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COMMENTARY
Global Social Theory: Building resources
Gurminder K. Bhambra
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Angela Last
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Lucy Mayblin
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Lisa Tilley
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1
School of Global Studies, University of
Sussex, Brighton, UK
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School of Geography, Geology and the
Environment, University of Leicester,
Leicester, UK
3
Sociology, University of Warwick,
Coventry, UK
4
Politics and International Relations,
Queen Mary University of London,
London, UK
Correspondence
Gurminder K. Bhambra
Email: g.k.bhambra@sussex.ac.uk
There has been an intensification of student protests around the world addressing
issues of racial exclusion and racialised hierarchy within the university, including
its teaching and research practices. These movements point to urgent concerns
about what and how we teach and research, and how the resources of universities
might be used to support the amelioration of injustice rather than its reproduction.
This short piece focuses on the curriculum and points to actions that we can take
to build resources for a more dynamic and adequate curriculum within our univer-
sities. In particular, it discusses one collaborative initiative that all the authors
have been involved in, the website Global Social Theory. This site provides
resources for the diversification and expansion of the curriculum for those teach-
ing and studying social theory.
KEYWORDS
canon, curriculum, Global Social Theory, race
There has been an intensification of student protests around the world addressing issues of racial exclusion and racialised
hierarchy within the university, including its teaching and research practices. These have ranged from the Rhodes Must
Fall movement, which started at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, to Rhodes Must Fall Oxford, Why is my
curriculum white? and broader struggles to decolonise education across the UK. There have been protests against caste
injustice at Hyderabad University and Jawaharlal Nehru University in India as well as the Black Lives Matter campaigns
across campuses and civil society more generally in the USA. These movements point to urgent concerns about what and
how we teach and research, and how the resources of universities might be used to support the amelioration of injustice
rather than its reproduction.
There has been much work in recent times, often by intellectuals from (formerly) colonised contexts, that has analysed
the inequalities and forms of extraction and domination in knowledge production and representation. Scholars such as
Smith (2012 [1999]) and Deloria (1991) have drawn attention to how contemporary research practices and teaching often
reproduce colonial power relations. Some of this critique is reflected in recent debates around “decolonising the university”
and other movements within higher education (see Bhambra et al., 2018; Holmwood, 2011; Shilliam, 2016; Tilley, 2017),
but these recent debates reference much more long‐standing interventions in the politics of knowledge production (Freire,
2014 [1968]; Hooks, 1994; Ngũgĩ, 1986).
In this short paper, we identify some of the main issues, particularly in relation to the curriculum in terms of who and
what gets included and excluded. We also indicate some actions that we can take to mitigate those aspects we find trou-
bling and how to build resources for a much more dynamic and adequate curriculum. Following Holmwood's (2011) use of
Dewey to argue for the idea of the public university as a vital repository of the common learning of communities, we seek
to create and curate a space within our research and teaching practices to facilitate the calls for decolonisation and the nec-
essary deepening of democracy in these times.
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The information, practices and views in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).
© 2018 Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geograph ers).
Accepted: 7 June 2018
DOI: 10.1111/area.12479
Area. 2018;1–4. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/area
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Some of the responses by cultural commentators and academics to the movements highlighted above have expressed fears
about the politicisation of the cultural values that inform learning and scholarship. The argument has been that what we
learn and who we study should emerge out of the scholarly processes of reading and engaging across texts and long‐stand-
ing traditions. As Bhambra (2014) has argued, however, such an understanding rarely takes into consideration the fact that
canon formation has always been political, indicating particular “forms of attention”(Kermode, 1985) and inattention.
While canons have sometimes shifted and adapted in line with changing demographics, forms and conventions, such
changes have rarely occurred easily or smoothly. Concerns about proposed changes have often been expressed in the lan-
guage of quality, rigour and the maintenance of standards. Yet, as Morrison (1989, pp. 1–2) has noted, the concern is usu-
ally –implicitly if not outright explicitly –most vocally expressed when there is any hint of a question being raised about
the “white male”origins and definitions of “the canon.”
The collective processes through which canonical status comes to be ascribed are complemented by, and constituted
through, the historical configurations of social relations that enable and obstruct the participation of particular others at any
given time (Bhambra, 2014; Guillory, 1987). It is no accident that it was with the increasing number of women entering
the UK academy in the post‐war period that greater attention was paid to women's lives and experiences within scholarly
research. This initial movement to address the absence of women was followed by a concern to address the methods of
research that had enabled and perpetuated such exclusions. Arguments about a “missing feminist revolution”(Stacey &
Thorne, 1985) were followed by those about the “missing queer revolution”(Stein & Plummer, 1994).
As Bhambra (2007) has argued, while absences around gender and sexuality could be incorporated by disciplines (given
that the absences within the scholarly literature were easily countered by an argument of women and gay people having
existed within the societies under consideration), issues around race have been more difficult for the academy to address.
This is, in part, because, with race, the deeper divide of the “modern”separates out the historical existence of those per-
ceived as “non‐modern”–usually those who were or are colonised and were or are not white –and does not recognise
them as historically having existed within the societies under consideration (Bhambra, 2016). However, again following
Morrison (1989), absence from the canon, or scholarly literature more broadly, does not imply those thinkers or thoughts
are not available to be included.
Absences, as much as presence, are curated and, as such, can be mitigated through different curation practices. One such
practice is of producing reading lists for teaching. Within universities today, for example, academic canons are still made
and remade in ways which serve consistently to centre Euro‐American epistemologies and scholars. In relation to this, dis-
ciplinary conversations continue to be rehearsed and embedded through predominantly “white/male”understandings of the
world. We may all agree that we have a scholarly duty to introduce students to the broadest possible intellectual landscape,
and yet, the exclusions reproduced epistemically in university teaching undermine the integrity of scholarship and the possi-
bilities of academic work engaging a wider range of voices.
