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“This origin story inserts intersectionality into a familiar colonial narrative that positions Crenshaw as the intrepid explorer who, because she discovers virgin territory, gets naming rights. Yet from the perspective of the colonized, such colonial narratives also signal power relations of domination that begin with discovery, move on to conquest, and end with ongoing pacification. Identifying intersectionality’s narrative with its moment of academic discovery assigns value to when its explorers brought home something of interest to colonists. Given this context, who gets to tell intersectionality’s story? And what story will they tell?”

Here Collins raises the point that diversity doesn’t equate to a decolonized form of sociology and says that in order to decolonize we must incorporate not just those who “coined” or “colonized” a topic but also the other individuals who contributed to the concept that are less known. Collins’ point was extremely interesting to me as I usually perceive the word colonize as relating to white people’s colonization of sociology but she suggests that colonization is an exclusionary practice that anyone one can partake in. This idea is so prevalent in our society today as individuals are constantly having their work discredited by famous individuals who popularized it. For instance, many of the dances that have gone viral on social media and have been created by black people or many of the colloquialism we attribute to certain starts in the media are just stolen from black communities. This shows the cultural colonization of our society as the general population sits complacent as those at the top of the social hierarchy consistently exploit the oppressed to obtain higher social status. Thus, Collin’s point is very relevant not only in the decolonization of sociology but also in American Society as a whole.

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"However, Reed's (2013) critique does feed into an issue that is recurring in discussions and practices moving towards decolonizing sociology. In particular, those of us working towards a decolonial sociology have to consider what problems arise once we start to construct a decolonial canon in sociology, and whether forming such a canon is either consistent with or desirable from, a decolonial approach"

I like this quote because it highlights the issue of what happens next. Meghji is wondering if we fully decolonize sociology will we see the change that we want. As we move towards a more decolonial society and sociology what issues will still be recurring? Are the problems imposed by our Eurocentric society solved by a more decolonial view of the world or are they already baked into society?

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“Through critiquing, or displacing, a disciplinary cannon, we are able to reshape the whole field. In the case of sociology, reshaping this whole field would allow us to incorporate in it people and systems of thought that would not primarily be allowed access under previous conditions.”

This is interesting to me because it incorporates ideas that we have been talking about in class on what we are centering when we talk about sociology. I think that it is interesting to put this at the end of the book rather than the beginning, because this almost reads as a disclaimer for what the main content is about.

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“In sociology more specifically, scholars calling for indigenous or autonomous sociologies base their whole approach on needing a ‘new’ canon – as we see with Alatas (2010, 2014) calling for an Asian tradition of sociology based on a canon of Rizal and Khaldūn, or Adésínà (2006) calling for a South African tradition of sociology formed around a canon of Steve Biko, Goven Mbeki, Bernard Magubane, Archie Mafeje and Fatima Meer.”

Even within decolonized sociology, Eurocentrism persists. Mehgji argues that current forms of sociology fail to center indigenous perspectives and other marginalized groups. Indigenous groups remain outside of the canon, and the focus remains on European sociologists. Even "progressive forms of sociology contain Eurocentric ideas that further marginalize certain groups. Decolonizing sociology ensures that Indigenous people get the attention they deserve. The obvious solution seems to be designing a new field of sociology. However, many of the people who create more "progressive" sociologies continue pushing Eurocentric narratives. Therefore, indigenous people must have complete authority in making decolonized sociology. That is the only way to eliminate Eurocentric ideas from sociology and give marginalized people a platform to teach their histories.

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me when i remember rad soc ends this week

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"Part of the problem currently in sociology's canon is that we are presented with sets of thinkers, largely divorced from their lived worlds. This is what makes it easy for sociology textbooks and curricula to, for instance, teach Marxism as the sociology of Marx, rather than seeing its connections with anti-colonial thinkers such as Du Bois. It is also this focus on individual theorists that makes it easy to sever the links between canonical thinkers and their decolonial roots - as we saw in the previous chapter with Bourdieu and Foucault. We thus need to deal with the issue of how to instigate any kind of decolonial canon without giving too much primacy to individual theorists, divorced from their connections with lived realities and exchanges with other thinkers."

The ideas Meghji explores in this quote feel very relevant in today's society in that there is a sort of blame and/or responsibility we attempt to place on an individual person, when really it is the product of many. I think society as a whole recognizing its flaws and normativities is essential to decolonization, as much as it is eliminating people who are primary sources of the issue from the limelight.

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"In provincializing the canon, the task for decolonial sociology thus becomes to not just focus on individual thinkers but put them into conversation with wider circulations of ideas. Again, this does not necessitate burning the books of previously canonized authors"

I thought it was interesting how Meghji didn't want to erase the current sociological cannon but instead broaden and redefine the cannon by creating groups of thinkers with similar ideas.

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"These efforts at building a decolonial canon - broadly and within sociology - show a basic fact within academic fields: that canons help us form a 'disciplinary home'. It is through having a canon that an academic field can show what concepts, questions, methods, and theories we value and position ourselves with/against."

There are many arguments stating why the canons created in decolonial sociology are bad and create similar problems as before. However, I think that this is an excellent point about how canons can be useful and are used in many academic fields. Thinking back to what was brought up before in this book I think an idea would be separate canons for different places because as stated before it should not remain with the global north being centered for both the global south and north.

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"A problem then arises when we consider what to do after decentring the dominant canon and beginning to restructure the field. After displacing a canon in our mission of decoloniality, can we instigate a new one without reproducing layers of epistemic inequality? If canons are connected to processes of knowledge valuation and hierarchization, and decoloniality is about fostering horizontal conversations across different traditions, then is the idea of a decolonial canon in sociology contradictory?"

Meghji makes an excellent point here; after so much time has been spent trying to get rid of the sociological canons that affect our view of the world, adding a 'decolonial canon' isn't going to change the situation at all. From what I have gathered from this book, Ali Meghji's idea of a decolonized sociology involves every view and opinion being valued, and no one place being seen as superior. But if instead of trying to make things more equal, you create another canon, that then is just replicating what already exists and what is causing so many problems in sociology today, instead of creating something new.

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"Thus, historically we have already noted the link between Marx and Du Bois, but it is also worthwhile to consider Du Bois’ admiration of Weber, and Weber’s admiration of Du Bois – there are empirical links here that can be teased out in terms of how the holy trinity of sociology are presented. In terms of creativity, building links between theories and theorists is about finding some kind of theoretical or empirical hook that allows us to put certain systems of ideas into conversation with one another – such as putting Gramsci’s concepts of the subaltern and hegemony into conversation with Fanon’s work on colonial violence, to understand life in the postcolony (Salem 2020), orputting Bourdieu’s field theory into conversation with C. L. R. James’ workon colonial insurgency, to understand how a revolution of enslaved people in one part of the world (as with Haiti) was capable of creating shifts across the whole colonial-imperial field" (Meghji 171).

I know Meghji was proposing it as a practice that should be adopted in the future, but it feels a little odd to read pages and pages about how there needs to be a transition away from tying sociologists themselves to their theories, just to have every successive example be a laundry list of sociological name-drops. This is one of a few times when it feels like Meghji is falling victim to the very pitfalls he decries.

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"If we build a new decolonial canon in sociology, do we end up reproducing the focus on individual thinkers rather than flows and systems of decolonial thought and practices?"

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to showcase individualism. Considering that those form the West have had their thoughts and feelings showcased, why not give credit where credit is deserved for those from the East?

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I don't think it's possible to create a sociology without a cannon, but, as opposed to the current cannon, I think there could be a sociological cannon focused on ideas and practices, perhaps their origins too, but not thinkers themselves, that recognizes its unequal position and it's lack of universality. At least I think that approach is a lot easier than trying to get rid of the whole idea of having people or perspectives generally favored in a field. Still, maybe that's what is needed to have a decolonial sociology? Not sure. However, I don't think sociology should be focused on a specific geographical cannon, that seems bad.

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"Many Western responses to the climate crisis revolve around individual consumption habits that end up re-inscribing relations of coloniality: such as switching to electric cars, which largely relies on child labor in places such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, or switching to a plant-based diet, which often relies on near-free labor in the South."

