Social theory is not well regarded outside the academic world. Impractical waffle, thinly disguised ideology, or pretentious re-statements of common knowledge – this is the reputation. Some of it is well deserved. Inside the academy, however, theory has prestige. Foucault, Bourdieu, Habermas – or going a little further back, Keynes, Lévi-Strauss – these are names to conjure with.
Theory is about going beyond the given. It involves an exercise of imagination as well as an exercise of reason; it is a way social science reaches out to the wider world. But it has to connect with empirical knowledge and problems of practice, and that makes good theory hard to do.
Most of my theoretical work has been triggered by empirical or policy studies. So any theoretical writing has been intermittent. Nevertheless Demetrakis Demetriou, who wrote a PhD thesis about my work, thought there was continuity between the work on gender and the work on class. I think he was right - there is a more or less coherent approach here, worked out across different problems, rather than presented as a theoretical system.
I gradually became concerned with a practical problem about theory: what does it mean to be doing intellectual work from Australia, and what does world power mean for intellectual work in the global metropole, i.e. the USA and Europe, where most of our social theory comes from? This crystallized as the paper ‘Why is classical theory classical?’, which became my most-criticized publication.
It’s not enough to problematise Northern theory, it is important to show that there are alternatives. In fact there are a lot. Ideas and arguments about society abound in colonized and post-colonial societies – not always in academic genres, but intellectually powerful nonetheless. Southern Theory tells the story of my encounters with this work, over the fourteen years it took to write the book.Here my theoretical work converged with the research about intellectuals, raising questions about the way intellectual labour is institutionalized and how its institutionalization can change. For instance Southern Theory has a chapter about the land, a topic little discussed in Eurocentric theory because it is not important to the institutions where that work is done. But it is enormously important in indigenous thought and politics in Australia (and elsewhere). I live in hope that mutual learning can happen – in other words, that we can democratise global social science.
A selection of ten
Connell, Raewyn. 2007. Southern Theory: The Global Dynamics of Knowledge in Social Science. Sydney, Allen & Unwin Australia; Cambridge, Polity Press.
Starting with a critique of Northern sociology, this tells the story of my encounters with social thought from sub-Saharan Africa, Iran, India, Latin America and Australia, and then reflects on the nature of a global social science. It’s deliberately not a treatise, but an attempt to trace conceptual learning across spaces and cultural divides.
Connell, Raewyn. 2005. Empire, domination, autonomy: Antonio Negri as a social theorist. Overland, no. 181, 31-39.
One of my essays in theoretical critique, especially tracing the links between Negri’s writing as an Italian autonomist in the 1970s, and his writing on global issues around 2000.
Connell, Raewyn. 2004. Encounters with structure. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol. 16, no. 6, 11-28.
An essay in autobiography, reflecting especially on my encouters with structuralist theory.
Connell, Raewyn. 1997. Why is classical theory classical? American Journal of Sociology, vol. 102 no. 6, 1511-57.
A blockbuster critique of the myth of the ‘founding fathers’ in sociology, outlining a more realistic global history of the discipline emphasising its changing relations with imperialism. The journal paid it the unusual compliment of publishing an attack on the paper in the same issue, which persuaded me it said something of importance.
Connell, Raewyn. 1995. Transformative labour: theorizing the politics of teachers' work. In Mark. B. Ginsburg, ed., The Politics of Educators' Work and Lives, New York, Garland Publishing, 91-114.
An attempt to build a practice-oriented and historical social theory into a theory of education, centring on the idea of teachers’ work as a form of labour.
Connell, Raewyn. 1991. A thumbnail dipped in tar: or, can we write sociology from the fringe of the world?, Meanjin Quarterly, vol. 50 no. 1, 37-47; also in Social Analysis, special issue "Postmodern Critical Theorising", no. 30, 68-76.
One of my first attempts at developing a critical global analysis of social science, and also an experimental piece of writing, breaking the academic format. Some readers hated it.
Connell, Raewyn. 1990. The state, gender and sexual politics: theory and appraisal. Theory and Society vol. 19, 507-544.
An attempt to synthesise the (mostly Northern) feminist writing about the state, in the theoretical framework of Gender and Power.
