Fututring Critical Theory, Keynote 2: Gurminder K. Bhambra

»Critical Theory in a Reparative Frame«
Gurminder K. Bhambra (University of Sussex, Brighton)
Section 2 – Globalizing Critical Theory, Keynote 2
International Conference »Futuring Critical Theory«

Frankfurt School Critical Theory is grounded in a theory of capitalist modernity which, in common with wider sociological approaches, elides histories of colonialism. The failure to acknowledge the centrality of colonialism to the development of capitalism results in a misdiagnosis of current problems of inequality and the positing of inadequate solutions. Many theorists, for example, focus primarily on issues of redistribution associated with a capital-labour relation organised nationally and seen to be threatened by »globalisation«. This involves a related failure to understand how an apparent decommodification of labour through welfare has been bound to colonial patrimonies. In this talk, I criticise the analytical and substantive separation of colonialism and capitalism. Colonialism, I suggest, put in place the specific forms of global and national inequality that are otherwise understood in terms of developments within capitalism. A proper address of these issues requires a reparative frame that recognizes the ways in which the legacies of the past continue to configure the present and its possibilities. It involves making colonial histories central to understandings of capitalist modernity and to the normative address of inequalities that otherwise risk being legitimated by the standard accounts of Critical Theory.

Futuring Critical Theory
Thursday, 14 Sep 23
Campus Westend, Casino Building
Goethe University Frankfurt

Video / Sound / Editing: @mkffm
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