Nominal Openness and Epistemic Endogamy in ‘Global’ and ‘Provincialized’ Sociologies

Abstract

Calls for global and provincialized sociologies have emerged in the last decade as thoughtful projects in contemporary sociology. In this article, I criticize the rhetorical nature and epistemic endogamy of some of those calls through case studies of sociologies in Mexico and their institutional and epistemic complexity. Avoiding reductionisms, I will characterize sociologies in Mexico as both central (mainly Westernized) and (semi)peripheral. From a critical stance, I will argue that the latter are constructed upon teleological, prescriptive and pragmatic-theory logics and constitute epistemologically legitimate (professional) sociologies, given their logics’ internal cognitive affinity and the consistency these logics present in relation to external ideological structures and socio-political discourses. I will then make explicit some of the theoretical and disciplinary challenges these overlooked professional sociologies bring to the fore. I conclude by suggesting a postcolonial theoretical-methodological strategy to address such challenges.

Keywords

decolonization of knowledge epistemic complexity epistemic endogamy global sociology Latin American sociology postcolonial theory provincialization of knowledge public sociology

Introduction

Since the advent of early Western social sciences and their explorations of foreign socio-geographies, ‘Latin American Others’ – like ‘Oriental Others’ (Said, 1977) – have been considered as research subjects. English anthropologist Edward B Tylor, for instance, published his ethnographic work on ‘primitive’ fashions and beliefs in Cuba and Mexico as early as 1861 (Korsbaek, 2009). More recently, ‘Latin American Others’ and their knowledge contributions have also been taken into account in historical and literary branches of postcolonial studies (Fiddian, 2000; McLeod, 2007; Young, 2001). However, with the exception of a few works (Boatcă et al., 2010a), Latin American sociologies/ists and their disciplinary contributions feature rather scarcely in Western debates about the future of sociology in general (Stanley, 2005, 2009) and, more importantly, in Western proposals for ‘global’ and ‘provincialized’ sociologies (Back, 2009; Burawoy, 2005, 2008; Go, 2013; Holmwood, 2009; Martin and Beittel, 1998).

Klor de Alva’s (1992) statements about the unsuitability of postcolonial frameworks for interpreting the post-Conquest experiences of Latin America during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries are persuasive, to some extent (cf. Fiddian, 2000; Taylor, 2007a). Klor de Alva’s (1992) main point, as he himself notes, is simple: in colonial Latin America, the indigenous populations¹ were relegated to the margins of the then-emerging ‘new’ societies. Political independence from the Spanish and Portuguese empires in these regions was therefore achieved not by indigenous phalanges but by a hybrid and rather Westernized insurgency – the Creole population that dreamt about sovereignty and independence while having adopted the empire’s language, religion and culture. It would be therefore inappropriate and hypocritical to argue for the colonization of such Latin American ‘non-native sectors’ and to portray their wars of independence as ‘anti-colonial struggles’ (1992: 3). Hence, where there was no colonization ‘there could be no postcolonialism’ (1992: 4). Klor de Alva’s argument, however, is not only simple, it is also essentialist and reductionist. It is essentialist since it assumes colonialism as a reality that can be experienced only by ‘pure’ ethnic groups and it is reductionist for it conceives colonialism only as a set of (Marxist) economic and material phenomena – subjugation, abuse and exploitation (1992: 19). Klor de Alva excludes subtler and more pervasive forms of colonial domination, for instance, evangelizing and civilizing imperial missions and their various forms of symbolic and epistemic violence (Mignolo, 2002; Spivak, 1988). Childs and Williams’ (1997) scepticism about the inclusion of Latin American cases in postcolonial debates comes from a different angle. They side with other authors who fear the loss of analytical value which would follow from ‘inflating’ the term ‘post-colonial’ in such a way as to include within it ‘all territorial aggressions ever undertaken in human history’ (1997: 2). Whereas Childs and Williams’ scepticism is based on valid conceptual concerns, their fears rest upon a rather linear conception of history. Such an exclusionist compartmentalization of a single world time-history as an unproblematic dimension has been noted and criticized by a number of authors (Adkins, 2009; Fiddian, 2000; Mignolo, 2002, 2007, 2010; Vázquez, 2009; Wallerstein, 2004; Young, 2001). If we follow these authors’ critiques and so replace our understanding of time and history with notions of multiple time axes or alternative chronologies, the validity of Childs and Williams’ critique decreases significantly.

