Theory from the South: Or, how Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa
Theory from the South: Or, how Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa
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DOI：
10.1080/00664677.2012.694169
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发表时间：
2012-01-01
影响因子：
1
通讯作者：
Comaroff, John L.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Comaroff, Jean;Comaroff, John L.
“全球南方”已经成为非欧洲后殖民地人民世界的简称。与不确定的发展、非正统的经济、失败的国家和充满腐败、贫困和冲突的国家同义，这是“全球北方”理论所围绕的世界的一半。它很少被视为世界历史事件的理论和解释的来源。然而，随着北方的许多民族国家经历越来越多的财政崩溃、国家私有化、腐败和种族冲突，它们似乎正在向南发展，可以说，这既有积极的一面，也有问题。是这样吗？在什么程度上？这对这种全球对立所依赖的二元论意味着什么？借鉴最近的研究，主要是在非洲，本文触及了一系列熟悉的主题，法律，劳动力和当代资本主义的轮廓，以问我们如何理解这些东西与理论发展从“前中心”的Vantage。这种观点使得我们这个时代的一些关键问题既陌生又熟悉，给社会科学家长期以来所假设的进化路径带来了一种讽刺性的扭曲。
'The Global South' has become a shorthand for the world of non-European, postcolonial peoples. Synonymous with uncertain development, unorthodox economies, failed states, and nations fraught with corruption, poverty, and strife, it is that half of the world about which the 'Global North' spins theories. Rarely is it seen as a source of theory and explanation for world historical events. Yet, as many nation-states of the Northern Hemisphere experience increasing fiscal meltdown, state privatization, corruption, and ethnic conflict, it seems as though they are evolving southward, so to speak, in both positive and problematic ways. Is this so? In what measure? What might this mean for the very dualism on which such global oppositions rest? Drawing on recent research, primarily in Africa, this paper touches on a range of familiar themes-law, labor, and the contours of contemporary capitalism-in order to ask how we might understand these things with theory developed from an 'ex-centric' vantage. This view renders some key problems of our time at once strange and familiar, giving an ironic twist to the evolutionary pathways long assumed by social scientists.