User:Burgerbandits/Raewyn Connell

Southern Theory Draft
Current

Connell has developed a sociology of intellectuals that emphasizes the collective character of intellectual labour, and the importance of its social context. Her 2007 book Southern Theory extended this to the global dynamics of knowledge production, critiquing the "Northern" bias of mainstream social science which is predominately produced in "metropolitan" universities. In doing so, she argues, metropolitan social theory fails to adequately explain social phenomena in the Southern experience.

She analyzed examples of theoretical work deriving from the global South: including the work of Paulin Hountondji, Ali Shariati, Veena Das, Ashis Nandy and Raúl Prebisch. Connell has also examined Southern theories of neoliberalism and gender.

My proposed edits


 * 1) Revision of current information  -- I think it could be clearer when explaining how Connell is understanding the current global context in terms of power differences and what she believes can be done. What is "Northern", "Southern", and "metropolitan"?
 * 2) There's a lot of name dropping and mentions in the second paragraph and since we already ready "Gender Theory as Southern Theory" -- I plan on writing a subsection on this material
 * 3) Perhaps a subsection on Connell's application on Planning Theory 
 * 4) Another subsection including Patricia Hill Collins' critique of the theory 

Planning Theory

Connell has explored the implications of Southern Theory on gender theory, neoliberalism , and other global knowledge projects. She continues to argue in these contexts that historical power differentiations are maintained through imperialistic privileging of thought and that decolonizing this construction of knowledge can revolutionize societies across the globe. In her essay in Planning Theory for example, Connell calls for social science to accept subaltern views that have traditionally been ignored so that modern resources can be maximized in various fields such as urban planning, geography, and youth studies.

Criticism

"This essay critically assesses Connell’s Southern Theory. Operating from the premise that knowledge is a “project” embedded in power relations, the essay suggests that while the scope of ideas surveyed in Southern Theory is an important accomplishment, two main dilemmas can be found. The first is that Southern Theory inadvertently puts “Northern theory” at the center. The second is that the southern theorists examined tend to be educated elites from the Global South, thereby overlooking other actors in the Global South and their ways of doing theory. Struggling to change, not just the ideas, but also the ownership, vested interests and institutional actors of social theory as knowledge project might create space for much needed dialogues across differences in power."

Raewyn Connell's southern theory explains the sphere of knowledge has a global problem, this being the construction of knowledge about gender. The league table for journals published in gender studies illustrate that nearly all come from the United States or Great Britain.

Connell credits feminist Marnia Lazreg on her work for accurately expanding on the issue of formation of knowledge on gender and the lack of understanding from the colonial northern bias

Marnia wrote in her book The Eloquence of Silence, "Dealing with a subject with which people in American society are still largely unfamiliar threatens to turn me into a social translator of sorts, a bonafide native anthropologist, writing for others about others"(1). Southern theory and Marnia explain that American and other northern societies fail to address gender perspective from southern areas of the world.

Prior to Connell finalizing her "Southern Theory", an interview with a young Raewyn Connell provides insight to her ideas leading toward her renowned theory. Connell spoke with several feminists from the global south in the early stages of her theory. Attending various women's conferences, they discussed the issue of United States and European powers controlling the politics of gender study. Connell continues to support her southern theory throughout the duration of the interview. She gave an extraordinary testimony regarding South American feminists and their effective ways of monitoring the achievement of gender equality in such depth that it surpasses the generic northern process of study.

Connell explained, "Latin American countries who develop ways of monitoring the achievement of gender equality not against some abstract international norms basically composed by a think tank in New York, but against locally generated commitments of national or even local governments, and it does produce a differentiated measure of the achievement of gender equality, which has political grip." Due to these findings originating in the south and being documented in Spanish, the excellent work being done by these feminists is not circulated through the global network of gender knowledge.

Unsettling the South[edit]
Southern theory has its critiques, Amy Piedalue and Susmita Rishi agree that southern theory is effective in centralizing the one sided data-sphere of gender. However, the process of going back south to these colonized countries objectifies the women in these areas as a means to only use them as data.

"As such, southern theory must be charted not onto the colonial maps we've inherited, but rather through a process of countermapping that values the insights and theories that emerge from positions of struggle and marginality."

One main roadblock mainstreaming southern theory presents is that the general thought on post-colonial knowledge is that it is not universal, and the white European liberalistic knowledge on gender is the mainstream information used in academic study and forum

References