Science and the Decolonization of Social Theory

This book addresses the ideological figure of modernity, its presumed historical significance as an era, and its theoretical adequacy as a frame. It shows how sociology and modernity evoke science to prevent the sociological imagination from elaborating non-Eurocentric categories and terminologies that are more adequate for a global era. The idea of modernity should not only be contested, but radically unthought in its foundational assumptions. These assumptions inform concepts such as secularization, emancipation, the 'global' and capital. This book frees these concepts from ethnocentrism and discloses a path toward a new, non-Eurocentric, global social theory.
Gennaro Ascione explores the transformative potential of decolonizing knowledge through a radical reconsideration of the historical and epistemological role that the intellectual reference to science plays in the construction of colonial concepts. This ground-breaking work challenges social theorists to think globally beyond modernity, bringing together social theory and science in an unprecedented way. Importantly, it makes accessible a new space of missing theorization for further developments and inquiries in the field.