I think this quote shows how different issues affect people depending on their situations. When people in power are doing what they see as best to help a worldwide problem, there are a lot of cases where it ends up negatively affecting others or not truly solving the issue at all. Using Ali Meghji's example, when someone buys an electric car to try to help the climate crisis, are they considering that in the process of making that car, carbon emissions are most likely released from the factories? Or how the environment could be harmed in the process? Although these are issues that affect everyone, some people are hit harder than others, which as Meghji talks about, "is why thinkers such as Wynter (2003) see the climate crisis as a key example of the dominance of 'man' (defined as supra-humans - those seen to belong in the white, Western world)".

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“Such social scientists argue that indigenous people across the world have had to deal with the destruction of their environments by settler colonialists, in the name of capital accumulation, 12 and therefore that they are the best-placed people from whom to learn about how to deal with climate crises. As Franco Cassano (2010: 214) puts it ‘a world suffocated by unlimited growth needs to discover the wisdom of a way of life that does not seek to violate the earth but rather recognizes the limits of exploitation’.”

This quote asserts to me the irony of capitalism in the context of the climate crisis in that the West has become so power-hungry and established so much hegemony over the world that their capitalist ideologies are leading to their eventual end when they have continuously exploited and destroyed other nations through capitalistic practices. This irony is furthered when Medji suggests that Europeans must depend on indigenous ideologies to combat the climate crisis when they have consistently belittled them completely mutilated their people and destroyed their societies and cultures. This concept reminds me of Dubois’ idea of double consciousness, that the oppressed see themselves through the lens of both others and themselves and thus can understand society better. In this context, Indigenous societies have developed a unique environmental consciousness of seeing the climate crisis through how it affects them but also how capitalism and greed have aggravated the situation. Therefore,  they have achieved a level of understanding that those who perpetuate capitalism will never comprehend and thus Western societies should mimic their practices.

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“Given such recognition of the link between modernity/coloniality and environmental destruction, notions of a climate crisis are not something new to the Sourthern Standpoint,”

I think that this point is interesting because up until this point the main points agains modernity and coloniality are how destructive they are to cultures. We already know that they tear apart and erase/destroy large pieces of history in a bid for progress, and it is interesting to acknowledge the other affects.

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"This is why thinkers such as Wynter (2003) see the climate crisis as a key example of the dominance of 'man' (defined as a supra-humans-those seen to belong in the white Western World) and 'human' (the various 'species' of sub-poeple creatd through colonialism whether thatbe Black, bronw or indigenous people and os on)."

Meghji alludes to the Anthropocene when human activity caused immense environmental damage. The use of fossil fuels and making toher specis go extinct are two examples of the Antrhopocene. Meghji points out that these habits priamrily developed in teh West. Aftter the Enlgightenment, the West's fixation on indsutrialization required a labor force. Colonists turned to the original residents of their conquered lands- idigenous people and Africans. The colonists took advantage of the vulnerable people and exploited them fro profit. Through cultural hegemony, the colonial bourgeoisie maintained a chokehold on the working class. This power, combined with the success of industrialization, made employes dependent on chemicals like fossil fuels. Fossil fuels become ubiquitous in Western economies, and western hegemony spread these dangerous practice to the rest of the world.

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“in the American Journal of Sociology, Randall Collins (1997) replied that the attempt to ground the emergence of sociology in the world of colonialism was nothing more than a sociological guilt trip'. However, as I hope has been visible throughout this book, the aim of decolonizing sociology is not to generate a sense of individual or collective guilt, but to achieve a degree of epistemic justice and make sociology a more critical discipline.”

Good gravy I had to go with this immidiately. It’s so stupid that poor meghji even had to clarify this. Even the concept of a “sociological guilt trip” surpasses stupidity, I think it does nothing more than tell you exactly how fragile the one who’s experiencing the guilt is. Assuming one’s own guilt implies that they have done something wrong. It should be easy to have discussions about the missteps of the past and how they could be adjusted without touching any nerves. Folks that are set off so quickly by even the idea that they or their history might be part of the problem are usually a problem themselves.

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"We are in a situation where something that was set in motion through European colonialism - a desire for capital accumulation at the expense of planetary destruction - continues to have a disproportionate impact on the Global South. Furthermore, given the cultural repertoire of individualism that sweeps across the Western world, many Western responses to the climate crisis revolve around individual consumption habits that end up reinscribing relations of coloniality: such as switching to electric cars, which largely relies on child labour in places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, or switching to a plant-based diet, which often relies on near-free labour in the South such as we see with Indian women picking cashews for less than 30p a day to meet the rising Western demand for non-dairy alternatives."

Sorry long quote guys!! Wow, usually I can't understand a word this man says, but this was actually a super interesting observation. I think, in America at least, there is absolutely a common thread of capitalism in nearly everything we encounter in our day-to-day lives. Movements especially, like the climate crisis Meghji focuses on, are twisted by our capitalist society into something that constantly requires spending. There are so many ways to be environmentally friendly, yet what's "trending" or cool essentially is what most people are drawn to in their personal activism. Unfortunately, corporations have taken it upon themselves capitalize on this activism, whether it is performative or not. Specifically when I read this I thought about Hailey Bieber's (the supermodel) smoothie collaboration with well-known clean food company Erewhon. Erewhon, and this smoothie specifically, has been glamorized into this eco-conscious, Los Angeles girl experience, something people post online to look cute and self-aware For context, the smoothie costs 22 dollars.

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After reading about Hawaiian epistemologies and their connection to nature, I realized that no other theories had brought up environment and nature. I was wondering how Hawaiian epistemologies, that focus around nature, are treated. Additionally, what role does nature play in other epistemologies/ theories.

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"What this shows is that decolonizing sociology, or sustaining a decolonial sociology, necessitates that we widen our scope of sociological methodologies."

I dont know what "this" is but it sounds cool because we are deoolonizing sociolofyg. YAY. It is important that we remember to always move forwadrf when thinking about deolonization bc some poeple cough cough thikn we should move backward. I dotn know why people are racist lowjey like get a life.

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"Similarly in calling for de-linking from the North theory, Connell (2018:402) points out that in the Global South it is 'hard to not get worked up about reflexive modernity of shifting subjectivities' when you are facing daily realities of the phenomena such as the 'climate disaster'."

I found this part of the reading to be making a really good point. People who are being affected by the climate crisis are 1. not the main cause of it, 2. the ones most who are affected, and 3. therefore the best ones to write about it. The Global North is ignoring the problems they are causing and silencing the voices of those being affected by these disasters. The Global South is the one facing these issues to the largest degree and therefore has the most and most accurate thoughts and solutions.

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"The aim of decolonizing sociology is not to generate a sense of individual or collective guilt, but to achieve a degree of epistemic justice an make sociology a more critical discipline"

In this quote Ali Meghji is trying to explain that decolonizing sociology is not only to make the colonizers feel guilty about what they have done but more as an active tool in making sociology and society more just and inclusive.

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"Despite its relative neglect in the Western standpoint, climate change and climate crises have been central in the Southern standpoint – this is one of the first reasons in why embracing a decolonial option is necessary to sociologize about the climate crisis. Thus, when Alatas (2006: 20) sketched out why we need an autonomous sociology that breaks from the Western tradition, one of his points was that this would allow us to reflect on issues such as the climate crisis – or particularly ‘degradation of the environment’ –that are central to the lives of people in the Global South" (Meghji 150-151).

I've had this thought for a while now that ties into what Meghji is getting at here. Thinking back a little bit, the book touched on the idea of over and underdeveloped worlds (as opposed to the classic developed and underdeveloped worlds). The basic idea was that if a theoretical civilization grew in isolation it would always be "developed," but because the various civilizations of the world did not grow up in isolation (i.e. the various European empires focused on developing warfare tactics and technologies overall else and then leeched away the more practical discoveries and resources of pretty much everyone else), a dynamic has manifested itself wherein certain regions tend to be far above our theoretical "developed" benchmark, while others struggle to catch up. So, to summarize, the overdeveloped countries have "borrowed" (I know the language is problematic but hear me out) from the now underdeveloped countries in order to build up a production base and get ahead. Now the overdeveloped world has lost track of the whole affair and is unwilling to pay back the debts they've accrued. Well, in a way, the same thing has happened with the planet. If humanity had progressed by only taking what resources they could without substantially harming the planet (if knowledge of such practices had been widespread before the Industrial Revolution), then all of humanity would have progressed at a certain benchmark rate. Instead, we have "borrowed" from the planet in order to build our production base and are now far ahead of where we might have been. This would be fine if only we'd now start using the "dividends" our "investment" (in case you haven't already noticed this whole metaphor is based around the idea of growing a business) have now paid to "repay the debts" (i.e. adopt more climate-friendly policies and technologies), except that the time scale has been so large that we've now lost perspective of what life could have been like without the extra help we've gotten and are effectively hooked on our creature comforts.

