In Search of Sociological Soul: The case for De-secularising Social Theory Teaching

Claire Blencowe (University of Warwick)

This paper explores pedagogic strategies for resisting the racism of contemporary populism and age-old coloniality through challenging secularism in the academy, especially in the social theory classroom. Secularism sustains racism and coloniality in the contemporary academy. In the context of sociology, secularism is reinforced through the norms of social theory. Post-secular social theory has been positioned by some as the decolonial answer to the secularism of social theory, but has often replicated problematic aspects of secularist thought. Whereas post-secular theory affirms the previously denigrated side of the secular vs spiritual dualism, I am more interested in unworking those classificatory schemas, setting the critical thought of religious teachers and spiritual wisdom in relation with secular social theory, such that boundaries erode. The ambition in this is to resist the hierarchical orderings of knowledge that pit Islamic, Indigenous, feminised subjectivity as backwards, dangerous or intrinsically inferior to secular, Christian, rational knowledge. It is also to disenchant the secular Gods (progress, money, growth, health) and hold open space for critical play in relation to the transcendental—to create a permissive, legitimising, space for students’ spiritual dimension, conocimiento or the cultivation of soul. We might, I propose, supplement the pursuit of sociological imagination with that of sociological soul. The article draws theoretical inspiration from Gloria Anzaldúa, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Sylvia Wynter amongst others. It also draws on a practical experiment in de-secularising social theory through teaching an undergraduate module called Capitalism and Religion.