Comparing Post-Colonial and Post-Communist Studies: Do We Need New Concepts? Cover Image
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Постколониални и посткомунистически питания: нужни ли са нови понятия?
Comparing Post-Colonial and Post-Communist Studies: Do We Need New Concepts?

Author(s): Petya Kabakchieva
Subject(s): Social Sciences, Sociology, Social differentiation, Social Theory, Studies in violence and power, Nationalism Studies
Published by: Институт по философия и социология при БАН
Keywords: post-colonial studies; post-communist studies; overlapping modernities

Summary/Abstract: The main thesis of the article is that both colonialism and communism represent Western institutional and ideological models, implemented in social environments quite different from that of the West. Considering that classical social science, with its main approaches and concepts, is a product of modern West European society, the article poses the question whether post-colonial and post-communist studies could borrow paradigms and concepts that originated in a different social context and that have acquired a specific meaning that refers to that context. On the other hand, the fixation on the uniqueness of colonial and communist societies could produce a closed, idiosyncratic, indigenous paradigm. The paper discusses those epistemological problems that are related to the question of multiple and alternative modernities. The author proposes the concept of overlapping modernities for the understanding of the specificity of modernization processes in South East Europe.

  • Issue Year: 47/2015
  • Issue No: Special
  • Page Range: 26-41
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Bulgarian