Because I am teaching a grad course on research design right now, there
is something embedded in this discussion of the "wrong-headedness" of
a eurocentric world system approach that seems familiar to me.
Actually, it reminds me a little of Geertz's discussion of what seems
to be an inherent contradiction between doing interpretive research
focused on a specific context, and addressing the "mega-concepts
with which contemporary social science is afflicted" (Interpretation
of Cultures, p. 23). He ends up saying "It is with the kind of
material produced by long-term ... and almost obsessivly fine-comb field
study in confined contexts that the mega-concepts ... can be given the
sort of sensible actuality that makes it possible to think not only
realistically and concretely *about* them, but what is more important,
creatively and imaginatively *with* them."
I'm trying to suggest that what we've learned about the "european
world system" -- in terms of economic and political systems -- can
continue to be useful in helping us develop the mega-concepts that
afflict us. Our conceptualizations need to be refined, to think in this
larger way, but I can't believe that they need to be discarded entirely
because of the way they might continue to bias our approach (despite
what I say to my students).
We needn't throw out our data and understanding of the European world-
system simply because we think that it is not the *only* w-s, or not the
*only w-s to use wage labor* or even not the *only one which developed
capitalism to such and such degree*. (Sorry for that double negative).
Why can't we look at it as a case, look at the variations between
another system's "capitalism" and the European system's "capitalism" etc?
Perhaps then we can start judging the qualitative changes that might
occur and might also be important to our understanding of *what* is
going on.
Joya Misra
CMSJOYA@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU
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Assistant Professor
Department of Sociology
University of Georgia
Baldwin Hall
Athens, Georgia 30602
(706)542-3190