A colonial science throughout? Sociology in Arabic journals (1885–1952).

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Florian Zemmin
• Subject Area: Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies ; Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 571523041

The colonial imprint of sociology is increasingly being critically highlighted. However, this critique should be accompanied even more strongly by a historiographical reconstruction of the formation of sociology in different regional, cultural, and linguistic contexts. In doing so, colonial influences as well as local interests and imprints should be taken into account. In Arab countries, the milestones of sociology's institutional development are sufficiently well known. In contrast, receptions and conceptions of sociology in the Arabic public sphere that preceded the institutional development or accompanied its beginnings have hardly been researched. Public Arabic contributions to sociology point to local motivations and formations of sociological perspectives, not least under the auspices of social issues and through their cultural framings. Under these assumptions, this project is devoted to the reception of European sociology and the formation of local sociological perspectives in relevant Arabic journals from 1885 to 1952. On the first level of analysis, it focusses on explicit receptions and conceptions of sociology as a scientific discipline (ʿilm al-iǧtimāʿ, sūsiyūlūǧiyyā). In a second step, social/sociological perspectives, issues, studies, and actors are analyzed in the most fruitful publications (addressed, for example, as al-ittijāh al-ijtimāʿī, al-masʾala al-ijtimāʿiyya; al-baḥṯ al-ijtimāʿī; al-kātib al-ijtimāʿī). Building on this, it is worked out to which bodies of knowledge sociology was critically or affirmatively related. In the local formations of sociology thus identified, it is also of interest to what extent these reflect different epistemologies and/or epistemic communities (e.g., Arab, Islamic, secular). Through its historiographical reconstruction of the emergence of sociology in Arabic journals, the project speaks constructively to contemporary post-colonial critiques of sociology's Eurocentrism and, by focusing on the hitherto rather neglected history of Arabic sociology, likewise enriches our knowledge of the Arabic intellectual public sphere and knowledge landscape.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants