Essential Concepts in Sociology. Anthony Giddens

Continuing Relevance

      Following the emergence of postmodern theorizing of an end to modernity, there have been reassessments of the concept. Some sociologists argue that we are entering a period not of postmodernity but of ‘late’ or ‘reflexive’ modernity (Giddens 1990). Rather than this sounding the death knell for modernity, it means revealing and facing up to its negative aspects, such as environmental damage, which make social life much less certain as both the previous faith in science as the way to truth and deference to authorities start to wane (Beck 2009). Jürgen Habermas (1983) argued that postmodern theorists gave up too early on what he saw as the ambitious project of modernity. Many of its essential features are only partially complete and need to be deepened rather than abandoned. There is much still to do in relation to ensuring meaningful democratic participation, equalizing life chances across the social classes, creating genuine gender equality, and so on. In sum, modernity is an unfinished project that deserves to be pursued, not allowed to wither away.

      A more recent body of developing work is based on the notion of ‘multiple modernities’ – a critique of the illegitimate conflation of modernization with Westernization (Eisenstadt 2002). This idea counters the earlier assumption of a single, linear route to modernity and a standardized, uniform version based on Western societies. Empirical studies of modernity around the world suggest that this is wrong. In fact, there have been numerous diverse routes to modernity (Wagner 2012). Japanese modernity is markedly different from the American version, and it seems likely that the developing Chinese model will be different again. Some modernities, even that in the USA, have not become as secular as forecast but remain staunchly religious in character, while at the same time embracing industrialism and continuous technological development. Others, such as the Saudi Arabian version, are not only explicitly religious but also selective in relation to what they take from Western forms before adding their own unique aspects. The multiple modernities agenda seems likely to produce more realistic evaluations that may reinvigorate the concept into the future.

       References and Further Reading

      Bauman, Z. (1987) Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Postmodernity and Intellectuals (Cambridge: Polity).

      Beck, U. (2009) World at Risk (Cambridge: Polity).

      Bhambra, G. (2007) Rethinking Modernity: Postcolonialism and the Sociological Imagination (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan).

      Eisenstadt, S. N. (2002) ‘Multiple Modernities’, in S. N. Eisenstadt (ed.), Multiple Modernities (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction), pp. 1–30.

      Giddens, A. (1990) The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity).

      Habermas, J. (1983) ‘Modernity – an Incomplete Project’, in H. Foster (ed.), The Anti-Aesthetic (Port Townsend, WA: Bay Press), pp. 3–15.

      Rostow, W. W. (1961) The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

Wagner, P. (2012) Modernity: Understanding the Present (Cambridge: Polity).

      Williams, R. (1987) Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (London: Fontana).

Postcolonialism

       Working Definition

      A political and intellectual movement seeking to better understand the historical and continuing impact of colonial regimes on the world’s societies and the global production of knowledge. In sociology, postcolonial theorists seek to ‘decolonize’ the discipline, which remains dominated by Western scholars and institutions.

       Origins of the Concept

      The development of sociology from its inception has been largely focused on the period of modernity as this emerged and developed in Western Europe and North America, later impacting on the rest of the world. Western modernization theory argued that all countries would develop economically, though at different rates and times. Marxist critics argued that ‘underdevelopment’ was a policy pursued by colonial regimes which systematically plundered resources and actively ‘underdeveloped’ the colonized regions and countries.

      Since the 1980s, debates around the colonial period and its legacy have shifted from theories of economic underdevelopment to the broader concerns of postcolonialism. This is a growing intellectual movement that is highly critical of sociology’s Eurocentrism, theoretical sidelining of the significance of colonialism and a lack of scholarly voices from the Global South (Bhambra 2014a). Postcolonial ideas can be traced back to the early twentieth century, but the origins of the emerging postcolonial intellectual movement lie in the 1980s and 1990s.

      Bhambra (2014b) argues that contemporary postcolonialism owes much to debates around the work of Homi Bhabha (1994) on alternative cultural traditions disrupting the Western narrative of modernity, Gayatri Spivak (1988) on the historical development of dominant discourses and Edward Said (1978) on power relations and knowledge production. Said’s (1978) work on the discourse of ‘orientalism’ is often cited as a foundational work of postcolonial theory.

Many Western academics in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries discussed ‘the Orient’ or ‘the East’ in their studies of the Middle East, Africa and Asia, contrasting this with the Western Occident. Said argues that this contrast was hardly ever drawn in a neutral way. Instead, the Orient was exoticized and presented as the ‘other’ set against the normal and superior (Western) Occident. The persistence of this discourse was facilitated by the exclusion of scholarly accounts from academics based outside the West. Hence, the apparent cultural differences between East and West came to be seen as a key part of the explanation for Western global economic, industrial and military dominance. In sum, orientalism played a crucial ideological role in legitimizing many brutal colonial regimes.

       Meaning and Interpretation

      The state policy of colonialism, adopted by Western states between the seventeenth and mid-twentieth century, had profound consequences for global development that continued long after colonies regained their independence. Some, such as Haiti and former Spanish colonies in South America, became independent countries in the early nineteenth century. Others, including India, Malaysia, Singapore, Kenya, Nigeria and Algeria, achieved independence much later, some well into the second half of the twentieth century. But the impact of colonialism left newly independent countries with severe economic disadvantage and political problems.

      Postcolonial theorists argue that the damaging, wide-ranging and long-lasting impacts of colonialism are not routinely embedded within or even acknowledged by conventional sociological theories. Colonialism was not a time-limited episode that sociological theories of contemporary life can ignore, but was a crucial factor in shaping the world’s power relations and continues to blight former colonies today. Unless sociologists acknowledge this, then their accounts of global inequality and globalization processes, for example, will not be valid.

      Connell (2018) argues that European sociology developed with very little, if any, input from Global South scholars, which generated a Eurocentric and partial standpoint rooted in the experience of the Global North. This is one reason why the discipline’s founders, its main theoretical perspectives and empirical research base have long reflected the situation in the more powerful nation states. Postcolonial scholars argue that we need a thoroughgoing ‘decolonization’, not just of sociology but of all academic disciplines.

      Postcolonial theorists also seek to introduce the past and present work of scholars based in the Global South into sociology to broaden its worldview. For example, Go (2016) argues for a ‘Southern standpoint’ strategy for sociology, which means doing ‘social science from below’, focusing on the experiences, concerns and categories of those at the bottom of the global hierarchy.