In sum, it would be not only naïve but also analytically incongruous to present colonial (16th–18th centuries) and postcolonial (19th century onwards) Latin Americas as ‘early’ cases whose trajectories would ‘enlighten’ the colonial-to-postcolonial transitions and struggles that have taken place in other geo-epistemic territories in the 20th century – e.g. Africa and South Asia. Nonetheless, the Latin Americas and their common and distinctive colonial and postcolonial experiences cannot be excluded from theories and debates whose explicit aims, however differently framed, comprise the recognition, affirmation and re-thinking of ‘the Others’ (Bhambra, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011; Costa, 2006; Costa and Boatcă, 2010; Go, 2013; Said, 1977; Spivak, 1988; Mignolo, 2002, 2007).

In this article, I will present a brief review of postcolonial scholarship on the lack of epistemic openness in Western knowledge categories. I will then present the calls of Michael Burawoy and other Western authors’ for ‘global’ and ‘provincialized’ sociologies; here, I will pay special attention to Burawoy’s classifications of public, critical, policy and professional sociologies. After this, I will criticize the rhetorical nature (nominal openness) and conceptual-theoretical interbreeding (epistemic endogamy) of such calls and classifications by offering an analysis of professional sociologies in Mexico and their central (mostly ‘Westernized’) and (semi)peripheral voices. From a critical, non-partisan and non-reductionist stance, I will characterize the latter as sociologies whose discursive bases rest upon teleological, prescriptive and pragmatic-theory logics and will argue that such sociologies are epistemologically and disciplinarily legitimate – that is, professional – given their logics’ internal cognitive affinity and the consistency these logics present in relation to external ideological structures and socio-political contexts. I will then make explicit some of the disciplinary challenges these overlooked professional sociologies bring to calls and debates on global/provincialized sociologies and Western-centric sociological thought in general. Finally, I will set out a postcolonial theoretical-methodological strategy to address these challenges, based on a call for the acknowledgement of complexities and Walter Mignolo’s statements on ‘decolonisation of knowledge’.

The Monolithic Other and the Problem of Inclusion

Young (2001) criticizes the ‘consistent misrepresentation’ of Europe as a subject in postcolonial scholarship. Narrow views, he argues, tend to overlook the fragmented and heterogeneous configurations of the imperial Europes² and depict instead ‘a single, […] imperially minded entity’ (2001: 74). Such reductionisms are not rare. Scholars at times seem to take for granted abbreviated formulae to refer to what they probably consider amorphous and irrelevant varieties of miscellaneous ‘souths’. The use of the singular term ‘the other’ – or its variants, ‘the south/erner’, ‘the native’, ‘the subaltern’ – to refer to such diversities of individuals, communities, aggregates, societies and phenomena seems to do the job and thus closes off discussions of seemingly irrelevant particularities. This is not, however, an innocuous editorial choice. The aprioristic generalizations that come with such a choice hide, and reveal at the same time, a generalized disposition towards the homogenization of cultural, social, political and epistemic differences. But this comes as no surprise. A number of postcolonial scholars have pointed out the error and advised against theoretical and analytical constructions of a monolithic Other (Bhambra, 2006, 2010; Go, 2013; Mignolo, 2010; Said, 1977; Spivak, 1988). Such advice seems to have been taken into account in the postcolonial literature. However, even among postcolonial voices, it appears that such a suggestion has not always delivered epistemic diversity. Taylor (2007b), for instance, offers a postcolonial account of the Spanish Empire and is clearly aware that ‘the majority’ of the Spanish colonizers ‘tended to repeat stereotypes of otherness’ (2007b: 49). Interestingly, Taylor’s own descriptions do not seem to convey the ethnic, cultural and political diversity of pre-colonial indigenous social groups and communities and so refer only to the Inca and Aztec ‘empires’ and ‘civilizations’ – in addition to a group of misinterpreted ‘cannibals’ (2007b: 48–9). The fact that Taylor’s benevolent (Spivak, 1988) postcolonial gaze is not just empirically limited but cannot escape from the use of Western categories to account for the rich spectrum of pre-colonial societal aggregates, groups and types of societies is more a theoretical loss than an analytical gain³ (Bhambra, 2007, 2010; Costa and Boatcă, 2010).

