Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory — Comprehensive Notes
Postcolonial Thought and Social Theory
Social sciences emerged from the Anglo-European metropolitan context and are modeled on the experience of the Anglo-European.
Metrocentrism: the tendency to apply concepts and theories from the metropolitan context to the rest of the world under the assumption of universality.
Social science’s self-classification as a science reflects its Cartesian origins, which proclaimed universal rationality and objectivity.
Social science’s existence rests on its ability to pull the god trick and see everything clearly from above, unhindered by location, place, or physicality.
The key operation of metrocentrism is to cover up social theory with claims to omnipotence, distorted by a Eurocentric perspective.
The transcendence of metrocentrism lies in drawing upon a post-positivist strand, standpoint theory, and indigenous sociology (Southern Theory).
Southern Theory, or indigenous sociology, seeks to overcome Eurocentrism in sociology by excavating native voices from the Global South.
The subaltern standpoint approach combines feminist standpoint theory and perspectival realism and can help craft a particular postcolonial sociology that differs from postcolonial relationalism.
The Subaltern as Standpoint in Postcolonial Sociology Understanding Subaltern Standpoint
A subaltern standpoint is a social position of knowledge rooted in geopolitics and global social hierarchy.
It refers to the social position of peripheral populations within broader relations of power.
It offers an alternative to the metrocentric standpoint of conventional social theory, grounded in the concerns, categories, and contexts of subaltern groups.
Postcolonial Sociology Based on Subaltern Standpoint
The goal of a postcolonial sociology based on a subaltern standpoint is to recover and work from the standpoint of subordinated positions in the imperial forged global hierarchy.
It brings to the fore global imperial relations and conventional social science’s place within it.
It aims to transcend the colonizer’s model of the world by considering the colonized’s model of it.
The Subaltern Standpoint Approach
It can help recover subjugated knowledges, such as those subjugated through the epistemic formation attendant with imperial hierarchy.
It is an entry point for analyzing larger structures or systems, not an end point that obscures them.
A postcolonial social science starting with the subaltern standpoint would approach empirics similarly, starting from the activities, experiences, and perspectives of subaltern groups, but using those standpoints as the basis for scaling the analysis upward.
Perspectival realism: the philosophical basis for standpoint theory and related theories regarding the social situatedness of knowledge.
Middle ground between objective realism and radical constructivism.
Objective realism: there are truths in the world to be discovered and that the truths primarily come in the form of laws.
Constructivism: holds that truths are discursively (i.e., socially) constructed by scientists; before the word planet entered the scientific lexicon, planets did not exist.
Perspective Realism in Science and its Application
Perspective realism is a philosophical basis for standpoint theory and theories on the social situatedness of knowledge.
It is a middle ground between objective realism and radical constructivism.
Perspective realism asserts that truths are the convergence of the physical world and the scientist-observer's perspective.
It suggests that what we see, describe, and think about the world partially depends on the observer and their means of observation.
Examples include color vision, where color is a convergence of perspective and physical properties, and modern astronomy where different observational instruments generate different images of the same thing.
Perspective realism emphasizes that knowledge is perspectival and yet objectively valid.
Maps are also perspectival, aiming at a particular purpose and offering a partial view of the thing or object they represent.
Each map is equally true, but only relative to their purpose and partial.
The Subaltern Standpoint Approach to Social Theory
The Concept of Social Theories
Social theories and concepts are perspectival, offering partial but objective truths.
This aligns with feminist standpoint theory, which emphasizes the social situatedness of knowledge and partial but objective truths.
Our social position influences what we see, not the other way around.
The Subaltern Standpoint Approach
This approach is not purely subjective or devalued, but offers the possibility for a difference that has been suppressed.
It represents a new map of things in the world that we might not have seen before.
It offers the potential for insights into suppressed knowledges worthy of recovery.
New Concerns and Categories
A subaltern standpoint approach can yield entirely new social objects for analysis, grounded in the localities of their inception.
This approach opens up new sociological concerns and facilitates a process of true discovery that yields new concepts or theories.
Examples of Subaltern Standpoint Approaches
Du Bois’s concept of the veil and double consciousness illustrate how a subaltern standpoint approach can lead to new areas of study and concepts.
For example, the study of Australian Aboriginal peoples can reveal the social process of dispossession from the land, a formative and important experience that dominant groups in Australian society have not experienced.
The Social Fact of Dispossession
The social fact of dispossession is an important discovery for a subaltern standpoint approach, as it can form the basis for new theory and research.
The social fact of dispossession can form the basis for new theory and research, leading to the examination of dispossession as a new social object ripe for examination.