14/09/2016: GTD Colloquium “Retooling Theory” by Jan Nederveen Pieterse

Retooling Theory

By Jan Nederveen Pieterse (University of California) 

 Globalisation, Transnationalism & Development (GTD) Colloquium organized in association with Maastricht Centre for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE)

Abstract: What is emerging—markets, economies, powers, societies? What is the time frame of analysis? Do the available analytical tools need retooling in the 21st century multipolar world? Are ‘Southern theories’ relevant such as postcolonial studies, Comaroff and Connell’s Southern theory, or are they late-dependency approaches that are wedded to North-South dynamics in an increasingly East-South world? Is transformation analysis a relevant tool?  The point of retooling theory is to open up conceptual space (and thus political and policy space) to make room for emerging economies and China; to open up different problematics and to make hegemony and counter hegemony explicit. Retooling theory in the setting of multipolarity includes thinking plural, thinking multicentric, acknowledging moving complementarities and applying layered analysis to examine multilevel dynamics, global, regional, national and local.

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