Go (2013) criticizes the aggregative type of thinking that underpins Eurocentric interpretations of history and social phenomena such as Taylor’s. In the field of sociology, however, it was the scholar Gurminder Bhambra who first pointed out this flaw. In relation to Eurocentric concepts of and approaches to gender, race and modernity/ies, Bhambra (2007, 2009, 2011) argues that one of the ultimate goals of postcolonial scholarship is not the mechanical inclusion of the Others, their voices and experiences into the same old categories of knowledge that academic disciplines have taken for granted. Postcolonial scholarship becomes futile if its efforts are reduced to the inclusion of Others into the ‘pre-existing orderings’ and the ‘core categories of analysis’ (Bhambra, 2007: 873) that Western social sciences and sociology in particular have, intentionally or not, reified and galvanized over the last century under the pretence of securing conditions for academic dialogues. Following Bhambra’s suggestions, the Others ‘must call into question the structures of knowledge that had previously occluded’ their voices in such a way that those voices advance ‘a reconsideration of previous theoretical categories’⁴ (Bhambra, 2007: 879). Although Bhambra has constructed her arguments upon a postcolonial critique of traditional historiography and Eurocentric theories of modernity/ies, her argument is particularly useful to frame the lack of epistemic openness in recent projects of ‘global’ and ‘provincialised’⁵ sociologies (Back, 2009; Burawoy, 2005, 2008; Go, 2013; Holmwood, 2009).

Benevolent Inclusions in Global/Provincialized Sociologies

Holmwood (2009) and Back (2009) have suggested strategies to include the Others in what would be the future of global social inquiry, that is, respectively, a provincialized inclusive sociology that is not necessarily dependent on consensus and a global attentiveness to what is currently held as epistemologically unthinkable. But it was Burawoy (2005, 2008) who actually discussed some ‘sociological Others’ in more detail. His intended inclusion of these Others began with his much-debated call for a ‘public sociology’ (2005). This call appears inspired by the particularities of sociology in the United States and urges practitioners and academics to develop a ‘public sociology of global dimensions’ by setting up civil society and ‘the defence of the social’ as ‘the standpoint’ of a renovated ‘partisan’ sociology (2005: 20, 24). Such a public sociology is inscribed in Burawoy’s division of ‘sociological labour’, built upon two fundamental questions: ‘for whom and for what do we pursue sociology?’ (2005: 11). This leads Burawoy to distinguish between academic and extra-academic audiences and between two types of functionalities of knowledge: a goal-oriented or ‘instrumental’ knowledge and a dialogue-based ‘reflexive’ knowledge (2005: 11; see also Holmwood, 2007: 58–61). Using these two axes, Burawoy places ‘public sociology’ alongside ‘policy sociology’, ‘professional sociology’ and ‘critical sociology’. He defines policy sociology as the type of sociology that contributes advice or solutions to particular social problems posed by an external client in unilateral terms. Policy sociology is not antagonistic to public sociology but differs from the latter inasmuch as public sociology does seek a reflexive dialogue with its audiences. In Burawoy’s words, professional sociology is formed by the various sociological ‘research programmes, assumptions, exemplars, defining questions, conceptual apparatuses and evolving theories’ (2005: 10). This professional sociology would represent, in other words, the rationalistic Western archetype of a properly institutionalized social science which grants ‘legitimacy and expertise’ to public and policy sociologies. In this typology, critical sociology amounts to the ‘conscience of professional sociology’ (2005: 10), just as public sociology represents the conscience of policy sociology. Holmwood (2007) criticizes the aprioristic logic in Burawoy’s Parsonian typology. From a postcolonial perspective, however, there are far more serious flaws in this classification. Bhambra (2010) has criticized the biased conception of ‘the global’ in Burawoy’s proposal. In her view, Burawoy misses the historical and present interconnectedness of local and cosmopolitan knowledges that the concept of ‘global’ necessarily implies (Bhambra, 2010: 44). Next, I will point out another flaw in Burawoy’s classification and in global/provincialized sociology projects in general.

