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Postcolonial theory, particularly in its poststructuralist variant, presents important challenges to sociology's self-image, and open debate on these attempts to `unsettle' the modernist, Westernized disciplines is both conceptually and politically interesting. However, the postcolonial unsettling of sociology has to be actively extracted and reconstructed from the key texts of postcolonial theory - it is not transparently available as such - and this is the first main goal of the article. Particular attention is paid to the framings of these issues by Stuart Hall, Homi Bhahba and Robert Young. Second, the article offers the elements of a counter-critique, pointing out where the anti-sociological impulses of postcolonialism are exaggerated or unfounded, and also indicating serious internal problems for postcolonial theory when it is pitched as a direct and superior alternative to the modernist sociological `imaginary'. The continuing centrality (and difficulty) of questions on the nature of and purpose of explanatory social theory and postcolonial cultural studies are discussed.

"This book reclaims postcolonial theory, addressing persistent limitations in the geographical, disciplinary, and methodological assumptions of its dominant formations, and emerging from an investment in the future of postcolonial studies and a commitment to its basic premise; namely the conception of particular cultural and literary articulations in relation to larger structures of colonial and imperial domination as a way of putting the theory back in postcolonial theory. To a certain extent, postcolonial theory is a victim of its own success, in part from the institutionalization of the insights that it has enabled: now that they no longer seem new, it is hard to know what the field's work should be beyond these general commitments, or what its practitioners should be debating. The renewal of popular anti-imperial energies across the globe provides a rare opportunity to reassert the political and theoretical value of the postcolonial as a comparative, interdisciplinary, and oppositional paradigm. This collection makes a claim for what postcolonial theory can say through the work of scholars articulating what it still cannot or will not say. It explores ideas that a more aesthetically sophisticated postcolonial theory might be able to address, focusing on questions of visibility, performance, and literariness. Contributors highlight some of the shortcomings of current postcolonial theory in relation to contemporary political developments such as Zimbabwean land reform, postcommunism, and the economic rise of East Asia. Finally, they address the disciplinary, geographical, and methodological exclusions from postcolonial studies through a detailed focus on new disciplinary directions (management studies, theories of the state), overlooked places and perspectives (Palestine, Weimar Germany, the environmentalism of the poor), and the necessity of materialist analysis for understanding both world and world literary systems"--

Postcolonial study is a method for examining a social problem or issue. It frequently uses the term subaltern to refer to groups marginalized in the social system by a hegemonic power for specific reasons, such as social class, religion, gender, race, language, and culture. The complexity of colonial effects obscures the extent to which colonialism has influenced our perspective, philosophy, and knowledge, such as regulations, policies, politics, and even our educational system that oppress others, the subaltern. This essay employs a postcolonial perspective (the subaltern theory) to demonstrate who and how people are marginalized within society's system. Subaltern theory evolves into a way of thinking that decolonizes all spheres of life, including religious education. Furthermore, using Liam Gearon's analysis, which examined the legal framework, educational system, and curriculum for religious education in Britain, and the marginalization within Britain's religious education system or curriculum. This article emphasizes the need for Christian education to encourage awareness and critical thinking to change the external environment of marginalization. The author argues that subaltern theory enables Christian religious education to examine its curriculum and content to ensure that it does not perpetuate oppression but fosters critical thinking that results in in-depth reflection and uninhibited creativity to address social and theological issues.

'Postcolonial Theory: A Critical Introduction' by Leela Gandhi is reviewed.

AbstractRecent assertions of urban theory have dismissed the value of postcolonial critique in urban studies. This essay draws on postcolonial theory to demonstrate key flaws in such theoretical formulations. In doing so, it returns to the puzzle of how and why studying urbanism in the global South might matter for the reconceptualization of critical urban theory. Instead of a universal grammar of cityness, modified by (exotic) empirical variation, the essay foregrounds forms of theorization that are attentive to historical difference as a fundamental constituent of global urbanization. What is at stake, the essay concludes, is a culture of theory, one that in its Eurocentrism tends to foreclose multiple concepts of the urban and alternative understandings of political economy. A concern with the relationship between place, knowledge and power—a key insight of postcolonial critique—might make possible new practices of theory in urban studies.

1 Introduction: after colonialism2 Thinking otherwise: a brief intellectual history3 Postcolonialism and the new humanities4 Edward Said and his critics5 Postcolonialism and feminism6 Imagining community: the question of nationalism7 One world: the vision of postnationalism8 Postcolonial literatures9 Conclusion: the limits of postcolonial theoryBibliographyIndex