Liberation Sociology

Colleagues,

I was told that Joe Feagin mentioned me in his Plenary at the Southern Sociological Society meeting last year. This year, the Third Edition of his Liberation Sociology text has just come out from Paradigm Publishers and I am one of the sociologists profiled multiple times in the book. As if this is not enough honor for me, I am credited in the book as developing a paradigm that the authors called 'Liberation Criminology: The Decolonization Paradigm' which was highlighted in a couple of pages of their book.

https://paradigm.presswarehouse.com/books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=409713

I recommend the book to all social scientists and all those working to make the world a better place. Here is my personal description of the book:

Numerous sociologists have exhaustively analyzed multiple systems of oppression that plague society in many ways; the entire point, however, to paraphrase some pioneer liberation sociologists, is to free the entire global society from all systems of oppression. Enter Liberation Sociology as a major contribution from a long line of critical activist intellectuals who were mostly sidelined by mainstream bourgeois sociologists until Joe Feagin and colleagues courageously came out with the eye-opening innovative eponymous text. Now in its third edition, it comes with extensive highlighting of even more contributions from hitherto relatively marginalized critical sociologists for the benefit of every discipline of social science and as a contribution to the liberation of the entire global society from all systems of oppression.

This kind of recognition did not happen overnight but resulted from the support of colleagues that deserve to be mentioned: Thanks to you all for making this happen especially in the ASC round-table review of Counter-Colonial Criminology that we later published in maiden issue of our journal, African Journal of Criminology and Justice Studies, that I continue to edit as the founding editor-in-chief. Professor Ihekwoaba Onwudiwe started the ball rolling in 1998 when he reviewed my first book, Black Women and the Criminal Justice System (which started the Ashgate Publishers Interdisciplinary Research Series in Ethnic, Gender and Class Relations that I continue to edit), and identified what he called the Decolonization paradigm as my major contribution.

In 1995, an excerpt from the doctoral dissertation that led to the book was awarded the Mike Brake Memorial Prize in Radical Social Policy and Social work by an international jury of eminent scholars. This was followed by Professor Shaun Gabbidon in 2007 when he devoted several pages to my work in one of his book. Then Professor Emmanuel Onyeozili had the audacity  to mention my name in the same sentence as intellectual giants in his contribution to the round-table review. Dr. Mark Christian was generous in the African Studies Review for crediting Counter-Colonial Criminology with making an original contribution to the discipline of Black Studies even while critiquing the choice to focus on feminist theory rather than on Africana Womanism. Professor Temitope Oriola followed up (whilst still a graduate student) with that rave review essay on Counter-Colonial Criminology that credited me with founding Post-Colonial Criminology and colleagues from around the world kept it up as you can see from the current special issue of our journal honoring the 10th anniversary of Counter-colonial Criminology. May others support your work the way you have supported mine

Biko