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3 things I learned

Gramsci argues that those at the bottom of the social hierarchy will always be subject to the hegemony of those at the top of the social hierarchy. He says that said marginalized individuals will never be free unless they rebel in a way that gives them permanent liberation from the oppressor.

Says that the Supremacy of the social group arises from “domination” and “intellectual and moral leadership.” He says that social groups can become dominant over other groups by the use of military force, this allows them to become leaders without assuming the role of government or a representative.

Gramsci says the lower class can only truly understand their own identity and those at the top of the social hierarchy.

2 Questions

How did Gramsci view Karl Marx, he agreed with his idea of civil rights only being attainable through economic equity, how does he feel about his other theories?

What is Gramsci’s proposed solution to the exploitation of workers in capitalism?

The thing I want to learn more about

I want to learn more about how Gramsci how Gramsci views capitalism and the solutions he proposes.

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Thus, Bourdieu and Sayad (2018 [1964])

wrote about how the logic of colonialism (i.e. the field of colonialism)

produced new forms of sociability, thus creating a group of people whose

culture is not fully indigenous or assimilated into the French ideal, but exists

as a hybrid mixture of the two. Bourdieu (1961 [1958]: 144) argues that this

causes ‘a sort of double inner life’ which ‘is a prey to frustration and inner

conflict’.

Ali Meghji alludes to the idea of double consciousness, a term coined by Dubois to describe the experiences of people of color in America. Mehgji points out that many colonized people are not fully integrated into the dominant culture and retain their culture. However, the colonists had a stranglehold on the colonized, making it impossible for the colonized to be free. People must therefore adopt a viewpoint that values the colonial narrative over their well-being. Double consciousness has several similar ideas to Mehgji’’s point. As Dubois explained in his work, people living under a colonial power face the constant fear of stepping outside the colonial norm. They must put on a theatrical charade to appease their oppressors. This frame of mind has severe psychological consequences for the person being oppressed: the constant shifting between two identities causes a person to be ashamed of their identity and heritage. These people find themselves trapped between seeing the world through their lens and the oppressor’s.

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I learned that a group’s victory is never permanent. A society gains temporary power but is eventually fragmentized. A group must maintain its power through the submission of other groups. These subordinate groups constantly resist the rule of the dominant culture. Gramsci’s idea seems similar to Khaldun’s theory of Asibbayah, which states that a society has limited power. A society eventually fails with multiple smaller groups overwhelm the strength of the group in power.

I also learned about the social context at the time of Gramsci’s arrest. Mussolini began expanding the Italian military and centralizing power. Gramsci posed a considerable threat to his regimen. It reminded me about the steps other dictators take to establish power. For example, Hitler and Stalin began by eliminating intellectuals, opposing political parties, and civil rights.

People understand the world by making generalizations about the world around them to avoid being overwhelmed. People use heuristics to be efficient in processing stimuli, but by doing so, they make assumptions that contribute to hegemony.

Is there a way to prevent the cycle of hegemony?

How did Mussolini use hegemony to establish his empire?

I want to learn more about the sociological causes of the first World War, if there are any.

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The opening paragraph of this reading provides and important clarification that the purpose of this book is not to stew in guilt, but to improve the field and therefore, the world. This was already present earlier when the book discusses how defining issues is only one step of attempting to fix it, not an end on its own, so it was already pretty clear that Meghji believes in reformation over apathetic guilt trips, but it's nice to see that clearly laid out.

Sorry to focus so heavily on the opening to this section of the reading, but the next paragraph shows how sociological standpoints outside of the dominant Eurocentric one have the feature of also looking inwardly at sociology and criticizing it through the same methods sociology criticizes others, which I think necessarily leads to the field being more critical and is a really neat way of looking at different forms of sociology.

The climate change portion of this reading provides a really good argument for why localizing sociology would help not only the field, but the world. This is because a sociology dominated by one perspective, socially and geographically, can ignore and does ignore problems, even problems that are global, if they don't apparently effect them or are not convenient to dignify.

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I learned...

1. that Gramsci is very much in favor of education as the ultimate tool of social elevation.

2. that Gramsci saw the restructuring of society as an active endeavor akin to warfare, and that the battle was actively being fought.

3. that Gramsci was a far more significant political influence than I had thought in order to pose a significant threat to Mussolini.

I wonder...

1. what innovations Gramsci made in the use of the term "hegemony."

2. what Gramsci would think of how his works have been used since his death. He seemed to be of the opinion that the bulk of the sociological canon only feeds the status quo, and so I wonder what he would think of his own addition to it.

I would like to learn more about...

1. how Gramsci would define himself. I doubt that he would call himself a "neo-Marxist philosopher and activist," but I wonder if he would have even opted to put himself in a category.

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3 things I learned:

In his trial, the head prosecutor said that "We must prevent [Gramsci's] brain from functioning for twenty years"

He was a neo-Marxist

In 1924 he became a parliamentary member, representing the PCI.

2 questions I have:

"The multiplication of types of vocational school thus tends to perpetuate traditional social differences; but since, within these differences, it tends to encourage internal diversification" What does this mean?

" In other words, is it better to take part in a conception of the world mechanically imposed by the external environment [...] Or, on the other hand, is it better to work out consciously and critically one's own conception of the world and thus, in connection with the labors of one's own brain" Which does he believe is the correct way?

1 thing I want to learn more about:

I found the part where he talked about the best way to perceive/think about things particularly interesting and I would be interested in studying that further.

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3 things I learned:

A calibre is likewise a complex of abstractions, but without calibration it is not possible to produce real objects-real objects which are social relations, and which implicitly embody ideas

Subaltern groups are always subject to the activity of ruling groups, even when they rebel and rise up: only "permanent" victory breaks their subordination, and that not immediately.

The 'normal' exercise of hegemony on the now classical terrain of the parliamentary regime is characterised by the combination of force and consent, which balance each other reciprocally, without force predominating excessively over consent.

2 questions I have:

Is it better to "think", without having a critical awareness, in a disjointed and episodic way?

is it better to take part in a conception of the world mechanically imposed by the external environment, i.e. by one of the many social groups in which everyone is automatically involved from the moment of his entry into the conscious world (and this can be one's village or province; it can have its origins in the parish and the "intellectual activity" of the local priest or aging patriarch whose wisdom is law, or in the little old woman who has inherited the lore of the witches or the minor intellectual soured by his own stupidity and inability to act)?

1 thing I want to learn more about:

The lower classes, historically on the defensive, can only achieve self-awareness via a series of negations, via their consciousness of the identity and class limits of their enemy; but it is precisely this process which has not yet come to the surface, at least not nationally.

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Spinning fish for 10 hours straight 3am version

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1. The subaltern is under the control of another power

2. Gramsci is Italian

3. Gramsci inspired theorists and activists in Critical Theory, Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Theory, and Critical Race theory

1. Did he consider himself a sociologist?

2. Hegemony?

1. I want to learn about his trial

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3 things that I have learned:

1. Antonio Gramsci was an activist before and during Mussolini's fascist government which is what got him arrested

2. I don't know if this counts, but the phrase "ruling or controlling those who rule" as a purpose of school is super interesting

3. Ways in which societal consent is manufactured by faking public opinion by using newspapers, associations, etc, that are meant to express public opinion.

2 questions I have:

1. How did Gramsci get the notebooks? Did he still have communist friends on the outside?

2. What's superstructure?

1 thing I want to learn more about

1. Gramsci's ideas on school and/or government

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1. he wrote 33 notebooks in prison

2. he was a neo-Marxist

3. each social group has its own school

1. How did being in prison affect his views on society?

2. "Knowing thy self" How well does he know himself?