Burawoy acknowledges both that the concept of public sociology ‘is an American invention’ and that public sociology in other countries ‘is the essence of sociology’⁶ (2005: 20). However, this frank acknowledgement of difference (Bhambra, 2007, 2009, 2011) does not seem to encourage him to adjust his typology – and does not prevent him from homogenizing ‘national’ semi-peripheral sociologies either. He praises sociology in South Africa not for its professionalism but for its Western-like ‘public-sociology’ profile, that is, its connections with ‘the anti-apartheid struggles’ and ‘diverse civic organizations’ (2005: 20). On the other hand, from the same standpoint, Burawoy warns about sociology in Russia being left to ‘business schools […] centers of opinion and market research’ in such a way that ‘a serious sociological enterprise’ takes place only in a few spaces funded, naturally, by ‘Western foundations’ (2005: 21). In a later publication, Burawoy (2008) apparently goes beyond these views and puts forward his call for a ‘global sociology from below’ (2008: 436). In this text, the author seems more open to the idea that professional, policy, critical and public sociologies may operate differently in non-Western geographies. The author, for instance, cites sociologist Michel Wieviorka who advocates sociological interventions symbiotically intertwined with public and professional sociology (2008: 437). But Burawoy is cautious and remains loyal to his classificatory categories for, in his view, such sociological interventions make sense ‘only in dialogue with the other sociologies – professional, critical and policy’ (2008: 437). Similarly, when he recalls Russian sociologist Zdravomyslova’s conception of public sociology as ‘a movement for the defence of an autonomous professional sociology’, he seems to qualify such a view as ironic and does not refrain from pointing out the ‘weak legacy of professional sociology’ in Russia (2008: 439). By the end of his call for a ‘subaltern’ global sociology, Burawoy notes that his aim is not labelling for the sake of labelling, but classifying ‘in order to validate […] these different ways of doing sociology’; thus he reminds us that ‘where the US has experience in professional sociology, […] the semi-periphery (especially India, South Africa and Brazil) instruct us in public sociology’ (2008: 443).

However genuine Burawoy’s sociological calls are, his analytical categories remain rigid and explicitly Western-centric. In a reference to the same Spanish prelate who has been acclaimed as ‘the founding father of European anti-Colonialism’ in the 16th-century (Young, 2001: 75), Walter Mignolo (2002: 63) critically notes that while Catholic bishop Bartolome de Las Casas ‘defended the Indians’, the latter never spoke for themselves. The story is not the same in this instance, the Others – or rather some of them as I will argue below – are obviously being heard (Back, 2009), their sociological voices appear taken into account (Holmwood, 2009). Yet this story is not altogether different: despite being heard, these sociological Others are being examined and accounted for under the light of the West/s’ typologies, they are merely added to conceptual moulds, included into pre-existing categories of knowledge that apparently rest upon the explicit acknowledgement of disciplinary ‘power asymmetries’ between (Western) instrumental and disciplinary knowledges (Burawoy, 2005: 17–9), yet are barely informed (Burawoy, 2005: 20) by the power asymmetries across the sociological international fields (Costa and Boatcă, 2010). In short, the empirical differences Burawoy finds in semi-peripheral sociologies are deemed not enough to make an epistemological difference (Bhambra, 2007, 2011). Is it, then, possible to conceive ‘professional’ sociologies beyond the reasonable but excessively institutionalistic and formalistic parameters of ‘research programmes, assumptions, exemplars, defining questions, conceptual apparatuses and evolving theories’ (Burawoy 2005: 10)? As I explain below, this is indeed possible.

Sociologies in Mexico: The Public, Policy and Critical is the Professional

What I offer below is not an advocatory account but a critical and non-reductive representation of sociologies in Mexico. The reader can find below the reasons why Burawoy’s classification and global/provincialized sociologies overlook evident instances of political and cultural complexities and therefore offer limited hope for epistemic reconstructions. I will start by outlining a categorization of sociologies in Mexico based on their local geo-political loci of enunciation and by analysing one of them – the ‘semi-peripheral’. I will then offer an account of the latter’s epistemic legitimacy.

Central and (Semi)Peripheral Sociologies

Whereas polycentric sociologies have been emerging in some Western regions (Holmwood, 2011), Mexico’s sociological field has mostly gravitated around a single geo-political centre. Unsurprisingly, it is the same institutional space from which Davies (1997) and Abend (2006) take their samples of Mexican sociologists – by analysing, exclusively, publications of authors based at higher education institutions located in Mexico City, Davies (1997) discusses how sociology in Mexico has followed a different path compared to sociology in the United States⁷ and Abend (2006) argues that sociological styles of thought in Mexico and the US are rather incompatible.⁸ A Mexican scholar has described this geo-political space as a generator of a symbolic domination that does not impose theories and research agendas but makes them ‘attractive and canonical’ for the rest of the sociologists in this country (Aguilar, 1995: 209; see also Farfán, 1995, and Abend, 2006). During a series of interviews I conducted in Mexico,⁹ several lecturers based in Mexico City suggested similar pictures of the country’s sociological field. In optimistic statements, one of them said that academic staff from Mexico City are regularly sent to public universities outside the country’s capital to ‘update’ colleagues based at provincial schools and departments. Another academic, rather critically, stated that sociologists based at Mexico City institutions tend to assume that social research in the country is carried out only in Mexico City.

