Thus, one of the key elements of postcolonial theory is that it critically discloses the cultural logics attendant with empire. In fact, it examines all types of discourses, epistemes, cultural schémas, 51 therefore follow the lineages and discussions of postcolonial theory by Ashcroft et al. (1995, 2002), Gandhi (1998), Loomba (1998), Williams and Chrisman (1994) and Young (2003) among others. Ô Springer This content downloaded from 94.8.206.247 on Mon, 29 Nov 2021 17:48:24 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Theor Soc (2013) 42:25-55 30 representations, and ideologies that were part and parcel of Western imperialism— whether embodied in everyday discourse, novels, works of art, scientific tracts, or ethnographies. In this sense, postcolonial theory mounts an assault upon the entire culture of western global dominance—or as Edward Said puts it in a different context, upon all the "impressive ideological formations" and "forms of knowledge affiliated with [colonial domination]" (Said 1993, p. 9). Postcolonial theory's emphasis upon culture, knowledge, and representation par tially explains postcolonial theory's growth within the humanities. If imperialism is also about culture, then cultural expertise is necessary for critiquing it. It also puts postcolonial theory in dialogue with the poststructuralist and postmodern turns. Said's Orientalism famously owes its origins to Foucault's theory of discourse and power/knowledge. Other sectors of postcolonial studies share the postmodern critique of the Enlightenment and its grand narratives, totalizing schémas, and identitarian thinking. Just as Lyotard's critique of grand narratives worries about Western knowl edge's universalizing gestures—or "overcoming" {dépassement)—at the expense of particularity, so does postcolonial studies "join postmodernism in an attempt to analyse and to resist this dépassement" (Gandhi 1998, p. 41). Postcolonial studies of colonial discourse (typically known as "colonial discourse analysis") critique the essentializing representations in colonizers' imaginations and speech but also treat this critique not as a "specialized activity only for minorities or for historians of imperialism and colonialism" but rather as a starting point for questioning all of "Western knowledge's categories and assumptions" (Young 1990, p. 11). As Young puts it, postcolonial studies joins in the postmodern claim "that all knowledge may be variously contaminated, implicated in its very formal or 'objective' structures" (Young 1990, p. 11). The work of Homi Bhabha most clearly represents this strand. Drawing from Derrida and deconstruction as much as Foucault, Bhabha's analyses of colonial discourse imply that colonial knowledge is merely an instance of Enlightenment rationalism more broadly. As postmodern thought criticizes the Habermasian belief in Reason because "any universal or normative postulation of rational unanimity is totalitarian and hostile to the challenges of otherness and difference"(Gandhi 1998, p. 27), Bhabha similarly suggests that all types of "knowing" are essentializing and dangerously universalizing (Bhabha 1994). Enter the other important aspect of postcolonial theory/studies: while it takes aim at imperial knowledge and colonialism's multidimensional structures, it is motivated by present concerns (Gandhi 1998, p. 4; Gilbert and Tompkins 1996, p. 4; Venn 2006, p. 3). From the perspective of postcolonial theory, the political decolonization of Asia and Africa in the twentieth century or in other parts of the world was a monumental disappointment. It did not bring equality between metropolitan and ex-colonial countries; nor did it bring a decolonization of consciousness or culture. "We live," says Gayatri Spivak, "in a post-colonial neo-colonized world" (Spivak and Harasym 1990, p. 166) This means that the cultures of imperialism persist into the present period. And they contribute to and help sustain global inequalities between the global South and North. Postcolonial theory here finds motivation. As the cultures of imperialism persist, new and different sorts of knowledge must be produced to help decolonize con sciousness. Postcolonial theory grapples with colonialism's legacies and seeks £) Springer This content downloaded from 94.8.206.247 on Mon, 29 Nov 2021 17:48:24 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Thcor Soc (2013) 42:25-55 31 alternative representations or knowledge that do not fall prey to colonialist knowl edge's misrepresentations and epistemic violence. This is why it is labeled post colonial theory: it seeks theories (knowledges), ways of representing the world, and histories that critique rather than authorize or sustain imperialistic ways of knowing. Postcolonial theory seeks to elaborate "theoretical structures that contest the previous dominant western ways of seeing things" (Young 2003, p. 4). This is also why postcolonial theory in the humanities has resonance with and parallels critiques of Eurocentrism in the social sciences (e.g., Amin 1989; Wallerstein 1997) and attempts to formulate "indigenous" social science knowledges that transcend the "captive mind" created by Western domination (Alatas 1974, 2006a; Connell 2006; Patel 2010, 2011; Sitas 2006). How, then, does postcolonial theory in the humanities contest the "dominant western ways"? One strategy has been to follow Said's Orientalism and critique colonial discourse and knowledge. Thus arises the emphasis in postcolonial studies on analyzing "colonial discourse" (Parry 1987; Williams and Chrisman 1994). But other analytic strategies can also be found. In literary studies, initial attempts took the form of "Commonwealth Studies," referring to the study and promotion of literary texts from the Caribbean or Africa to highlight non-Western voices and perspectives (Ashcroft et al. 2002). Other strands of postcolonial research involve critical readings of canonical Western texts to