Totalitarian Experience and Knowledge Production

Totalitarian Experience and Knowledge Production
Author: Svetla Koleva
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 316
Release: 2017-11-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004333630

Totalitarian Experience and Knowledge Production examines, in a comparative perspective, sociology as practiced in six European Communist countries marked by various forms of totalitarianism in the period 1945-1989. In contrast to normative sociology’s view that such coexistence is essentially impossible, the author argues that sociology could function in these undemocratic societies insofar as sociologists succeeded in establishing relatively autonomous institutional and cognitive zones. Based on the self-reflection of scholars who had practiced their profession during that period, the book reveals the tribulations of the scientific identity of sociology under the specific social-political conditions of totalitarian societies. It becomes evident that the basic principle that made sociological knowledge possible was freedom of thought in search for scientific truth despite the ‘truth’ imposed by political authority.

Post-Western Sociology - From China to Europe

Post-Western Sociology - From China to Europe
Author: Laurence Roulleau-Berger
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 365
Release: 2018-05-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1351185330

This book is rooted in an epistemological approach to sociology in which the boundaries between Western and non-Western sociologies are acknowledged and built on. It argues that knowledge is organised in conceptual spaces linked to paradigms and programmes which in turn are linked to ethnocentred knowledge processes; that until recently Western approaches, including Post-Colonial, French Social Science and American approaches, have dominated non-Western theories; and that Western theories have sometimes seemed incapable of explaining phenomena produced in other societies. It goes on to argue that the blurring of boundaries between Western and non-Western sociologies is very important; and that such a Post-Western approach will mean co-production and co-construction of common knowledge, the recognition of ignored or forgotten scientific cultures and a "global change" in sociology which imposes theoretical and methodological detours, displacements, reversals and conversions. The book brings together a wide range of Western and Chinese sociologists who explore the consequences of this new approach in relation to many different issues and aspects of sociology.

An Invitation to Non-Hegemonic World Sociology

An Invitation to Non-Hegemonic World Sociology
Author: Eric Macé
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 371
Release: 2024-07-19
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1538161036

Although sociology is present as a discipline or as a social practice in most countries in the world, its future as a not-only Western social science has hardly been addressed before. In this book, a team of interdisciplinary scholars have been working together not so much to offer one single response to the question than to raise important issues at stake for the future of sociology. Is it universal? Can it be indigenous? How is it possible – and is it even desirable – to write its history differently so as to know better about its early world diffusion and gradual Westernization? Do we need to expand or change its canon? This collection brings together essays that are all engaged in international discussions concerning the universality of sociology, or more precisely the epistemological and theoretical conditions of this universality. The postcolonial and decolonial critiques of the Eurocentrism of sociology are the basis for a reflection on how to continue to do sociology in a non-hegemonic way. That is, sociological ways of describing reality - including the history of sociology and its canon - that are not limited by Western-centrism or other nationalist or religious hegemonies.

The Rise and Fall of Communist Yugoslavism

The Rise and Fall of Communist Yugoslavism
Author: Tomaž Ivešić
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 309
Release: 2024-03-05
Genre: History
ISBN: 1003858759

The Rise and Fall of Communist Yugoslavism: Soft Nation‐Building in Yugoslavia examines how the Communist Party of Yugoslavia incorporated the idea of a Yugoslav nation into its ideology and created the Yugoslav Soft Nation‐Building project after the Second World War. With an innovative approach of researching three levels of research (from above, from below and from the viewpoint of interethnic relations) the book brings forward an original concept of soft nation‐building, with a focus on the Slovenian‐Yugoslav dimension. Drawing on archival sources from Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo and Belgrade, the author argues that after the abandonment of the Yugoslav national idea, two Yugoslavisms were created in the mid‐1960s. State‐based socialist Yugoslavism was propagated by the Party and had no ethnic connotations, only a small proportion of the population identified themselves as “Yugoslav” in national terms. The created vacuum was filled by old national identities. The book is of interest to specialists and advanced students of cultural and intellectual history, studies of nationalism, but also history of science and institutions and the history of everyday life. The book aims to appeal to scholars of Balkan, South‐East European and Yugoslav history.

The Belt and Road Initiative in Asia, Africa, and Europe

The Belt and Road Initiative in Asia, Africa, and Europe
Author: David M. Arase
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 244
Release: 2022-11-11
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000781615

This book examines the progress and reception of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in key subregions of Asia, Africa and Europe. Through its exploration of the patchwork of distinctive sub regions of each continent, the book analyses how well the BRI accommodates sub regional variation as it attempts to integrate Asia, Africa, and Europe under Chinese auspices. Individual chapters focus on how developing subregions experience BRI relations with China, while others focus on how liberal powers seek to compete with China’s BRI agenda. The contributions also gauge the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the BRI in regional settings and point to its future implications. Offering a panoramic view of the vast mosaic of Asian, African, and European sub regions targeted by the BRI, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of International Relations and Global Political Economy as well as Chinese politics and those with an interest in the Belt and Road Initiative more broadly.

