ISBN 9789956792207
Pages 440
Dimensions 229 x 152mm
Published 2015
Publisher Langaa RPCIG, Cameroon
Format Paperback

Unmasking Social Science Imperialism

Globalization Theory As A Phase Of Academic Colonialism

by Tatah Mentan

Contemporary social science is a product of the capitalist world system and Eurocentrism is constitutive of the geoculture of this system. Eurocentrism is characterized by the parochiality of its universalism, assumptions about the superiority of Western civilization and imposition as the sole theory of global progress. The creation of these structures of knowledge, specifically the institutionalisation of the social sciences, is a phenomenon that is inextricably linked to the very formation and maturation of Europe’s capitalist world system or imperialism. There is therefore nothing that is natural, logical, or accidental about the institutionalisation of the social sciences. These Europeanized structures of knowledge are imposed ways of producing knowledge of the world. This Eurocentrism of social science has justifiably come under increasingly vigorous scrutiny, especially in the period since 1945 with the formal decolonization of Africa, Asia, and much of the Caribbean. This book forcefully argues that if social science is to make any progress in the twenty-first century, it must overcome its Eurocentric heritage that has distorted social analyses and its capacity to deal with the problems of the contemporary world; and it must embrace other non-Western forms of knowledge production.

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About the Author

Tatah Mentan

Tatah Mentan is Theodore Lentz scholar of Peace and Security Studies and Professor of Political Science. He has authored many books on burning world issues in areas like political economy of international relations, the predatory wars of corporate globalization and democratization in a netarchic world torn and convulsed by corporate capitalist cannibalism and warfarism.