Anticolonialism and Social Thought

Shows that anticolonialism offers novel critical perspectives on society that have been largely ignored in conventional social thought.

Anaheed Al-Hardan (Edited by), Julian Go (Edited by)

9781009607100, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 September 2025

348 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.1 cm, 0.674 kg

'This innovative and searching volume makes the case that anticolonial thinkers produced a distinct and coherent body of social theory that is indispensable for our understanding of the contemporary world. As these essays show, despite the epistemic violence central to colonial domination - the destruction of languages, intellectual traditions, and forms of self-knowledge – it was those who suffered that subjection who developed the theoretical tools necessary to understand it. Jennifer Pitts, Professor of Political Science and Chair of the Department of Political Science, The University of Chicago

Not only did the anticolonial movements of the past two centuries help bring down the global order of colonial empires, they also produced novel, innovative and vital social thought. Anticolonialism has been largely ignored in conventional Europe-centered social thought and theory, but this book shows how our sociological imagination can be expanded by taking challenges to colonialism and imperialism seriously. Amidst their struggles to change the world, anticolonial actors offer devastating critiques of it, challenging the racism, economic exploitation, political exclusions and social inequalities central to imperialism and colonialism. Anticolonial thinkers and activists thereby seek to understand the world they are struggling against and, in the process, develop new concepts and theorize the world in new ways. Chapters by leading scholars help uncover this dissident tradition of social thought as the authors discuss an array of anticolonial thinkers, activists and movements from Palestine, India, South Africa, Brazil, Algeria and beyond.

Introduction: anticolonial history and social theory Anaheed Al-Hardan and Julian Go
Part I. Activists, Intellectuals, Movements: 1. Genealogies of anticolonialism: Aimé Césaire on alienation and under-development Arwa Awan
2. Anticolonialism and national liberation: an intellectual history of Zweledinga Pallo Jordan Ayesha Omar
3. An anticolonial critique of sovereignty: Radhabinod Pal on war and international order Ibrahim Khan
4. Decolonization as transformation: Malek Bennabi's philosophy of liberation Mahmoud Al-Zayed
5. Revolutionary women's praxis to bury colonialism, 1945–1949 Elisabeth Armstrong
Part II. Schools of Thought: 6. Palestinian anticolonial national liberation in the present Anaheed Al-Hardan
7. Genealogies of auto-centered development: the afterlives of China in Arab developmental thought Max Ajl
8. Anticolonial sociology in Latin America, 1950–1970 João Marcelo E. Maia
Part III. Dissident Sociologists: 9. Firing back imperialism from the peripheries: the anticolonial sociology of Abdelmalek Sayad Amín Pérez
10. A. R. Desai's Marxist critique of nationalism and of the Indian nation-state: towards a reframing of sociology as social science Sujata Patel
11. The ecological social theory of Radhakamal Mukerjee Joshua Silver
Part IV. On Method: 12. Anticolonial action across the black Atlantic: black feminist approaches to insurrection at sea Pyar J. Seth and Alexandre I. R. White
Epilogue Sudipta Kaviraj.

Subject Areas: Social theory [JHBA]