Date: Thu, 04 Apr 1996 00:30 -0500 (EST)
From: Terry Boswell <SOCTB%EMUVM1.BITNET@vaxf.Colorado.EDU>
Subject: emancipatory research
To: "wsn@csf.colorado.edu" <WSN@CSF.COLORADO.EDU>
Carl Dassbach recently suggested that world-system research has lost the
critical and emancipatory character of its origins. Instead, he is
disappointed to find a plethora of "normal science" research using what were
once insurgent concepts. My impressions run in exactly the opposite direction.
I maintain a stronger allegiance to world-system perspectives than perhaps
any other precisely because of what I see as a strong critical and
emancipatory tone in much of the research. Rather than disappointed, I also
see the "normal science" research as both validation of the theory and
extension of the perspective. Perhaps a difference in our views stems from
my understanding of a world-system perspective as inherently emancipatory.
Just as a sociological perspective frees its adherents from the blinders of
idiosyncratic personal experience, a world-system perspective frees one from
the narrow focus of societal processes and dynamics. But perhaps others see it
differently, that the theory is neutral with no inherent qualities and thus
applications are only liberating by deliberate design. I would be interested
in hearing what others think.