1. More about his positionality and how it effected his writings

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3 things Ive learned:

1. The social character and how each class has its own school of thought

2. Democracy and how the state governs the people

3. Hegemony and how its regime is a combination of force and consent

2 questions I have:

1. What is the subaltern?

2. What is Gramsci's ideal society?

1 thing I want to learn

1. I want to learn about what is the subaltern

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3 things I learned-

Children's psychology is active and creative, and their ability to learn aligns with this.

"The discovery that the relations between the social and natural orders are mediated by work, by man's theoretical and practical activity, creates the first elements of an intuition of the world free from all magic and superstition." I think this is a very interesting idea!

Gramsci believes that perchance "the superstructures of civil society are like the trench-systems of modern warfare." I think the juxtaposition of civility and war, and how those two concepts coalesce is a thoughtful perspective.

2 questions I have-

What does vocational mean in this context?

"The little old woman who has inherited the lore of the witches" Was Gramsci talking about me?

1 thing I want to learn more about-

What led Gramsci to conceive the concept of cultural hegemony? How did he develop this idea?

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Here's three things that I learned.

Graham was neo-Marxist (this is cool because Marx)

Lol he died of a cerebral hemorrhage rip

When subaltern groups rise up and rebel, they are still controlled by the ideologies of the former ruling groups through their fear of being ruled again (think Israel bombing the hell out of Gaza and then claiming victimhood)

Here's 2 questions I have:

DAWG WTF IS HEGEMONY. EVERY TIME I THINK I UNDERSTAND IT SOMEBODY USES IT IN A CONTEXT I DON'T UNDERSTAND.

Is it possible to disrupt the tragic cycle of subalterns are ruling classes rising and falling through bloodshed and oppression, or is societal dominance just a part of human nature?

Here's something I wanna learn more about:

Who are the subalterns of modern day society and how do they compare globally, as well as how do they compare to the past?

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3 things I've learned:

He was a political prisoner

He was a neo-Marxist!

The superstructures of civil society are like the trench-systems of modern warfare

2 questions I have:

what the absolute h-e-double hockey sticks is methodological criterion?

Why does Gramsci use so many big words and sentences that make no sense?

1 Thing I still want to learn:

I need someone to paraphrase this entire text so that I actually understand it.

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Identities and other constructs are formed through connection, not the other way around, but an understanding of these connections can be very insightful. I totally understand how this idea of relationism can be used to form a decolonial viewpoint and be important for radical sociology. I think similar concepts were touched on in early parts of the book, but not with a name attached. We've also touched on this idea in the past, that through a sort of forced criticality, subjugated people can see the world more clearly than dominant society, and I hope we talk about this more in the future, might be more of a history topic though.

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Read excerpts from the Prison Notebooks and complete a 3-2-1 response.

1) Write 3 things that you have learned from this lesson or from this text(s).

2) Write 2 questions you still have.

3) Write 1 thing you still want to learn more about.

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"I think my answer is that the dissatisfaction came from the way in which a kind of permanent oppression in daily life was being put into effect by the state or by other institutions and oppressive groups. That which was ill-tolerated and continuously questioned, which produced that sort of discomfort, was ‘power’. And not only state power, but also that which was exercised within the social body through extremely different channels, forms, and institutions. It was no longer acceptable to be ‘governed’ in a certain way. I mean ‘governed’ in an extended sense; I’m not referring just to the government of the state and the men who represent it, but also to those men who organise our daily lives by means of rules, by way of direct or indirect influences, as for instance the mass media. If I look today at my past, I recall having thought that I was working essentially on a ‘genealogical’ history of knowledge."

My tired mind can't process this one rn

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“Through Bourdieu’s concepts of field and habitus, therefore, what we see is a reversal of the extraverion or intellectual imperialism that we have analyzed in the previous chapters of this book.”

This quote is especially confusing because it looks like it should make sense and yet it doesnt. I don’t think that the word ‘therefore’ has any place in this sentence. Why is it trying so hard to be fancy. This made me upset.

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"As Nirmal Puwar (2009;371) points out, however, despite this historical context of the emergence of French social theory, 'the colonial and post-colonial presence in the[ir] historical practice of [...] intellectual explorations has not been centered in the communication of [their] intellectual corpus in lecture theatres'. This elision of colonial and postcolonial connections is particularly apparent in the works of Bourdieu and Foucault"

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"In the case of Bourdieu, for instance, his canonical concepts such as ‘field’ and ‘habitus’ were actually formed not just through empirical research in Algiers, but specifically through a critique of French colonialism. This information, however, seems counter to the dominant approach to Bourdieu in contemporary sociology, where concepts like ‘habitus’ and ‘field’, as well as Bourdieusian sociology more generally, are mostly seen to be confined to studying social class."

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"Having grown up as a member of the French peasantry before moving into elite academia, thus creating a mismatch between objective circumstances and between the past and present, leading to a habitus 'torn by contradiction and internal division' (Bourdieu 2000: 16). Indeed, Bourdieu (Bourdieu and Passeron 1990) is perhaps best known for invoking the concept of habitus clivé when discussing social class and education in France, examining the mismatch between the lower class's educational aspirations and the objective structure of the French educational system. While Bourdieu did, therefore, invoke the concept of habitus clivé to analyse social class, we see how it is absolutely necessary to tie this concept - just as with the concept of field

- back to its foundation in the empirical realities of colonialism."

Had a stroke reading this one.

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"Through theorizing in a similar way, Collins (2019) argues that intersectionality and decolonial feminism again synergize in the way that they show the possibilities of critic al knowledge production. Thus, when Crenshaw used (1989) used the term 'intersectionlaity', it was to highlight how the inequities faced by Black women in the US cannot be ameliorated by solely race-based or gender-based social policies, but only through social policies which recognize their existence as lying at a particular intersection of racism and sexism."

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“Furthermore, we can build an even stronger link between Foucault's time in Tunisia and his work on power. As Medien (2019) shows, Foucault himself admits that it is in Tunisia that he first became systematically interested in theorizing power not as a possession, but as a network of productive relations.”

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"As Nirmal Puwar points out, however, despite this historical context for the emergence of French social theory, 'the colonial and post-colonial presence in the[ir] historical practice of [...] intellectual explorations has not been centered in the communication of intellectual corpus in lecture theatres'".

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"Indeed, it is in virtue of challenging what Collins construes as the 'epistemic oppression' and 'epistemic injustice' of white Western feminism that both these approaches ground themselves as critical knowledge projects in virtue of engaging in 'epistemic resistance'."

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"Thus, we regularly teach and reproduce a bifurcated sociology which – in the case of Bourdieu and Foucault, among many others – does a disservice to how their transnational experiences and conversations shaped their canonical paradigms of thought."

huh.

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"In the case of Bourdieu, for instance, his canonical concepts such as ‘field’ and ‘habitus’ were actually formed not just through empirical research in Algiers, but specifically through a critique of French colonialism" (Meghji 131).

While Meghji spends a lot of time showing the supposed connection between Bourdieu's seminal ideas of "habitus" and "field" and his work in the French colonies, we can't actually judge whether we agree with his assertion or not because he never provides a comprehensible definition of the two. He kind of skirts around it for "field" and quotes some of Bourdieu's own indecipherable jargon to "explain" "habitus."

Conclusion: I'm very confused.

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"Developing this critique, Collins points out that while intersectionality thus destabilized the whiteness of feminist theory through focusing on gendered racism (and racialized sexism), decolonial feminisms also destabilized this universalization through focusing on the processes of colonialism and imperialism"

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Find a quote from the reading that you don't understand.

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On page 114 when Ali Meghji discusses the idea of "walking while asking questions" instead of what's typical to the west of "walking while preaching" and I wonder, in this metaphor, what walking symbolizes. At first I thought it meant progressing forward, but that doesn't always seem true for "walking while preaching" so maybe walking just means the passage of time? I was just wondering about that. Also pluriversality sounds like the sociological equivalent to anarchism 👍

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“All of these thinkers thought against Marxism, but also with Marxism.”

This quote is interesting because it shows how interconnected the different theories, are and even if your view is different from another, they still build off of each other to show context and provoke thought. More often than direct contrast though is overlap that shows the shifts in perception that can lead to very different opinions, despite being somewhat similar at their core.

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“Indeed, Du Bois' often-quoted line about the problem of the twentieth century being the problem of the colour line tends to also occlude the fact that he was talking about a global colour line, speaking to the relations between the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea“

I feel like as an isolated little American boy, I lack the cultural perspective to understand fully what Meghji was talking about here. We think of racism as an American issue. Slavery, the KKK, the American civil rights movement, etc. however in recent years I’ve gained a sort of understanding about how racism functions overseas. In Great Britain for example, there’s a sort of ethnocentric racism (it’s like, disdainful almost?) that puts English natives at the top of a list, followed by Albanians, west Asians, then middle easterners and North Africans, then Somalians, then south/west Africans. The gradient there really follows skin color. Like I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a Brit and an Albanian by looking at them. It’s a foreign concept to me because America sees basically three races, maybe 4 if you count indigenous peoples who most people just think of as being “brown”.

I feel like this also begs the question of whether racism in countries beyond Western Europe was propagated by the behavior of colonists. East asian cultures now value pale skin, hair beauty standards all over west Africa call for straight hair, etc. I’m sure there’s a real answer to that and I’m sure it’s not pleasant.

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"while a dream which we have easily and jauntily called democracy envisages a day when the environing group loses the chains and compulsion [...] even this grand equality has not come; and until it does, individual equality and the free soul is impossible" (DuBois 117)

Reading this reminded me a lot of what people like Fannie Lou Hamer, Martin Luther King Jr., and Maya Angelou believed. That until we are all free, no one can truly be free. Both DuBois and these activists write about how when even a single group or person is oppressed, it affects the whole world's freedom. That no one can exist in our societies without recognizing that we are living in a world where oppression exists, where colonization and discrimination are some of the largest factors in our country's beginnings. And because we are living in that world, individual equality is unachievable. There are always people who are being oppressed, and until everybody is free, in mind and body, the rest of the world will continue to be affected, and never truly be free.

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“Marxism…did not envisage a situation where instead of a horizontal division of classes, there was a vertical fissure, a complete separation of classes by race, cutting square across the economic layers [...] and this split depended not simply on economic exploitation but on a racial folk-lore grounded on centuries of instinct, habit and thought and implemented by the conditioned reflex of visible color.”

Dubois emphasizes the intersectionality that has been omitted from Marx’s theory in that one cannot separate economics from race and establishes further complexity within the system, ranging not just from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat but incorporating the various castes that exist within the intersection of race and economics. Furthermore, the application of intersectionality into our society today has been a concept that has been at the forefront of my mind recently. Specifically, in American society we have been conditioned to view injustice extremely one-dimensionally, perceiving it through the standardized image of the suppressed and neglecting the extensive layers of overlap each form of oppression contains. In fact, I see the perpetuation of this narrative as a tactic by those at the top of the social ladder to establish a lens of “us vs. them” that distracts from the overall damage being done to society by the oppressor and promotes quarrels between social groups that allow bigotry to reign supreme. One of the most prevalent ways this is shown is through the college admissions process where white supremacists have pinned black people and Asian people against each other, cultivating disputes that ultimately bring down all people of color, like the overturning of Affirmative action yet the continuation of the legacy program. Thus, perpetuating white supremacy and advantaging white people over people of color further in American society. Sadly, this is just yet another example of how the narratives in our society are being subtly manipulated to perpetuate systemic oppression and uphold the status quo.

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"Additionally going against classical marxism, decolonial marxism looks at how the colonized and enslaved became a class apart from the proletariat, and how a global white, Western proletariat thus joined the bourgeoisie in exploiting this subalternized group."

Mehgji argues that traditional Marxism only includes the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. He provides an alternative definition of Marxism and introduces white people as intermediaries. He proves that no systems operate the same in all societies. Reducing Marxism to a power struggle between teh working class and their employers oversimplifies the issue. White people use this mainstream Marxism to shield people from the root cuases of inequalities and to wield power. This from of Marxism continues to be propagated today, especially in the media. For example, in Washington, politicians continually complain about working condition and wages. They provide their own policy prescriptions while refusing to recognize decades of systemic racism.

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"Alienation from other humans: Capitalism transforms human relations into economic relations, meaning that social life in general becomes competitive."

This is so finance bro. I think that once you make it far enough in the finance field to not have to worry about money, you forget that others actually have problems and you lose sense of the real world for your own gain. idk though im just a little socialist :/

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"Dubois argues that through this global political economy that is based on exploiting the colonized and enslaved, the colonized people have become a "class below" the traditional Marxist definition of a worker-on both a national and global scale" (Meghji 119)

In this quote Meghji is pointing out the similarities between Dubois and Marx and how their theories were covering the same topics, the exploitation of people. It is the dominant culture that is fueling the racial exploitation and discrimination of people, just like the classism presented in Marx's theories. Often times race and being, as Marx put it, the "worker" class are intertwined, as institutions make it so. It is an intentionally making people of races different from their own the "worker" class of society.

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“I believed and still believe that Karl Marx was one of the greatest men of modern times and that he put his finger squarely upon our difficulties when he said that economic foundations, the way in which men earn their living, are the determining factors in the development of civilization, in literature, religion, and the basic pattern of culture. And this conviction I had to express or spiritually die.

However, as per the ethos of this chapter, Du Bois thought both with and against Marx, in a way that therefore expanded the scope of Marxist theory through a Southern standpoint. In particular, Du Bois reconfigured Marxist theory to account for the wider presence of coloniality, paying specific attention to the relations between different national iterations of capitalism across the world.”

By the way, my reading #12 reflection is actually on this part of the book because I forgot what pages we were reading and that one is better.

Anyway! I feel similarly about Marx as W.E.B. Du Bois, in that there are parts of him I appreciate and parts I don't. Except Du Bois had specific things he agreed and disagreed with, whereas I mostly disagree with name but I do love his name. I think the idea Meghji explores of exploring theories of eurocentric origin through a "Southern standpoint." Of course, it is more important that the theories we hold to the highest importance come from sociologists of all backgrounds. That being said, I think with the theories that are so ingrained in academic society there is no hope to remove them, creating a different narrative around that idea is essential to its development.

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"Black labor became the foundation stone of not only the southern social structure, but of the Northern manufacture and commerce, of the English factory system, of the European commerce, of buying and selling on a worldwide scale."

I found this part of the reading because I have not learned or thought about the global impact of our country's enslavement and labor when relating to India and other countries in the East. Because of the cheap labor we produced the profits made when sold to England were always huge even when sold at a bargain. Then England could easily buy and manufacture the cotton if a large up-charge to other developing countries.

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"Du Bois thought both with and against Marx, in a way that therefore expanded the scope of Marxist theory through a Southern standpoint''

I thought this part of the reading was interesting and I hadn't realized that Du Bois' theories had many similarities to Marx. Are there other theories that are similar to Du Bois' idea of looking at Marxism through a Southern standpoint?

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"While we have considered how classical Marxism may fall into the trap of Orientalism and bifurcation, we thus equally need to focus on those thinkers who developed their own strand of decolonial Marxism" (Meghji 115).

While this all seems to line up on the first read-through, upon closer inspection I was reminded of the section of chapter one that discussed the fact that, even if one is taking care to analyze both the positive and negative aspects of a Eurocentric theory such as Marxism, the issue remains that the foundation of the entire undertaking is Eurocentric. This creates an issue where the insight produced is fundamentally tainted and so has limited usefulness.

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“I would like to avoid and reject the notion of indigenization as opposed to autonomous development of sociology, or any science for that matter. Indigenization has a different connotation. In principle, a science cannot be indigenized. Only its application can. […] Its characteristic is to break away from the indigenous tradition mold. Science is autonomous from

the traditional cultural background. Every great scientific breakthrough is a rupture with the previous outlook on the subject in question. Take arithmetic: the statement that 2 + 2 = 4 cannot be indigenized. We can indigenize the script and the numeral system but not the concept. The

concept has an independent existence and growth in our mind.”

