Resisting Neoliberalism’s War on the Sociological Imagination: Reflections on PhD Work as Anti-Racist Practice

Abstract

This article reflects on undertaking PhD work as a form of anti-racist practice from an angle with significant promise for sociology and the social more generally. I argue that amid neoliberalism’s denial of structural discrimination and its attendant war on the sociological imagination, radical possibilities permeate PhD scholarship. They include extending the sociological imagination into the radical imagination via histories of power and resistance, recognising the theoretical and empirical impact of reading on the sociological imagination, writing in defence of the sociological imagination and synthesising the sociological imagination with lived theory to produce critical knowledge about everyday life for community activism. By evidencing what a sociological PhD can be, I contend that the promise of doctoral study to resist intensifying social inequalities under neoliberal arrangements coincides with the broader potential to salvage an insurgent sociology and reclaim the university from neoliberalism’s vice grip as a site of social struggle.