Authors and Corporations: | |
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In: | Sociology, 51, 2017, 1, p. 11-26 |
published: |
SAGE Publications
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Media Type: | Article, E-Article |
Physical Description: | 11-26 |
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ISSN: |
0038-0385
1469-8684 |
DOI: | 10.1177/0038038516656983 |
published in: | Sociology |
Language: | English |
Subjects: | |
Collection: | SAGE Publications (CrossRef) |
<jats:p>While the recent proliferation of sociological engagements with postcolonial thought is important and welcome, central to most critiques of Eurocentrism is a concern with the realm of epistemology, with how sociology comes to know its objects of study. Such a concern, however, risks perpetuating another form of Eurocentrism, one that is responsible for instituting the very distinction between epistemology and ontology, knowledge and reality. By developing a sustained engagement with Boaventura de Sousa Santos’s work, as well as establishing possible connections with what has been termed the ‘turn to ontology’ in anthropology, in this article I argue that in order for sociology to become exposed to the deeply transformative potential of non-Eurocentric thinking, it needs to cultivate a decolonial imagination that may enable it to move beyond epistemology, and to recognise that there is no social and cognitive justice without existential justice, no politics of knowledge without a politics of reality.</jats:p> |