This concept was extremely thought-provoking for me and made me ponder how Atalas’ argument, that the conceptual aspect of science cannot be indigenized, applies to sociology as it is debatable whether it is an actual science or humanities. I see two clear perspectives through which one can approach this topic, viewing sociology through the lens of a science, thus applying Atalas’ idea, and viewing sociology through the lens of a humanities, therefore viewing Atalas’ assertion as inconsequential. However, in actuality, I think these perspectives are irrelevant as in my opinion viewing the concept of sociology as a solely European idea in itself is Eurocentric because although Auguste Comte and other early European sociologists helped coined the term “sociology”, there have always been figures like Ibn Khaldun outside the European realm that have pondered society and thus I argue that sociology is not Eurocentric in concept but in execution. Thus, I think that the indigenization of sociology is attainable because as long as we work towards a sociological perspective unique to each culture without centering the West as our reference then we can establish various sociologies that can apply to specific cultures.

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‘I move slowly in the world, accustomed now to seek no longer for upheaval. I progress by crawling. And already I am being dissected under white eyes. the only real eyes. I am fixed. Having adjusted their microtomes, they objectively cut away slices of my reality. I am laid bare.

I feel, I see in those white faces that it is not a new man who has come in, but a new kind of man, a new genus. Why, it's a Negro!’

Through investigating this process of Black, colonized people 'being dissected under white eyes', Fanon thus brings new meanings to classical Marxist approaches to alienation. Consider, for instance, the Marxian focus on alienation from species, and alienation from other humans. In colonialism, you are alienated from your species-being not just in virtue of the labour you are forced into, but also in virtue of being considered a sub-species. Fanon (2008 [1952]: 2) refers to this dimension of colonial alienation through the concept of the 'zone of non-being - an ontological space where Black colonized people exist ams a sub-species, but are not seen to exist as humans!!”

You might be thinking, wow Finley, that sure is a long quote. I know! I did not know when to cut it off! But that's okay, because I think all of this carries value. I was particularly captivated with Fanon's exploration of sociological thought in perhaps more of a prose form than anything else. To me, this feels reminiscent of Dubois. I think exploring concepts through metaphor carries a weight that perhaps difficult vocabulary does not. That's not to say that strict academic writing is lesser than, but it explores the idea from a very different lens. This is why I included Meghji's analysis of the excerpt in my quote as well. Meghji puts Fanon's prose into concise, academic terms like racialization in colonialism and classical Marxism. It's human nature to put a name to everything, but sometimes I feel like words don't quite capture their meaning. To me, prose is a far more illustrative form of explanation, and I could conceptualize much quicker. This is subjective of course, to the way my mind comprehends things, but I think tone is an interesting thing to consider in qualitative science.

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"Doing African Sociology rather than sociology in Africa does not seem to come easy to many of us [...] [I was presenting] an outline of what I referred to as African Sociology from the perspective of distilling epistemological guidelines from an African ontological narrative. My colleague listened attentively, paused for some time. He was puzzled and then he said: 'But that won't be Sociology'. I asked, why not. His response was 'But where is Weber; where is Marx or Durkheim?'"

I think this speaks to what Meghji has been talking about since the beginning of the book, that the canon or 'norm' of sociology is so embedded into us that anything that slightly differs from that is seen as completely unrelated altogether. The fact that someone would see African sociology as unreal or fake just because it didn't involve what was thought to be the crucial elements of sociology is both shocking and somewhat not surprising at the same time. As a society, we have become so reliant on what we believe to be 'normal' or 'comfortable' that we have overlooked research or discoveries because they force us to be introduced to something new.

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“Doing African Sociology rather than sociology in Africa does not seem to come easy to many-bf us [...] [I was presenting] an outline of what I referred to as African Sociology from the perspective of distilling epistemological guidelines from an African ontological narrative. My colleague listened attentively, paused for some time. He was puzzled and then he said: 'But that won't be Sociology. I asked, why not. His response was 'But where is Weber; where is Marx or Durkheim?'“

Gotta reiterate how crazy it is that three men can be considered SO integral to a widespread subject that when they are absent in its composition, the subject loses its identity. Sociology has a definition that does not include Weber, Marx, or Durkheim anywhere, yet they’re considered so vital to the equation that is sociology that it is no longer considered sociology but many people after they are subtracted. I find this especially interesting because our “Holy Trinity” of sociologists could just be Joe, Bob, and Emma if Joe, Bob, and Emma had some good ideas and the means to effectively spread their beliefs. Does that make sense? Idk.

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"Through an indigenous approach to sociology, the aim is to highlight how
Southern realities are not always able to be captured in Northern theories"

This reminded me of what I have been reading in Can the Subaltern Speak? and our perception on the Subaltern or Southern theory. In Can the Subaltern Speak? Spivak is stating that while we have text about marginalized communities many of them are written from a Western perspective. As a result, readers "hear" the voice of the Western writer from the perspective of the Subaltern, therefore the text is only significant to those who categorize themselves as not part of the Subaltern. The text concludes that the voice of the Subaltern cannot be captured similarly Southern realities cannot always be captured by Northern theories.

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"Underlying the call for indigenous sociology is thus an idea that 'turning local' in order to explain local phenomena enables us to understand the society better than from the Eurocentric standpoint"

I really like this idea and I hope it's talked about more. it seems like one of the best ways of decolonizing sociology without risking creating just another dominant standpoint. This part also shows what makes sociology so unique, I can't think of another field where localization can enable a more cohesive and accurate representation.

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“Decoloniality is first and foremost the liberation of knowledge.”

Ok first of all my computer doesn’t think that “decoloniality” is a word, so that a new fun term. This quote is interesting to me because of how much it summarizes in terms of concepts. Because colonization erases so many stories and histories and perspectives, taking apart that control is the first step to uncover old ideas that will add new perspectives to our current world. By pushing one way of living onto the world we have probably hindered our growth in terms of knowledge and progress, which is pretty counterintuitive to the misguided goals to begin with. “Liberation of knowledge” seems pretty hopeful to me considering that with all of the damage done to suppress and conform, a lot of that knowledge has probably been lost for good.

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"There should not be an indigenization of the social sciences because the
concept of indigenization does not apply to the sciences."

This reminded me of when Jonathan said that he doesn't consider Sociology to be a science. It is interested what we as a society see as science and the hierarchy of those in the science field.

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"'But that wouldn't be so sociology '. I asked why not. His response was 'But where is the Weber; where is the Marx or Durkhiem?'"

I found this to be a really interesting point during the discussion on African Sociology vs. sociology in Africa. I think it is important to think about these authors that are brought up and how for example Marx did not identify as a sociologist yet he is one of the first that comes up in the subject. When branching sociology to fit everywhere it is important to look and read people that may not be thought of as sociologists but their ideas can be beneficial to the subject, especially in places where sociology is less developed.

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"This is because such a mosaic model makes it appear as though indigenous
approaches are all separate from one another, lacking connections and
conversations with one another, such that ‘indigenous knowledge is treated as
a fixed set of concepts and beliefs, rooted in tradition, to be defended against
outside pressures for change"

Connell's critique of the mosaic model is spot on. The mosaic model purports to decolonize sociology but upholds Western hegemony. The concept treats indigenous societies as one homogeneous group rather than multiple societies. This viewpoint is monolithic and makes assumptions about indigenous culture. Indigenous groups are very diverse and have unique customs and traditions. The label "indigenous" is an extreme oversimplification of cultures. In a way, the quote holds a sad irony. The writer of the statement was correct in saying indigenous cultures are under attack. However, the author captured indigenous groups under a single myopic lens, marginalizing and erasing the same groups they claimed to protect.

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"Nevertheless, while there is obvious value in indigenizing sociology, the call for such indigenization has been challenged. Firstly, there is the critique summarized by Bhambra (2014) that indigenous sociology often involves repackaging Western concepts in Southern concepts and/or language. To take the aforementioned example of Akiwowo and Asuwada epistemology, for instance, critics such as Ifeanyi Onwuzuruigbo (2018) have questioned whether Akiwowo was really sculpting an indigenous sociology or simply looking for Yoruba equivalents to terms such as ‘agency’, or Western-defined social problems such as the self and society. In such a case, then, indigenous sociology would really just be a case of indigenous variations of Western sociology and, in being so, would merely maintain ‘the West’ as the sociological nucleus" (Meghji 102).

I found this section interesting because it turns the common issue of Western cultures appropriating elements of every group they interact with on its head, with the issue actually being what the West left behind. This causes a situation where every assumption must be re-examined in order to check for "contamination," so to speak.

