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ABSTRACT
This article analyses the production of peripheral social theory in different geopolitical eras and stages of modernity, with a special focus on contemporary (semi)peripheral sociology. It is argued that a step forward must be taken beyond destituting thought, as a reference to those intellectual strands which focus on the critique of Eurocentrism and the destitution of its epistemological foundations. Therefore, we seek to analyse some of the main dilemmas of (semi)peripheral sociology in order to advance in the construction of an instituting intellectual movement. Two possible directions are proposed: on the one hand, to recover the centrality of autonomous fields and aggregator circuits that may overcome intellectual extroversion; on the other hand, to advance the possibilities concerning the construction of theory in the periphery as one of the keys to more permanently dislodge the hegemony of theories from central countries and their rote use outside the soil where they originated.
RÉSUMÉ
Cet article analyse la production de la théorie sociale périphérique dans de diverses époques géopolitiques et des étapes de la modernité, en mettant l'accent sur la sociologie contemporaine (semi)-périphérique. On fait valoir qu'il faut prendre un pas en avant au-delà de la pensée dénuante, en tant que référence à ces domaines intellectuels qui mettent l'accent sur la critique de l'eurocentrisme et le dénuement de ses fondements épistémologiques. Nous cherchons donc à analyser certains des principaux dilemmes de la sociologie (semi)-périphérique afin d’avancer dans la construction d'un mouvement intellectuel constituant. Deux directions possibles sont proposées : d'une part, récupérer la centralité des champs autonomes et des circuits agrégateurs qui peuvent surmonter l'extroversion intellectuelle ; et d'autre part, proposer les possibilités concernant la construction de la théorie en périphérie comme l'une des clés pour déplacer de manière plus permanente l'hégémonie des théories des pays centraux et leur utilisation machinalement en dehors du sol d’où elles sont originaires.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. A clear example of this in Brazil today, but which also applies to other Latin American countries, is the incentive given to a policy of internationalization, assuming that the big centres and English language publications are the model.
2. NETSAL, the research group we lead in Brazil, is conducting, with financial support from FAPERJ, a large research on the CLAPCS and Latin American studies in Brazil. For an initial overview of the research, see (in Portuguese) this thematic issue on Latin American Sociology in NETSAL (Citation2014).
3. This concept of a social system, developed by Domingues elsewhere, seems to be a more flexible construction than those of ‘social space’ and ‘field’ in Bourdieu, which seem more rigid and pre-determined. In the second case, it is evidence of the tendency of excessive closing off unto itself, in addition to the problems relative to the definition of the agent found in his theory, overly determined as it is by habitus, whose origins however, remain obscure.
4. This information was extracted from the SBS foundation memorandum. In addition to Fernando de Azevedo, others also participated in the foundation meeting: Maria Isaura Pereira de Queiroz (who drafted the memorandum), Antônio Candido, Florestan Fernandes, Octavio da Costa Eduardo, Herbert Baldus, Azis Simão, Donald Pierson, Antônio Rubbo Muller, Juarez Lopes, Levi Cruz, Oracy Nogueira, Sergio Buarque de Hollanda, Mauro Brandão Lopes, Maurício Segall, Lucula Herrmann, Gioconda Mussolini, Mário Wagner Vieira da Cunha, Egon Schaden and Roger Bastide.
5. The Brazilian sociologist Alberto Guerreiro Ramos (1915–1982) had a long intellectual and public career (including a brief period as Congressman), during which he supported democracy and developmentalism, as well as a genuine Brazilian sociology. Nationalism was a crucial aspect of his thought, which marked also his epistemological outlook. He did many different sorts of research, but one of his main more empirically oriented contributions was to the theory of organizations, partly developed in the United States, where he taught after being exiled. Curiously, however, although the developmentalist element is detectable in his work on the topic, it evinces a traditional sociological perspective (Ramos Citation1981).
6. Within the current rediscovery of Ramos’ thought, an interesting research agenda that is opened is the analysis of the author’s reception in Latin America, particularly in Mexico, where he influenced, among others, the theoreticians of dependence, some of which had been his students in Brazil, as in the case of Ruy Mauro Marini and Theotônio dos Santos. Extracts of his The Sociological Reduction will be published in English in a collective volume edited by Beigel (forthcoming) that intends to disseminate key contributions from Latin American Sociology to a broad audience.
7. Ramos however kept a much stronger proximity to African intellectuals, being that blackness and the instrumental mobilization of nationalistic discourse (the case of Nyerere in Tanzania, among others) and the Pan-African movement (Nkrumah Citation1965), were fundamental elements in these ties, which brought him closer, as known, to the black movement. Maia (Citation2014) has compared his trajectory and the discourses of intellectual autonomy with those of Malaysian sociologist Syed Hussein Alatas.