Daniel C. Blight

Sociologist of art or thereabouts

[Sovereign Media @sov_media]

THE BRITISH, FRENCH AND DUTCH EMPIRES WERE THE WORST!

In this exchange on Mehdi Hasan's Head to Head with Nigel Biggar, post-colonial sociologist Gurminder K Bhambra dismantles a core myth used to rehabilitate empire: the idea that all empires are essentially the same. Her intervention is historical, precise, and deeply human.

Bhambra challenges Nigel Biggar’s claim that empire is a universal and morally neutral feature of human history. She argues that this framing deliberately erases a crucial distinction between empires of incorporation and empires of extraction. The Ottoman, Mughal, and Chinese empires governed through incorporation, integrating populations into administrative, economic, and social systems. European empires, by contrast, were built around extraction; wealth was siphoned out, societies were reorganised for profit, and human life was treated as expendable.

She grounds this distinction in one of the most basic measures of governance: food and survival. Famines occurred across history, but their causes matter. Under Mughal rule, Bengal did not experience mass famine deaths over the course of four centuries. Under British control, the East India Company presided over a famine that killed more than 10 million people while continuing to extract taxes. During World War II, under direct British rule, another famine killed an additional 3 million. These were not natural disasters; they were policy outcomes.

Bhambra’s point is simple and devastating. Empire is not an abstract idea. It has material consequences. Who eats, who starves, and who profits are political decisions. To flatten all empires into a single category is not scholarly neutrality; it is moral evasion.

Her analysis exposes how colonial violence is often rewritten as inevitability, progress, or tragedy without perpetrators. By restoring historical specificity, Bhambra refuses that erasure. This is not about guilt or virtue. It is about truth, accountability, and recognising that millions died not because of scarcity, but because extraction was prioritised over human life.

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[Aaron Winter @aaronzwinter]

This is censorship and a political statement

[Noreen Masud @NoreenMasud]

The more international attention the case gets, the more likely the HO is to overturn it - please share if you can, international friends and colleagues

[Lowkey @Lowkey0nline]

Israel has bombed Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and even Egyptian territory in the last month.

An Israeli air force commander just stated that there are plans to strike Yemen too.

Do you understand now?

[Priyamvada Gopal © @PriyamvadaGopal]

On point

[Priyamvada Gopal © @PriyamvadaGopal]

When you work on racism, colonialism etc, you do get complacent--you think, come on, everyone gets this now, the world will surely, has surely, moved on.

Then you are reminded: absolutely not. Same old routine, same old racism, same civilisational talk, same double standards.

[Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight]

Oh man he’s so lost. Genuinely makes me sad.

'illiberal ideological capture' of universities | Eric Kaufmann talks on... https://t.co/9O6999MEg7

[Brighton UCU @BrightonUCU]

This is our 14th week of indefinite strike action. @uniofbrighton's attempts to bully us, to break our resolve & to starve us out have not worked! We won't return to work until every job is saved! Help us #savebrightonuni
Donate here: https://t.co/lPC14Go0Ug
#BoycottBrightonUni

[Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight]

@LozzaFox Hi Lawrence, happy to talk through the invention of race with you if you’d like to explore that idea of immutability in a little more detail?

[Brighton UCU @BrightonUCU]

Thanks for your solidarity @johnmcdonnellMP! Great to see you at the @WorkersSummit23
We will not come back to work until every compulsory redundancy is rescinded!
#SaveBrightonUni #BoycottBrightonUni
#Brighton25

[Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight]

@SwipeWright Gender is not the same thing as sex – this is a well-established norm in sociology – so why are you conflating the two and using it to underpin this flimsy single case analysis?

[Liam Bright @lastpositivist]

Love that to pass our national citizenship test you have to agree we like to have a good laugh at ourselves or we'll fucking deport you

[David Harvey | @davidharvey.org on Bluesky @profdavidharvey]

Capitalism will never fall on its own. It will have to be pushed. The accumulation of capital will never cease. It will have to be stopped. The capitalist class will never willingly surrender its power. It will have to be dispossessed.

[Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight]

Wow

[alanigolanski.bsky.social @alanigolanski]

Extraordinary letter from Hannah Arendt to James Baldwin (21 Nov 1962)

[Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight]

Paul Gilroy set Eyerman the challenge 20 years ago apparently, and he’s now written it. I hope it’s good.

[Cultural Sociology @CulSoc]

Discussing his recent book “The Making of White American Identity, Ron Eyerman notes, “This is a work of memory as well as history, but the intent is clearly political. This is a scholarly work with a practical interest.”

Read more below.
https://t.co/0zkmkRe8CC

[Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight]

@wokal_distance Ideas of social construction have been present in philosophy (e.g. classical rhetoric) for thousands of years. The idea that this is postmodern and explains “wokeness” isn’t right at all.

[Race & Class @Race_Class]

Shocked to hear that Cathy Bergin, R&C author and leading scholar in the field of histories of race and resistance, is facing being sacked by @uniofbrighton

Solidarity with Cathy and all those facing planned redundancies

#savebrightonuni

[Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight]

@jeremy_millar_1 He has the right and freedom to express his desire to get paid by any visual means he deems most likely to get him paid.

[Daniel C. Blight @danielcblight]

@TomSeymour https://t.co/qVkpT0Dda5