Most of the sociology doctoral programmes in Mexico are concentrated in this region and, I argue, it is there where one can find the most Western-like, or ‘Westernized’, sociologies in the country. Although French Positivism in the early period (early 20th century) and Marxism in recent decades (1960s–1990s) have been frequent references, there are no clear-cut theoretical-methodological paradigms running through the contributions of this sociological elite (Andrade, 1998; Camero and Andrade, 2008; Girola, 1995; Sefchovich, 1989). Proposals for a generalist sociological theory based on Giddens’ structuration theory and Luhmann’s systems theory (Galindo, 2008) can be found alongside calls for a ‘militant Marxist’ research methodology (Rojas, 1999, 2006). The sociological voices from these territories include a minority of academics who have been trained in higher education institutions in Europe and the United States and whose perceived knowledge authority is therefore paradigmatic – or ‘capable of creating schools of thought’, as a senior sociology lecturer I interviewed put it. These sociological voices may belong to editors and contributors of ‘the most prestigious’ (Abend, 2006: 3) academic journals in Mexico; however, they are not the only ones.

Spatial and political mobility across sociological networks and institutions in Mexico takes place but it should not prevent us from acknowledging that there is also a geo-political (semi)periphery within Mexico’s sociological field. This internal (semi)periphery may include the margins and grey interstices of the inner circle, though it is mostly constituted by the dozens of provincial networks and higher education institutions where Other sociologies/ists in Mexico thrive. Their theoretical and methodological framings are as varied as those from the internal core, including, for instance, ethnographic studies of professional careers and cosmovisions in local Catholic associations framed in a variant of Greimas’ actantial model (Patiño, 2005) or Levi-Straussian interpretations of local indigenous myths about water bodies (Zalpa, 2002). What I want to highlight next is that these sociologies are constructed both from a different geo-political locus and upon a distinctive range of scholarly logics.

The first distinction I want to present is these sociologies’ spectrum of teleological rationales. From an outsider and superficial viewpoint, these sociologies would be driven by ‘defining questions’ and ‘research programmes’ (Burawoy, 2005: 10), but a more comprehensive analysis would note that their departure points may be located in a range of socio-political goals that are assumed as desirable and normative.¹⁰ Mexican sociologist De la Vega states that ‘the sociological profession has an eminently social end and responsibility’, for sociology ‘is destined to study facts, phenomena or problems, in order to find the conditions and appropriate means to make human intervention more efficient’ (2003: 198). It is not a coincidence that sociologist Benard (2009) introduces an edited book about the economic and cultural transitions that the state of Aguascalientes¹¹ is experiencing in the 21st century by declaring that ‘it is necessary […] to contribute to reflections and dialogues about […] a city that should open itself to diversity by building solidarity links and communication in such a way as to strengthen a true democracy’ (2009: 15). ‘Diversity’ and ‘true democracy’ are not the only sociological aspirations, they may be found alongside other socio-political idealisms which figure as self-explanatory and validate the sociological sub-fields in Mexico – a world with less violence (Maza, 2008) or greater independence and freedom (Muñozcano, 2000) for women in the gender-studies area; the autonomy of science and its independence from political and economic agents (Murguia, 2010) in the sociology of science; or the richness of religious plurality in the sociology of religion (Zalpa, 2009). These apparently fragmented examples of normative thinking are just a few instances of these sociologies’ underlying teleological rationales. If ‘professional sociologies’ must have a set of defining questions and assumptions in Burawoy’s view (2005), the social and political teleologies above are the ultimate questions and normative assumptions for a considerable number of sociological voices in Mexico.

Specific teleologies and the overall spectrum of teleological rationales are not only rhetorical accessories. They operate together with an additional range of prescriptive logics that are not necessarily dependent on social policy agendas. Benard does not only suggest solidarity and communication for a true democracy (2009); she also recommends in a co-authored publication the working out of ‘two fundamental elements’ in Aguascalientes, that is, the ‘availability of public spaces for culture, recreation and sports for teenagers’ and ‘the elimination of drug selling’ (Benard et al., 2007: 236). Arellano (2003: 268) analyses ‘native communities’ and states, going beyond the particular, that ‘the re-valuation of nature is a cultural need that has to be practised by all the inhabitants of the world’. Similarly, while Muñozcano concludes one of her texts (2000: 196) advising that women’s rights ‘have to be taught’ within ‘elementary schools and universities […] and, above all, in the family’, Ruiz (2006: 13) recommends from a generalist perspective that ‘all levels of education, from elementary school to university, must recover a humanist view for the education of new generations’. Targets and degrees of interventionism vary, yet the universalistic-to-particularistic range of prescriptive logics in these sociologies is evident. This brings me to another distinction I want to point out: these sociologies’ pragmatically-theoretical focus.

