Theoretical Synergy: Decoloniality, Critical Race Theory, and Trumpamerica
Dr. Ali Meghji (University of Cambridge)
Tuesday 8 Oct, 12:30-2pm, Lecture Room 4 (8 Mill Lane). Sandwiches will be provided from 12pm at the Sociology Department (16 Mill Lane, across the road).
This event is part of the 2019-20 Sociology Semiar Series.
In this talk, Dr Meghji will consider some central differences and similarities between critical race theory and decolonial thought. Dr Meghji argues that attempts to synthesise the two approaches are bound to fail, and that attempts to synthesise them simply reproduce the imperial episteme’s premise that theories must be ‘a theory of everything’. Against this imperial episteme, Dr Meghji will instead call for a theoretical synergy between the two approaches. He will use the empirical problem of Trumpamerica to demonstrate how using both a critical race and decolonial approach gives us a more complete analysis than only using one of the two; looking at the importance of racial ideology and post-racialism to Trumpamerica on the one hand, while also highlighting the centrality of postcolonial melancholia to the rise and consolidation of Trumpamerica as a particular societal constellation. The lecture will conclude with a consideration of how our analyses of Trumpamerica would proceed if we maintained a critical race approach, but gave equal footing to theory(ies) from the South.