Sociology in Hungary

Sociology in Hungary
Author: Victor Karády
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2019-07-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030163032

This book is the first English-language study of the social, intellectual and institutional history of sociology and the social sciences in Hungary. Starting with the emergence of the discipline in the early 20th century, Karady and Nagy chart its development throughout various transformations of Hungarian society: from the liberal Dual Monarchy, through the respective Christian and Stalinist regimes, and culminating in the modern scholarly field today. Drawing on large-scale prosopographical materials, the authors use empirically-based socio-historical analysis to measure the impact of successive and radical regime changes on the country's intellectual life. This will be an important and original point of reference for scholars and students of historical sociology, and Eastern European intellectual history.

Cosmopolitanism in Hard Times

Cosmopolitanism in Hard Times
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 432
Release: 2020-12-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004438025

While each chapter seizes the dialectic of enlightenment and counter-enlightenment at work in the global world, the volume insists on the moral, intellectual, structural, and historical resources that still make cosmopolitanism a real possibility even in these hard times.

China in India's Neighbourhood

China in India's Neighbourhood
Author: Anita Sengupta
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2024-04-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1040024378

This book explores the scope and extent of the growing Chinese influence in India’s neighbourhood and its impact on India as well as on Asian power politics. Through theoretical narratives and detailed case studies, it examines Chinese bilateral relationships in the Indian neighbourhood and looks at the extent and significance of Chinese influence through the lens of strategic, economic and infrastructural arrangements and Chinese interventions in South, Southeast, and Central Asia. The book takes into account regional voices and domestic political compulsions in understanding what they make of the Chinese narrative and examines how and whether the narrative has changed in recent years through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as an instrument of Chinese public diplomacy. The volume also discusses how domestic narratives and compulsions in the Indian neighbourhood remain significant and how these, in turn, would impact the trajectory of Chinese public diplomacy. Intertwined through all these themes is a focus on the extent to which these could become potential flashpoints for India. This book will be a useful resource for academics and researchers working on Asian geopolitics and geo-economics, Chinese foreign policy, Chinese politics, international relations of Asia, Asian dynamics and Asian studies.

Handbook of Post-Western Sociology: From East Asia to Europe

Handbook of Post-Western Sociology: From East Asia to Europe
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 1056
Release: 2023-04-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004529322

Beyond hegemonic thoughts, the Post-Western sociology enables a new dialogue between East Asia (China, Japan, Korea) and Europe on common and local knowledge to consider theoretical continuities and discontinuities, to develop transnational methodological spaces, and co-produce creolized concepts. With this new paradigm in social sciences we introduce the multiplication of epistemic autonomies vis-à-vis Western hegemony and new theoretical assemblages between East-Asia and European sociologies. From this ecology of knowledge this groundbreaking contribution is to coproduce a post-Western space in a cross-pollination process where “Western” and “non-Western” knowledge do interact, articulated through cosmovisions, as well as to coproduce transnational fieldwork practices.

The Future Is History

The Future Is History
Author: Masha Gessen
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 530
Release: 2017-10-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 159463453X

WINNER OF THE 2017 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD IN NONFICTION FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS WINNER OF THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY'S HELEN BERNSTEIN BOOK AWARD NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2017 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW, LOS ANGELES TIMES, WASHINGTON POST, BOSTON GLOBE, SEATTLE TIMES, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR, NEWSWEEK, PASTE, and POP SUGAR The essential journalist and bestselling biographer of Vladimir Putin reveals how, in the space of a generation, Russia surrendered to a more virulent and invincible new strain of autocracy. Award-winning journalist Masha Gessen's understanding of the events and forces that have wracked Russia in recent times is unparalleled. In The Future Is History, Gessen follows the lives of four people born at what promised to be the dawn of democracy. Each of them came of age with unprecedented expectations, some as the children and grandchildren of the very architects of the new Russia, each with newfound aspirations of their own--as entrepreneurs, activists, thinkers, and writers, sexual and social beings. Gessen charts their paths against the machinations of the regime that would crush them all, and against the war it waged on understanding itself, which ensured the unobstructed reemergence of the old Soviet order in the form of today's terrifying and seemingly unstoppable mafia state. Powerful and urgent, The Future Is History is a cautionary tale for our time and for all time.