Connected Sociologies

Review: This book presents a fresh perspective on the interface between sociology as a discipline and its other-modernity. After interrogating substantive positions (from modernization, development and multiple modernities to dependency, underdevelopment and world systems analysis) and epistemological positions (indigeneity, autonomous knowledge and decolonization) Gurminder Bhambra presents a novel argument that connected sociologies is the methodological trope that can and should exemplify global sociology. A must-read for everyone interested in the discipline and its future and in the theories of modernity. Sujata Patel, Professor of Sociology, University of Hyderabad, India The influential theories that still equate modernity with the West, and marginalize our colonial histories, are obsolete. Based on a deep knowledge of sociological thought, Gurminder Bhambra's important new book shows the need for radical rethinking. Connected Sociologies traces with great clarity the emerging movements of thought that give us new ways of understanding global society, and offers a hopeful future for social science. Raewyn Connell, author of Southern Theory Drawing on her previous path-breaking critique of Eurocentric modernity, Bhambra confronts us with one crucial question: can sociology account for a world that underwent globalization long before sociology took any notice and was prey to colonialism, dispossession and violence without sociology paying much attention either? The answer is yes if you trust and follow Bhambra's fascinating reconstruction of sociology as connected sociologies and connected histories. Boaventura de Sousa Santos, Professor of Sociology at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, and Distinguished Legal Scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA