LAC Main Seminar Series: A critical synergy: critical race theory and decolonial thought

Conveners: David Doyle and Jessica Fernandez de Lara Harada, University of Oxford

Speaker: Ali Meghji, University of Cambridge

Abstract: In this talk, I will overview some of the key divergences and convergences between decolonial thought and critical race theory. While the sociology of race and decolonial sociology are often conflated, I will show how decolonial theory offers a much more historical, transnational scope as compared to an approach such as critical race theory. Nevertheless, I argue that when you take decolonial thought and critical race theory together, one can gain prescient insights into key crises which currently face us in the 21st century. I will clarify the utility of this ‘theoretical synergy’ by using examples for far-right political projects.

Ali Meghji is an Associate Professor in Social Inequalities at the University of Cambridge. His research puts critical race theory into dialogue with postcolonial sociology in order to understand the global dynamics of racialization and racism. Ali has held visiting fellowship at Harvard’s Weatherhead Centre, and Hutchins Centre, as well as a research fellowship at Sidney Sussex College. He is the director for undergraduate education, the convenor of the MPhil in marginality and exclusion, the course organiser for SOC12 Empire, colonialism, imperialism, and the chair of 'Decolonising sociology'. He is the co-editor-in-chief of the British Journal of Sociology and Sociology Compass, sits on the editorial board of Cultural Sociology, and is the co-founder and co-convenor of the Post/decolonial transformations subgroup of the British Sociological Association. Funded by the Isaac Newton Trust and by the Cambridge School of Humanities and Social Sciences, his current research involves archival work on the Black sociological tradition and demonstrates the global nature of their social thought.