Between the West and the World: Historical Perspectives on the Place of Sociology in Asia

Is there Sociology to be found in Asia? Unlike Western and Eastern Europe, North America and Latin America, the Asian continent is usually overlooked when it comes to describing the world panorama of sociology. Instead it is treated in the same way as regions mostly concerned with colonialism, such as the Arab world, or Africa south of the Sahara. In this respect, it appears the colonialism of sociology is not entirely over (Steinmetz, 2013). Although the first edition of Barnes and Becker’s Social Thought from Lore to Science (1938) devoted its last and 29th chapter (which is no less than 39 pages long!) to “Sociology in India, China, and Japan”, only eight years later Georges Gurvitch and Wilbert Moore (1946) failed to pay any attention to Asian sociology, discussing non-Western sociology with regards only to Latin America and Eastern Europe. In 1961, in the third edition of their book, Barnes and Becker note at the very end of their chapter on India, China, and Japan that “only in Japan have there been notable recent advances in sociology. India has proceeded slowly, and China moved backward” (Barnes & Becker, 1961, p. 1174). Thus, on the whole, Asia is not regarded as having contributed to the discipline of sociology.