Theoretical development – or ‘evolving theories’ (Burawoy 2005: 10) – is not necessarily a priority in these sociologies. In his comparative analysis of peer-reviewed articles, Abend (2006) also noticed this peculiarity: sociologists in Mexico would ‘have a very different understanding of the concept of theory’ for ‘[n]one of their theories is “tested” by and related to the data in the U.S. sense, and none of the articles explicitly say that theories ought to be tested by the data’ (2006: 6). Although a Mexican senior sociologist I interviewed stated that ‘social problems cannot wait for theory to give solutions’, I am not arguing that semi-peripheral sociologies in Mexico are atheoretical. What I argue is that theory for them would have different functions in methodological terms, that if the very concept of methodology can be indeed provincialized. Theory is either ‘rescued’ from oblivion – specially classical theory – and brought back in its original form as a knowledge supplement (e.g. Guitian, 1989, 2001, 2002; Murguia, 1999, 2002) or it is used, with only minor additions, to launch academic commentaries whose ultimate (teleological) purpose is political – as in Murguia’s (2010) defence of science’s autonomy preceded by a collection of public scientific-controversies literature. Except for a few cases,¹² these sociologies use social and sociological theory as a stable and therefore manageable platform that is not relevant in itself but only as it is utilized – either succinctly (e.g. Muñozcano, 2007; Sanchez, 2009; Tapia, 2003, 2007) or extensively (e.g. Arellano, 2009; Maza, 2008; Patiño, 2005; Rojas, 2006) – to introduce and emphasize both pressing social problems (e.g. Arellano, 1997; Rojas, 1999) and phenomena that are seen as neglected (e.g. Patiño, 2005; Sanchez, 2009). Next, I will account for the epistemic legitimacy these logics hold within Mexico’s sociological fields and across Mexican society/ies at large.

Peripherality and Epistemic Legitimacy

The sociological rationales I have described above have been criticized by some Mexican authors, mostly ‘central’ scholars. De la Garza (1989) has stated that there is a lack of ‘epistemological conscience’ in Mexico (1989: 133) and Girola and Zabludovski (1991) have noted with frustration that ‘theoretical reflections’ in Mexico’s sociological field have not generated ‘regional theories’ or proposals for ‘global analysis’ (1991: 27) and have instead produced descriptive monographs of Western theorists. In fact, the frustration of these authors is but their own Western-centric teleologies. The three logical distinctions I described above are disciplinarily valid and epistemologically legitimate because of the conjunction of logical internal compatibility and external discursive reinforcement. What I mean by the former is the cognitive affinity between teleological, prescriptive and pragmatically-theoretical rationales. Although the interactions between these logics are iterative and non-linear, it is safe to argue that the teleological goals that guide these sociologies feed their prescriptive statements and both teleological and prescriptive logics justify tacitly or explicitly the pragmatic use of theory. Such pragmatic-theory approaches reinforce the adoption and generation of teleologies and prescriptions. These productive affinities, however, are not only cognitive, they also depend on what I call external discursive reinforcement.

Academic and extra-academic audiences in Mexico take for granted that professional sociologies and sociologists are part of a public-oriented academic discipline and institution – either in ‘traditional’ or ‘organic’ forms (Burawoy, 2005: 7–8) – with an intrinsic authority to prescribe solutions to social malaise. Challenging the traditional canons of secularism in social science, I have argued that ‘official’ and ‘folk’ Catholicisms have been making non-intentional contributions, since colonial times, for the legitimation of both these interventionist sociologies¹³ (Zavala Pelayo, 2013) and the professional ‘pastoral authority’ (Zavala Pelayo, 2014) that sociologists and social scientists in general tend to adopt in Mexico. Here I also want to note the role of the Mexican state, in the past and the present. As Briceño-Leon and Sonntag (1998) point out, sociologies in Latin America have been driven by two forces since their inception: the search for an identity in a postcolonial context and the promotion of development and progress – or democracy and modernity. Mexico is not an exception and the Mexican state is no stranger to these causes. Since independence from Spain was achieved in the 1820s, the Mexican state, like many other newly-independent states, assumed modernity and democracy as self-evident national goals (see also Castañeda, 2004). These political-ideological ideals fed the (re-)construction of state institutions and the heavily teleological tone of state discourses. The introduction of sociology to Mexico’s academic fields took place precisely within this socio-political context. In the 1860s, Gabino Barreda, an intellectual sponsored by the Mexican state, travelled to France and returned to Mexico with Comte’s Cours de Philosophie Positive inside his luggage. Barreda introduced sociology to public education in Mexico as ‘the only possible means for bridging the gap between everyday life and the nation’s […] aspirations for democracy’ (Zabludovski, 2007: 202).

