Theories and Concepts for a Decolonized Study of Global Connections: Lessons from Asia and Africa

The recent Asian engagements in African development through investment, trade, and technology transfers have been criticized as repeating the centuries-old subjection of Africa to colonization and capitalism. In my book project. I was interested in finding out whether Indian investments, built on legacies of Indian pluralism, and struggles with development as a postcolonial country, created alternative possibilities in Africa. I completed six months of comparative and ethnographic research, spread over the span of seven years from 2015 to 2022 (interrupted by two years of COVID). I made three research trips to Ethiopia studying a denim textile manufacturing unit near Addis Ababa and to South Africa, studying Indian-owned colliery and iron ore mines in Mpumalanga and Northern Cape. However, in those years, I became critical of the discipline of sociology that tends to prioritize Western concepts and elevate them above all other ways of knowing. In my attempt to write about research sensitive to the above formation of knowledge, I decided to look beyond global capitalism, commodity markets, and economic life and explore the multiple other frameworks that exist to look at the relations between Africans and Indians. Two bodies of work that have helped me to rethink my project are those of transoceanic studies and that of African and Indian co-evalness. Transoceanic studies (transatlantic, transpacific, and Indian Ocean) build on the fluid boundaries of the ocean to reimagine communities that are less contained in the nation's body politic and foster our understanding of other ways of co-existing in this world. Studies on African and Asian co-evalness assumes a horizontal plane between locations in the Global South—in contrast with the temporally and historically unequal comparison of Europe and Asia. I argue that one should disengage with West-centric concepts and adopt Global South standpoints, theories, and concepts to understand the global connections.