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“Extraversion is a particular strategy for dealing with intellectual imperialism. As theorized by Paulin Hountondji (1997), extraversion is the process through which academics in the Global South position themselves relative to the Global North - whether that be by desiring to publish in Northern journals or manuscript publishers, attend prestigious conferences in the Global North, or receive renowned visiting fellowships at Northern institutions. As Connell et al. (2017,

2018) show, extraversion is thus a form of academic agency practised in the Global South to navigate Northern hegemony in the political economy of knowledge.”

This is so relatable because I am quite an extrovert! Just kidding!!!
I think this is a very interesting concept, I didn't know there was a word for this particular subject. I think it relates a bit to the concept of code switching, by changing yourself in some way to meet societal expectations. I also think an example of extroversion is the glamorization of the Ivy Leagues and Oxbridge, and how as the "core" of high education, they hold that power in the West. So now, many people who aspire to go to a top school immediately think of those institutions.

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This idea of Intelectual imperliasm reminds me of the Marx quote we looked at in class:

"The class which has the means of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it."

The issue though, is that Marx is only referring to control over intellectual production as a class issue, while not seeing how, on a larger scale, the west controls the worlds, for lack of a better word, language of knowledge

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“Intellectual Imperialism describes the process though which the knowledge production of one territory is partially controlled by another.”

I think that the idea of intellectual imperialism was interesting because it gives a name to some of the concepts we were talking about earlier in the term. How controlling the narrative changes how a society grows and develops, and gives power to select individuals while silencing others.

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I think "intellectual imperialism" is a positively delicious term that I must start using on a daily basis. It's interesting because it's affected the outcome of the planet in countless ways, but you see toned down versions of it in day-to-day conversation. The concept somehow made me think about the crazy doctor stories I've heard in which medical professionals use their seniority in a hierarchical system to squash anyone's concerns about an operation. The result is, unsurprisingly, often death.

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"When Northern thinkers 'go South', they tend to be in search not of knowledge but only of materials that lead to knowledge and, if need be, to a testing ground for their findings."

This quote proves that although some Northern sociologists would believe themselves to be worldwide thinkers and write about their research in the South, they were most likely only looking for what they wanted to find. It is most likely one of the reasons that the idea of needing to study in the North to become a sociologist existed. If all research came from the North because all of the knowledge found in the South was overlooked by the sociologists with more power, then the idea that only the North had decent information would be reproduced.

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"In other words, the epistemicide that sociology supported through colonialism, and now through the coloniality of knowledge, not only devalues knowledge from the South, but in doing so, devalues the very existence of those people that
constructed those knowledge systems."

Meghji is saying that as a result of sociology's position during colonialism, now we can see this even is being repeated as sociology begins to devalue the Southern knowledge system. He highlights that the current support of sociology is not much different from the one that was seen during colonialism. In efforts to change this cycle, he wants to emphasize non-Western sociology in order to reconstruct Southern knowledge.

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“it was unthinkable for the natives to have had any desire to study their own societies… there would have been no need for the civilizing mission of colonialism. Just as colonialism recruited locals for its armies, this science used ‘native’ auxiliaries and informants to create knowledge about the ‘other’. In the process, it undermined local power structures and institutions and devalued all competing modes of knowing and thinking to be termed as ‘magical’ and ‘pre-logical’, and having no claims to scientificity.”

It is extremely disturbing to me how colonialism was so deeply rooted in Eurocentrist propaganda to the point that it had no justification or substance if Europeans didn’t manufacture mythologies and push ludicrous claims. The line “it was unthinkable for the natives to have had any desire to study their own societies” encapsulates this idea flawlessly, illustrating that through a European mindset, it would be inconsequential to indulge in one’s own cultural disciplines because they were inherently inferior to any European practices. This perspective provided a perfect platform for Europeans to condone the colonization of other societies as they were supposedly trying to uplift these cultures when in reality they were exploiting them to fuel even more destruction. Yet somehow it is even more appalling in the regard that they created othering narratives about the people they were colonizing, essentially using them as a medium to create more pro-colonial narratives that continued the conquest while simultaneously erasing the vast culture and tradition that existed within these societies. This makes me wonder if we will be ever able to establish a just society if propaganda continues to be so prevalent and powerful.

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"Intellectual Imperialism has thus been part and parcel of sociological knowledge production since its beginning days. However, perhaps more so than in previous periods, sociologists of recent years have begun to collectively examine the precise consequences of intellectual imperialism for those doing sociology in the Global South."

I found the idea of intellectual imperialism to be really interesting. I would like to learn more about how modern sociologists are working to make not make this the norm like it has been for so many years. I also wonder how sociologists can objectively share methods across the world or if each one must be isolated for best results.

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Elias is perhaps most known for his work on the ‘civilizing
process’, where he tracks how Europe became civilized after the Middle
Ages, when the state and bourgeois institutions sought to better enforce
formal behaviour between different members of society (Elias 1982 [1939]).
I hope that by now your decolonial antennae are already sending off signals

at this mention of ‘civilizing process’, especially given the fact that Elias

locates this process as happening in Europe rather than anywhere else in the
world.

One of the ways Western historians uphold colonial episteme is by giving African intellectuals a platform to "explain" their society. In reality, non-Western historians cannot speak freely, and must follow strict Eurocentric rules. For example, colonialists require non-Western historians to explain how their cultures became "civilized." This way of teaching history concede that African societies were uncivilized in the first place. Consequently, the idea that colonists enlightened Africans became widely accepted. It is incumbent on historians to challenge the premises of the colonial episteme. However, historians from marginalized groups must sign fealty to colonialist ideas, or they risk losing their platforms. Non-Western historians face a near impossible challenge of distancing themselves from Eurocentrism.

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"The Global North rationalizes its intellectual imperialism, as the whole political economy of knowledge is shaped to benefit the Global North through the infrastructure of university rankings, funding councils, journals, academic
publishers, conference proceedings and so on. Sociology is not exempt from this intellectual imperialism, and in fact is a perfect example of such inequality in practice. Moreover, this intellectual imperialism sustained by sociology is not just a new phenomenon, but has been a part of sociology since its formal emergence."

Similar to the last section we read, this focused on the Global North. Sociology is filled with white men who dominate the field, especially with the coursework taught. It is scary that a course about global civilization focuses on white male authors.

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"Lastly, Alatas claims that intellectuals in the Global South have a dependency on the North in order to be recognized as experts in their respective discipline. In other words, they must be recognized as experts by those in the Global North before they are officially recognized as experts in the global academic field. As Alatas thus highlights: ‘Third World scholars become dependent on demand for their expertise in the West. The brain drain may not necessarily result in the physical relocation of these scholars in the West. In cases where there is no physical relocation, there is still a brain drain in terms of the using up of mental resources and energy for research projects conceived in the West but which employ Third World personnel as junior research partners'" (Meghji 92).

This idea of at least a temporary physical brain drain occurred to me earlier on in the reading during the discussion of Meller, but I didn't think of the mental aspect until I reached the section on Alatas Sr.'s work. It's an odd dynamic how Western academics are able to pull from top Southern talent to work under them while Southern thinkers have to either draw on members of their own region who are also struggling for recognition, or take whatever dregs the West would "allow" them.

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"English identity is not analyzed as an essential thing but is shown to be relationally produced through its connections with colonialism and empire."

I think it is an interesting thing to think about, that something has little substance on its own but is primarily composed of its relation to other items in the universe. This makes me wonder how much of me is original, and how much of me is created by the interactions I have with people around me, whether they're big or small. My favorite phrases that my friends know me to say I picked up from other people, so what of me is something I truly created myself?

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“The laws and liberties that the French National Assembly this put forward though their revolution were written as if they were universal (for instance, by using seemingly universal rather than particular terms such as ‘men’, ‘man’, ’liberty’, and so on).”

Those highlighted words seem a little similar to things America has written, and here at least, man is to imply that they were including men of all races (whether or not that was true) into their society and not that women were included under that term.
As I read about the similarities of different places’ ideologies despite their differences, I noticed a suspicious lack of women. This could just be because ‘man’ was being used as a gender neutral term, but I find it interesting how everyone is matginalizing women, regardless of their societal or political situation.

