Why should we ask history to do theory? What does it mean to insist that a social theory aspiring to a form of global knowledge must emerge from the spaces of the global south? These questions framed a wide-ranging conversation Meghna Chaudhuri and I held in November 2020 with Durba Mitra and Andrew Liu to mark the publication of their new books–Mitra’s Indian Sex Life: Sexuality and the Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought and Liu’s Tea War: A History of Capitalism in China and India. Our aim in bringing Durba and Andrew together was to understand their respective orientations to social theory and historical method—and to see, in practice, the work of emergent theory-making within archivally-grounded historical research.

Read More