Reversing the Gaze: A Post-Comparative Approach to Social Science Research

Available Open Access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence

Drawing on postcolonial and decolonial approaches, this volume investigates both the theoretical foundations and the practical challenges of 'reversing the gaze' as a strategy for re-orienting global knowledge production.

It brings together reflections on the theoretical and methodological implications of applying social-scientific concepts, typically developed to explain social and institutional phenomena in non-European settings, to the study of analogous empirical dynamics within Europe. In doing so, the contributions confront the potential pitfalls of this approach and grapple with the persistent epistemic, conceptual and normative frictions that inevitably shape such undertakings.

Ultimately, the volume advances new conceptual and methodological pathways that offer practical visions for global knowledge production, attentive to the epistemic, moral and political issues at stake in contemporary debates.