reveal how imperialism or colonialism serves as the silent backdrop or enabling condition for the narrative. Spivak's (1986) search for the hidden imperialist assumptions and meanings in Jane Austen novels and Edward Said's (1993) studies of various British novels are exemplary. The implication is critical: modernity is constituted through colonialism but Eurocentric knowledge represses or hides modernity's imperial constitution, reserving modernity instead for westerners. Finally, postcolonial scholars have offered new critical concepts meant to desta bilize the assumptions of western imperial culture or disclose the limits of the imperial episteme. Bhabha's theoretical musings and readings of the colonial archive celebrates ambiguity, liminality, or "hybridity" which, according to Bhabha, unsettles the categorical binaries typical of colonial discourse and Western rationalism (Bhabha 1994). While imperial discourse aimed to "know" a foreign culture in order to dominate it, Bhabha's postcolonial theory aims to recognize and to deploy the "insurmountable ambivalence" in any such representational apparatus (Bhabha 1994, pp., 154-157; McLennan 2003m pp. 73-75). Similarly, Dipesh Chakrabarty calls for histories that "provincialize Europe." This does not just mean a critique of Eurocentrism in historiography; it also means showing the limits of universal cate gories by which history itself is represented. Provincializing Europe means decenter ing Europe: showing how Europe has come to be taken as universal while disclosing how un-universal—indeed provincial—that history is (Chakrabarty 2000). Other postcolonial theorists have drawn upon Fanon and related thinkers for insights into the colonial mentality and how colonizer and colonized were mutually influenced by the colonial encounter ( Hall 1996b, p. 246; see also in anthropology Comaroff and Comaroff 1997; Staler 1992, 1995). One of the theoretical strands arising from the work of Fanon and Said, for instance, is the anti-essentialist notion that identities are constructed dialogically (in Bakhtin's sense) or dialectically (in the Hegelian-Marxist sense) (Bakhtin 1981). Various postcolonial scholars, working in Ô Springer This content downloaded from 94.8.206.247 on Mon, 29 Nov 2021 17:48:24 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms 32 Thcor Soc (2013) 42:25-55 literature, anthropology, or history thereby aim to show how "Europe" or the iden tities of western agents have been shaped in and by their relations with colonized and non-European peoples. While pretending not to, Orientalist discourse constructs the Occident as much as it does the Orient. The fact that non-western colonized peoples have helped to constitute the history of the West and indeed of modernity therefore needs to be reintegrated into our histories and narratives. As the historian Catherine Hall summarizes, postcolonial scholarship seeks to demonstrate that "the political and institutional histories of 'the centre' and its outer circles [are] more mutually consti tuted than we think" (Hall 1996a quoted in Magubane 2005, p. 101; see also Magubane 2004). In these and various other ways, postcolonial theory aims to produce new histories, narratives, and knowledges and thereby "shift the dominant ways in which the relations between western and non-western people and their worlds are viewed" (Young 2003, p. 2). The postcolonial critique of sociology What does any of this mean for sociology? Not all postcolonial theorists have failed to discuss the discipline of sociology. Edward Said (1989) levels a criticism of Bourdieu, but beyond that most postcolonial scholars have discussed social science at a more general level (Chakrabarty 1997; Seth 2009). Others have leveled criticisms of sociology that align with the postcolonial critique, even as this scholarship might not always go under the label of postcolonial theory. Some of it, for example, takes aim at Eurocentrism (Alatas 2006a; Amin 1989; Connell 2006). From this wider body of work I suggest that postcolonial theory does in fact contain a critique of sociology. Specifically, it helps to disclose sociology's Orientalism, Eurocentric universalism, imperial repression, and Enlightenment scientism. The first three of these issues I call metrocentrism. Later I add a final critique of sociology's analytic bifurcations. The first issue is sociology's Orientalism, typified in much of classical sociology. Postcolonial theory helps alert us to the fact that Marx, Weber, and Dürkheim—far from simply providing neutral observations on society—effectually portrayed non Western societies in their theories as homogeneous essences, blanketing over "inter group complexity and differences" and transforming the non-West into a "generalized 'other'" (Chua 2008, p. 1183; Connell 1997). They likewise portrayed non-Western societies as static and backwards, hence reserving dynamism, social creativity, energy, and enlightenment for European societies alone - e.g., the common term Weber used to describe India is "absence" (Magubane 2005, p. 94; Thapar 1980; Zimmerman 2006). Classical sociology has also carried the marks of Eurocentric universalism. Early theories posited a presumably universal template of development and theoretical categories based upon Europe's experience; these templates and categories in turn reduced cultural difference to temporal difference and presupposed the superiority of the western experience (Bhambra 2007b; Connell 2007; Magubane 2005). Sociology achieves this while implying that the particular European experi ence upon which it is based is not in fact particular (Alatas 2006a; Bhambra 2007b). Postcolonial theory's ambivalent relationship with Marxism is informative here. While some postcolonial theorists often draw from Marxist thought and sometimes lean upon its critique of imperialism's economic practices and impact, most are
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