{"title":"Books by Ali Meghji","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781439922071","title":"A Critical Synergy","description":"Practitioners of decolonial theory and critical race theory (CRT) often use one or the other, but not both. In his provocative book, \u003ci\u003eA Critical Synergy\u003c\/i\u003e, Ali Meghji suggests using the two theories in tandem rather than attempting to hierarchize or synthesize them. Doing so allows for the study of social phenomena in a way that captures their global and historical roots, while acknowledging their local, national, and contemporary particularities.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e The differences between decolonial thought and CRT, Meghji insists, does not necessarily imply one approach is stronger. Rather, he asserts, they often provide alternative but not incompatible viewpoints of the same social problem. Meghji presents case studies of capitalism, the COVID-19 pandemic, climate crisis, and twenty-first-century far-right populism to show that with both theories, we can understand more, as insights may be lost by using only one.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Meghji is not calling for a universal theoretical synthesis in \u003ci\u003eA Critical Synergy\u003c\/i\u003e, but rather a practice that can help open sociology and social science to the tradition of pluriversality much more broadly.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56299137565045,"sku":"9781439922071","price":20.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781439922071_73f1983e-c042-43fa-94fc-71912e41d254.jpg?v=1786020576"},{"product_id":"9781509541959","title":"Decolonizing Sociology – An Introduction","description":"Sociology, as a discipline, was born at the height of global colonialism and imperialism. Over a century later, it is yet to shake off its commitment to colonial ways of thinking.    This book explores why, and how, sociology needs to be decolonized. It analyses how sociology was integral in reproducing the colonial order, as dominant sociologists constructed theories either assuming or proving the supposed barbarity and backwardness of colonized people. Ali Meghji reveals how colonialism continues to shape the discipline today, dominating both social theory and the practice of sociology, how exporting the Eurocentric sociological canon erased social theories from the Global South, and how sociologists continue to ignore the relevance of coloniality in their work.    This guide will be necessary reading for any student or proponent of sociology. In opening up the work of other decolonial advocates and under-represented thinkers to readers, Meghji offers key suggestions for what teachers and students can do to decolonize sociology. With curriculum reform, innovative teaching and a critical awareness of these issues, it is possible to make sociology more equitable on a global scale.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56301862814069,"sku":"9781509541959","price":15.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781509541959_f4cd269d-c19f-4669-b411-ed5ab85274a3.jpg?v=1786021817"},{"product_id":"9781526156082","title":"Black Middle-Class Britannia","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis book analyses how racism and anti-racism affects Black British middle-class cultural consumption. In doing so, it challenges the dominant understanding of British middle-class identity and culture as being 'beyond race'.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePaying attention to the relationship between cultural capital and cultural repertoires, Meghji argues that there are three modes of black middle-class identity: strategic assimilation, ethnoracial autonomous, and class-minded. Individuals within each of these identity modes use specific cultural repertoires to organise their cultural consumption. Those employing strategic assimilation draw on repertoires of code-switching and cultural equity, consuming traditional middle-class culture to maintain equality with the white middle-class in levels of cultural capital. Ethnoracial autonomous individuals draw on repertoires of 'browning' and Afro-centrism, self-selecting traditional middle-class cultural pursuits they decode as 'Eurocentric' while showing a preference for cultural forms that uplift black diasporic histories and cultures. Lastly, class-minded individuals draw on repertoires of post-racialism and de-racialisation, polarising between 'Black' and middle-class cultural forms. \u003ci\u003eBlack middle class Britannia\u003c\/i\u003e examines how such individuals display an unequivocal preference for the latter, lambasting other black people who avoid middle-class culture as being culturally myopic or culturally uncultivated.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56302775730549,"sku":"9781526156082","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781526156082_8e263d98-a76c-446a-953b-7c384a34e481.jpg?v=1786022015"},{"product_id":"along-the-colorline","title":"Along the Colorline","description":"How a Du Boisian tradition in sociology evolved as other scholars, including Charles S. Johnson and Ida Wells-Barnett, engaged with and developed Du Bois’s scholarshipW. E. B. Du Bois’s famous declaration that the central problem of the twentieth century was the problem of the colorline—and that the colorline “belts the world”—influenced many other Black social scientists, who explored this colorline, not only studying its expression in the United States but also situating US racism in historical and global contexts. In Along the Colorline, Ali Meghji argues that Du Bois and those scholars developed a distinctive Du Boisian approach to sociology. Du Bois’s pioneering and innovative work is now part of the sociological canon. Meghji builds on this scholarship to consider the Du Boisian tradition as it grew beyond Dubois’s own work.   Meghji analyzes the interpersonal and intellectual relations among Black sociologists in the early-to-mid-twentieth century, including Charles S. Johnson, St. Clair Drake, Franklin Frazier, Ida Wells-Barnett, Anna Julia Cooper, and Horace Cayton. Examining components of their methodology—in particular, case study–driven studies that helped to dismantle myths of Black cultural and biological inferiority, the normative yet objective study of racial terror, and sociological analysis developed in tandem with anticolonial movements—Meghji argues that the Du Boisian tradition is a vibrant sociological approach that can continue to guide and innovate research today.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":57682719834485,"sku":"9780691274140","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":57680224518517,"sku":"9780691274133","price":84.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-ali-meghji.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}