Connell, Raewyn. 1983. Which Way Is Up? Essays on Sex, Class and Culture. Sydney, Allen & Unwin.
Critiques of stratificationist theories of class, Althusserian theories of class, psychoanalysis, Sartre’s theory of practice, the Birmingham school of cultural theory, plus the first paper on intellectuals and an essay on Johann Sebastian Bach.
Connell, Raewyn. 1980. The black box of habit on the wings of history: reflections on the theory of social reproduction. Arena, no. 55, 32-55.
Critique of Bourdieu, Althusser, and the fundamentally ahistorical forms of social theory that centre on the idea of ‘social reproduction’.
Connell, Raewyn. 1979. The concept of role and what to do with it. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, vol. 15 no. 3, 7-17.
In the days when ‘social role’ was a major concept, it demanded critique for conceptual muddiness and ahistoricity. The examples are now out of date but the critique isn’t obsolete, as ‘role’ concepts keep cropping up in health research, educational research, gender research, and other fields.
Starting with a critique of Northern sociology, this tells the story of my encounters with social thought from sub-Saharan Africa, Iran, India, Latin America and Australia, and then reflects on the nature of a global social science. It’s deliberately not a treatise, but an attempt to trace conceptual learning across spaces and cultural divides.
Connell, Raewyn. 2005. Empire, domination, autonomy: Antonio Negri as a social theorist. Overland, no. 181, 31-39.
One of my essays in theoretical critique, especially tracing the links between Negri’s writing as an Italian autonomist in the 1970s, and his writing on global issues around 2000.
Connell, Raewyn. 2004. Encounters with structure. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol. 16, no. 6, 11-28.
An essay in autobiography, reflecting especially on my encouters with structuralist theory.
Connell, Raewyn. 1997. Why is classical theory classical? American Journal of Sociology, vol. 102 no. 6, 1511-57.
A blockbuster critique of the myth of the ‘founding fathers’ in sociology, outlining a more realistic global history of the discipline emphasising its changing relations with imperialism. The journal paid it the unusual compliment of publishing an attack on the paper in the same issue, which persuaded me it said something of importance.
Connell, Raewyn. 1995. Transformative labour: theorizing the politics of teachers' work. In Mark. B. Ginsburg, ed., The Politics of Educators' Work and Lives, New York, Garland Publishing, 91-114.
An attempt to build a practice-oriented and historical social theory into a theory of education, centring on the idea of teachers’ work as a form of labour.
Connell, Raewyn. 1991. A thumbnail dipped in tar: or, can we write sociology from the fringe of the world?, Meanjin Quarterly, vol. 50 no. 1, 37-47; also in Social Analysis, special issue "Postmodern Critical Theorising", no. 30, 68-76.
One of my first attempts at developing a critical global analysis of social science, and also an experimental piece of writing, breaking the academic format. Some readers hated it.
Connell, Raewyn. 1990. The state, gender and sexual politics: theory and appraisal. Theory and Society vol. 19, 507-544.
An attempt to synthesise the (mostly Northern) feminist writing about the state, in the theoretical framework of Gender and Power.
Connell, Raewyn. 1983. Which Way Is Up? Essays on Sex, Class and Culture. Sydney, Allen & Unwin.
Critiques of stratificationist theories of class, Althusserian theories of class, psychoanalysis, Sartre’s theory of practice, the Birmingham school of cultural theory, plus the first paper on intellectuals and an essay on Johann Sebastian Bach.
Connell, Raewyn. 1980. The black box of habit on the wings of history: reflections on the theory of social reproduction. Arena, no. 55, 32-55.
Critique of Bourdieu, Althusser, and the fundamentally ahistorical forms of social theory that centre on the idea of ‘social reproduction’.
Connell, Raewyn. 1979. The concept of role and what to do with it. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Sociology, vol. 15 no. 3, 7-17.
In the days when ‘social role’ was a major concept, it demanded critique for conceptual muddiness and ahistoricity. The examples are now out of date but the critique isn’t obsolete, as ‘role’ concepts keep cropping up in health research, educational research, gender research, and other fields.