Sociologies/ists and the state in contemporary societies could be interpreted as institutions that stand opposite to each other. However, a closer look at these institutions and their discourses in 21st-century Mexico shows a series of intricate links. In Castañeda’s words (2004), the ‘public university’ in Mexico has played the role of the state’s ‘moral conscience’ (2004: 113) since Mexican Revolutionaries proclaimed the reconstruction of Mexican society in the 1910s and 1920s. The author also argues that post-Revolution intellectuals in Mexico aimed their critiques and essays at the nation’s (democratic) reconstruction and the search for a (modern) cultural identity. Being surrounded by this university ethos and intellectual atmosphere, sociologies/ists in Mexico have seldom gone further afield. Castañeda himself, for instance, is aware of the relation between state discourses and Mexican intellectuals’ nationalistic hopes but cannot help but assume that such a relation takes place in a given ‘modern culture’ or an unproblematic ‘modern society’ (2004: 91–3, 292, 295). The issue of multiple modernities (Bhambra, 2009, 2011) or transmodernities (Dussel, 2002) may well be an object of academic debates in the West and some philosophical circles in Latin America, but these discussions do not seem to have substantial impact on Mexico’s state discourses or the sociological fields. It is indeed debatable whether modernity and democracy as currently conceived by these sociologies/ists constitute desirable and legitimate ideals; they stand, however, as explicit and implicit teleologies for sociological discourses that remain critical of state decisions yet fully consistent with the state’s prescriptive insistence on democracy and modernization, among other pragmatic national goals.

From Rhetorics and Endogamy to Actual Dialogues and Epistemic Diversity

My stance on sociologies in Mexico is not partisan and I do not necessarily advocate prescriptive, teleological and pragmatic sociologies. What I do argue is that Burawoy’s analytical distinction between professional and policy, public and critical sociologies is not applicable to sociologies in Mexico, a society, as many other (semi)peripheral societies, where particular versions of ‘public’ and ‘policy’ sociologies – whether ‘reflexively critical’ or not – have constituted in the past and still constitute in the present professional sociologies that are as legitimate as, or even more legitimate than, purely sociological musings and formalistic research that refrain from prescriptions based on a tradition of academic neutrality. Yet the unsuitability of Burawoy’s classificatory frame to account for sociologies in Mexico flags up not only the rigidity and non-provincialization of key analytical categories within global/provincialized sociologies. It also reveals the latter’s nominal openness and endogamous nature. The nominal and experiential acknowledgement of cultural diversity and ethnic Others by global/provincialized sociologies (Back, 2009; Burawoy, 2005, 2008; Holmwood, 2009) has not yet turned into actual, full acknowledgement of the epistemic Others, their cultural-political histories and their epistemic legitimacy; openness remains only a selective rhetorical artefact. In addition to this, the impermeability of Western-centric analytical categories and aprioristic systems of classifications is such that the legitimate epistemologies of the Others are utterly disregarded and the latter are reduced to ‘deviant’ knowledge or a mere ‘variant’ at best; the production of interbred conceptualizations is thus safeguarded. Moreover, peripheral and professional sociologies like those I accounted for above question, by extension, current Western-centric notions of ‘theory’, ‘methodology’ and ‘scientific validity’ as well as the number of sociological frameworks that draw on such concepts – from Mertonian ‘middle-range theories’ to Bourdieusian ‘sociological reflexivity’. Pressing questions necessarily emerge from this.

