Decolonizing the Civil Sphere: The Politics of Difference, Imperial Erasures, and Theorizing from History

Abstract

This article rethinks sociological approaches to difference and inclusion. It argues that civil sphere theory replicates colonial dynamics through abstracting civil codes from their role in colonial governance. Through a case study of French colonial Algeria, the article illuminates the historical co-constitution of the French Republic and the colonial subject. This imperial history explains how civil codes came about through the same social process as the domination of the colonial other. Given these entangled histories, building solidarity requires we move beyond a process of civil repair that rests on incorporation to one of civil construction, which takes account of historical wrongs and the colonial layer of meaning embedded in categories of civil discourse. Theorizing from suppressed histories allows us to question the content of the civil sphere’s classificatory system and turn our attention to a resignification of the core group in the wake of colonial histories.