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A growing movement, embodied in the call of “why is my curriculum white?”seeks to demonstrate that we can no longer
present a highly parochial form of scholarship as a universal one. The breadth of authors and the range of thinking con-
tained within reading lists, including social theory reading lists, are central to the quest for epistemic justice and scholarly
rigour within these calls. In particular, the movement asks whether we can make meaningful claims to “academic rigour”
when many intellectuals and their scholarship are consistently left out of teaching and research along lines of racialised
exclusion. Having taught social theory modules for over a decade, and having been involved in discussions at various insti-
tutions about broadening the range of those whom we consider theorists, Bhambra decided it was time not simply to dis-
cuss these issues, but to do something that could contribute positively to the ongoing discussion. It was with these issues in
mind that she set up the Global Social Theory website (globalsocialtheory.org) as a resource that could be used by those
teaching social theory to diversify their reading lists and by students studying standard social theory modules to do the
same.
Global Social Theory is a critical, collaborative pedagogical resource that seeks to make available short introductions to
thinkers from around the world as well as concepts and topics that are less readily available within standard social theory
reading lists. The website was founded by Bhambra with the technological wizardry provided by Pat Lockley (pgogyweb-
stuff.com). Mayblin and Tilley (and later Angela Last) were recruited by her as Associate Editors. Much of the initial con-
tent was written by the editorial team and then contributions were also sourced from scholars from around the world. As
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BHAMBRA ET AL.
such, the site has developed organically through submissions from a range of people, from established academics to early
career scholars and researchers, all of whom are writing from a broad base of cultural and geographical positions. The posts
themselves are generally concise and accessible, written with the curious undergraduate student in mind. However, many
are also compelling and analytical in their own right, serving eloquently to map the expansive global field of thought and
thinkers.
In one sense, the Global Social Theory site performs a function as an additional resource by including and presenting as
theorists those who often do not make it onto standard theory reading lists. Yet, the objective is not simply to globalise or
“colour”theory, but instead to challenge exclusions through expanding the notion of what kind of social expressions can
be said to constitute theory itself. The site is also not necessarily presented as a comprehensive resource, but given that it is
a website, this means that there is an unlimited capacity for expansion and we are keen to build it. The intention really is
for this to be a collaborative site where the key task of the editors is to solicit and upload contributions to the three sec-
tions: Thinkers, Topics and Concepts.
The “Thinkers”section of the Global Social Theory site contains entries on the work of scholars from around the world.
An important part of building this section is not simply to include established scholars such as Gayatri Spivak or Frantz
Fanon, who are increasingly being recognised, but also those who are less commonly regarded as “theorists,”such as the
poet Audre Lorde (2007) or the musician Nina Simone. It is important not only to acknowledge the influence of these thin-
kers on social movements and theoretical developments, but also to show how their theories are performed. As Tilley
(2015) argues in her entry on Nina Simone,
Nina Simone can be said to have lyrically theorised the ontological state of violence constituting America's
racial order, but more effectively, she took it to the stage and performed it. And beyond this, her most radi-
cally productive move on stage was to reverse the racial power relation and amplify it, discomfiting and alien-
ating white audiences through a bodily authorisation of counter‐violence.
The two other sections of the site are Concepts and Topics. “Concepts”provides space for the discussion of key terms
and ideas that have been developed by theorists to make sense of the worlds they inhabit, and “Topics”carries contribu-
tions on broader themes and fields of research. These two sections point to the importance not only of focusing on the
contributions made by individuals to theory, but also engaging with their work to make their theoretical insights available
to wider audiences. These sections also provide space to look again at established concepts and fields from other perspec-
tives. As Chandra Talpade Mohanty (2003, p. 45) writes, as quoted in the topic entry on Feminism by Kasia Narkowicz
(2015),
Unlike the history of Western (white, middle‐class) feminism, which has been explored in great detail over the
last few decades, histories of Third World women's engagement with feminism are in short supply.
Angela Last (2017) makes a similar case in her entry on Materialism, in which she accuses discourse on historical and
new materialism of not only failing to address racial inequality, but also inattention to race within its discourse. The Global
Social Theory site also highlights attempts at countering or experimenting with the notion of concepts. For instance, as the
Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee Zapatista Army of National Liberation argues, cited by Gahman (2015)
in his entry on Zapatismo,
Zapatismo is not a new political ideology, or a rehash of old ideologies. Zapatismo is nothing, it does not
exist. It only serves as a bridge, to cross from one side, to the other. So everyone fits within Zapatismo, every-
one who wants to cross from one side, to the other. There are no universal recipes, lines, strategies, tactics,
laws, rules, or slogans. There is only a desire –to build a better world, that is, a new world.
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Since it was set up in March 2015, Global Social Theory has regularly published contributions on Thinkers, Topics and
Concepts and continues to add to the site on a regular basis. It is an open educational resource, and people are free to use
and share information with attribution. All content is published under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY‐NC‐ND 3.0).
This allows people to share the content for non‐commercial purposes, with attribution to the relevant author and a link to
BHAMBRA ET AL.
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the Global Social Theory web page for the entry. The site has had around 215,000 visitors thus far, with between 200 and
3,000 views in any single day. The site is also referenced as a teaching resource by many academics at universities across
the UK and further afield. If you would like to contribute, please get in touch with one of the editors! We would very
much welcome your engagement and contribution.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to John Holmwood and Pat Lockley for constructive comments on this paper. All errors are, as ever, our own.
ORCID
Gurminder K. Bhambra http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3658-1575
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How to cite this article: Bhambra GK, Last A, Mayblin L, Tilley L. Global Social Theory: Building resources.
Area. 2018;00:1–4. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12479
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