On the one hand, are Western advocates of global/provincialized sociologies and Western sociologists in general willing to engage with discussions about extra-European complexities, acknowledge the existence of alternative and legitimate sociological rationales and so reduce the production of endogamous sociological knowledge? On the other hand, can (semi)peripheral sociologists afford to wait passively for the re-construction of sociological categories and knowledge structures by Western scholars? I will not outline answers to such questions but I will suggest a strategy to address these issues based on Walter Mignolo’s (2002, 2007) arguments on the decolonization of knowledge. Drawing on the work of the philosophers Enrique Dussel and Robert Bernasconi, Mignolo (2002, 2007) suggests the term and practice of ‘decolonization of knowledge’. In the author’s words, decolonization of knowledge is achieved by a ‘double movement’ that consists of two interdependent operations: on the one hand, the ‘appropriation’, by the subaltern, of the West and its knowledge categories and on the other hand a de-constructive and re-constructive ‘radical criticism’ of those knowledge categories ‘from the perspective of the indigenous’ (Mignolo, 2002: 74). Such double movements are aimed at both ‘unveiling the geo-political location’ of scientific reason as conceived by the West/s and ‘affirming the modes and principles of knowledge that have been denied by the rhetoric of […] civilization, progress, development, [and] market democracy’ (Mignolo, 2007: 463). As I have noted, ‘the indigenous’ or ‘the subaltern’ is neither a singular entity nor a homogeneous phenomenon, therefore Mignolo’s double operation can be adapted to both the ‘Westernized’ and the ‘(semi)peripheral’ sociological Others that I have accounted for above. Following this logic, a parallel double movement has to be carried out by Western scholars as well, in such a way that professional sociologies beyond the West/s are not only heard (Back, 2009) or reduced and included (Holmwood, 2009) into aprioristic classifications (Burawoy, 2005, 2008), but effectively comprehended as cause and consequence of distinctive socio-political contexts and complex cultural and epistemic histories.

Conclusions

There are no reasons to doubt the benevolence of Western authors’ calls and suggestions for global and provincialized sociologies (Back, 2009; Burawoy, 2005, 2008; Holmwood, 2009; Martin and Beittel, 1998). Their proposals represent a sound step forward that many Western sociologists do not seem to have taken yet. However, I have argued above that benevolence does not seem to be a guarantee for a proper acknowledgement of the Others and their political, cultural and epistemic complexities. Burawoy, in fact, exhorts sociologists to acknowledge the complexity of public, professional, critical and reflexive sociologies (2005: 11–13) – by reminding us that such categories are not mutually exclusive; his willingness to embrace complexity, however, does not seem to go beyond his own typology. As noted above, Burawoy structures his division of labour in sociology through two questions: ‘sociology for what?’ and ‘sociology for whom?’ Even if the question ‘sociology by whom?’ is added, the epistemic Others would remain in the shadows, for the most critical problem is not Burawoy’s division of sociological labour but the political-intellectual habit that underpins it: the insistence of Western scholars to subtly impose their knowledge categories upon the Others’ political, cultural and epistemic complexities, which are neither acknowledged nor comprehended but simply reduced to aprioristic formulae and classifications. The unilateral inclusion of Others into such classificatory frames, however well-intended the inclusion is (Burawoy, 2005, 2008; Holmwood, 2009), will continue to feed the rule of Western-centric ‘structures of knowledge’ (Bhambra, 2007: 879) and the rhetorical openness and epistemic endogamy of global/provincialized sociologies. However, just as there are no reasons to doubt Western benevolence, there are no reasons to think that such a state of affairs cannot be revised and modified. I have also argued that Mignolo’s ‘double operation’ – a reflexive appropriation of pre-existing knowledge categories followed by a radical de-/re-constructive criticism – can guide scholarly engagements with foreign complexities and be practised by ‘Western’, ‘Westernized’ and ‘(semi)peripheral’ sociologists. A more authentic ‘global sociology’ and a more genuine ‘provincialization of sociological knowledge’ will take place only if double operations from at least these three geo-political loci and their respective representatives are carried out and multidirectional dialogues are then conducted and used as inputs for the reconstruction of sociological concepts and the gradual re-thinking of sociology.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

This article is a revised version of a paper presented at the BSA Early-Career Theory Symposium, King’s College London, April 2013. I should like to thank Gurminder Bhambra, Jonathan Hearn and John Holmwood for their valuable comments and feedback.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

Edgar Zavala Pelayo graduated from the University of Edinburgh’s doctoral programme in sociology and is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Latin American Studies of Freie Universität Berlin. His general research interests are the postcolonial gaps in mainstream paradigms of secularism, (post)modernity and scientific rationality. His current research activities focus on the effects of religions, religious cultures and religious beliefs upon the political rationality of political elites in 21st-century Latin America. He is author of the research article ‘Pastoral power outside Foucault’s Europe: Public education and the ‘epistemic authority’ of social scientists in Mexico’.

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