Sociology is subject to a process of internationalisation. The rapid development of China has provided the 'China experience' and shown the emergence of a new sociology. In this book a dialogue between European and Chinese sociologists is opening up new horizons for Western thought in a context of economic and cultural globalisation. The objective is to embark on a process of epistemological reconfiguration, deconstructing reality on the basis of dividing up the world. This book deals with some fundamental sociological issues: modernities and globalisation, class and society, state and...

Within a movement towards the circulation and globalisation of knowledge, new centres and new peripheries form and new hierarchies appear - more or less discretely - producing competition and rivalry in the development of "new" knowledge. Centres of gravity in social sciences have been displaced towards Asia, especially China. We have entered a period of de-westernization of knowledge and co-production of transnational knowledge. This is a scientific revolution in the social sciences which imposes detours, displacements, reversals. It means a turning point in the history of social sciences....