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I learned a new word! It’s parochialism!! Its definition is “a limited or narrow outlook, especially focused on a local area; narrow-mindedness.” I don’t know how I haven’t heard it before. Interestingly, “parochial” indicates a relation to a church parish. I don’t know about the etymology of the word but it’s certainly food for thought.

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“Firstly, there is the straightforward idea that any simplicity in the organization of the colonies is the result of colonization – hence his criticism of how colonialism destroyed the Gikuyu’s indigenous form of democratic government. Secondly, Kenyatta’s whole book is itself dedicated to the various ways that the Gikuyu people maintain degrees of social practice with highly interconnected levels of complexity, which – going beyond the colonial episteme – can in no way be evidence of the Gikuyu living in a ‘simple’ society”

Kenyatta’s points made me consider the subtle pro-colonist narratives that exist within our everyday lives and perpetuate colonist ideals and practices in the modern era. For example, as Kenyatta asserts, the narrative that pre-colonized societies were simplistic, masks not only the sophistication of their societal structure and culture but also establishes justification for the heinous crimes that colonists committed. A similar effect is also achieved through tactics like the erasure of entire societies by omitting their names, myths that mischaracterize said individuals, and the grouping of diverse cultures into one giant conglomerate. Considering these harmful narratives, it is also important to acknowledge that colonization is not an event of the past as it continues to occur as nations evolve and exploit and take over marginalized cultures for personal gain. Thus, it is imperative that we confront the notions within our society that mask the history of colonization and its applications in the current day so that we can truly decolonize the world around us.

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"In the dominant sociological narratives of Western
modernity, as Bhambra (2007) argues, the ‘darker side’ – of colonialism,
enslavement, empires and imperialism – tends to be either invisiblized,
praised or reduced to a secondary role. On the other hand, decolonial
sociologists put this ‘dark side’ at the centre of understandings of the making
of the world system.""

This reminded me of the video we watched on the AP African American Studies and the list of Black scholars that were cut from the course. People find certain scholars' ideas more important or more radical resulting in either highlighting or marginalizing those people and their ideas. This connects to the education system and how many classrooms are censoring information that they teach in order to remain closer to a Western prospective.

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"Kenyatta’s ethnography looks at the organization and social practices of the Gikuyu people in central Kenya. From the very first page of this study, Kenyatta already attempts to shift the representation of such people away from the lens of the colonial episteme."

I think Kenyatta proposes a more practical method for ethnography. Progressive ethnography analyzes the societal structure of marginalized groups. However, the oppressor's narrative remains dominant in most societies. Even studies that purport to be inclusive suppress the voices of the same minorities they claim to uplift. Kenyatta suggests that this traditional form of ethnography is actually a guise for Eurocentrism. By examining history through a Eurocentric lens, historians enforce Western hegemony. This form of ethography is so ubiquitous that any historian who attempts to center the marginalized is branded as extremists. Historians can combat this problem by employing counter-hegemony and social solidarity.

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"Kenyatta highlights how the rituals and practices in magic – while being seen as primitive by European colonialists – directly interrelate with the Gikuyu’s economic base. The Gikuyu people run a system where land belongs ‘privately’ to each family, but because the whole Gikuyu economy relies on land cultivation, these families always see their land practices as a collaborative, community-based exercise and societal duty. Magic feeds into this economic mode of production, in that the idea of individualism and opting out of one’s group is seen as an example of evil magic" (Meghji 73).

To me, it almost feels like Meghji is overcomplicating things in his depiction of "magic" as an economic function. It seems more akin to how the classic "Protestant work ethic" is both an economic driver and a religious tenet. Here is much less reaching example of how the very thing that the European colonists were decrying as barbarism was just another way of framing a system that they were just starting to incorporate into their society as a peak of civility.

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"English identity is not analyzed as an essential thing but is shown to be relationally  produced through its connections with colonialism and empire."

I found this explanation and the poem it is talking about at the beginning of this important. Many things that are the identity of predominantly white places have originated in communities they have silenced. We can see this happening a lot now with trends in language and fashion. The predominant culture in America often looks down on fashion that is unlike theirs but the second a white influencer does it it becomes innovative and the next new thing and no acknowledgment is given to the source.

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"This requires us, therefore, to revise the
Eurocentric standpoint that centres the French revolution as the triumph of
reason and universal concepts of freedom and liberty – as we see, for
instance, in the works of Marx"

This reminded me of the tree of Sociology or whatever it was called. It featured little to no women or people of color. Although Marx's work is important, there are others who's work is equally as important who don't get put into the canon.

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"While sociologists were keen to reproduce the civilizational backwardness thesis of colonized people, Kenyatta adopted a different standpoint - a southern standpoint - which allowed him to see far beyond the sociological studies which merely reproduced myths of colonial difference, [...] hence his criticism of how colonization destroyed the Gikuyu's indigenous form of democratic government."

To me, this is a good example of how a person's view of the world or society can be very dependent on who is in power and who is being oppressed. For example, most of the sociologists who were reproducing the civilizational backwardness thesis were those who resided in the West. Which was, in general, one of the places with the most power. But if you look at Kenyatta, who was arguing the opposite as other sociologists, he had experienced colonization and oppression that was targeted at his culture. I think that this is one of the main reasons that Kenyatta was able to see a new perspective on sociology and how colonization had affected it.

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“From all these continents, under whose eyes Europe today raises up her tower of opulence, there has flowed out for centuries toward that same Europe diamonds and oil, silk and cotton, wood and exotic products. Europe is literally the creation of the Third World. The wealth which smothers her is that which was stolen from the underdeveloped peoples.”

This quote first captivated me with its eloquence, but not only is it beautifully phrased, there is so much to unpack here. I think it is a very true and outrageously important statement that the concept of the "third world" is the doing of Europe. The term third world places little blame, it is merely stating the lack of advancement or lesser power of a country, when in reality, the creation of the third world was through oppression and colonization. It was action, not circumstance. In addition, his passage's usage of prose-like writing, in my eyes, is not only to show skill and establish credibility, but also perhaps symbolism of how Europe glamorizes consumerism or production of "exotic" beauty.

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“Yes, it would be worthwhile to study clinically, in detail, the steps taken by Hitler and Hitlerism and to reveal to the very distinguished, very humanistic, very Christian bourgeois of the twentieth century that without his being aware of it, he has a Hitler inside him, that Hitler inhabits him, that Hitler is his demon, that if he rails against him, he is being inconsistent and that, at bottom, what he cannot forgive Hitler for is not crime in itself, the crime against man…and the fact that he applied to Europe colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the [redacted]11 of Africa.”

It is often interesting to think about how various atrocities and the narratives perpetuated in society affect those at the top of the social hierarchy. Furthermore, I think this quote raises a powerful point about how the Christian bourgeois was grounded in the heinous beliefs of Hitler and thus don’t think about the atrocities of holocaust in regards to the implications of jewish suffering and genoicde but only in accordance to their own goals. This demonstrated in this quote through how this idea is intertwined with bifiguration in the fact that those at the to off the social hierarchy, in the context of race, want to push forward the idea of white supriority and thus do not want the narrative of white suppression. This makes me further ponder the intersectionality of atrocities and how they have implications on the narratives we tell in society?

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I think that the part that was talking about how the southern standpoint differs from the Eurocentric standpoint is interesting because they seem to be two sided of the same coin. It makes me wonder that by defining the difference is so that one concept can be “superior” to the other.

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“…in isolating the horrors of Nazism as the epitome of the dialectic of Enlightenment and modernity, the position adopted by Adorno and Horkheimer fails to connect the horrors of Nazi Germany with the long history of violence towards colonized people across the various empires, which itself acted as a precursor to Nazism.”

People like it when I talk about Nazis. Idk why because I’m no more qualified than anyone else. I think graham covered really well what I thought upon reading this, and I just want to add that I think it’s incredible that the US originally SUPPORTED the Nazi regime, albeit blind to their crimes. Sociology has more historical implications than I thought, and decolonizing sociology requires bushwhacking through some pretty heavy weeds. It’s good for understanding the motivations behind heinous acts. This all begs the question of who inspired the new American slaughter of indigenous peoples. Perhaps the crusades or something similar? It’s a vicious cycle.