A Du Boisian Sociological Imagination

The Black Radical Tradition, Marxism and Du Boisian Sociology

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5610370
AutoresJosé Itzigsohn (Department of Sociology Brown University Providence Rhode Island USA, autor de correspondencia)
Año2025
Volumen76
Número3
Páginas499-510
Fecha de publicación2025-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaBritish Journal of Sociology (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0007-1315 • E-ISSN: 1468-4446
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1468-4446.13186
PMID39821888
OpenAlexW4406546122
IdiomaIT
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas56

W. E. B. Du Bois is finally recognized as one of the founders of sociology, a social theorist, and a methodological innovator. The recognition of Du Bois' work is accompanied by the emergence of a contemporary Du Boisian sociology. This sociology takes inspiration from the work of Du Bois, but it does not limit itself to his work. It aims to bring into sociology the work of scholars that so far have been confined to the margins of the discipline, among them, Franz Fanon and Stuart Hall. Yet, as Du Bois work gets increasing visibility, important debates emerge. One of these debates concerns Du Bois' relation to Marxism, and the relationship between Du Boisian sociology to Marxist sociology. Marxist sociologists argue that Du Bois' late work, as well as the work of Franz Fanon and Stuart Hall, belongs in the Marxist tradition. In this essay I argue that while Du Bois, Fanon, and Hall were sympathetic to Marxism, their work cannot be encapsulated within the Marxist tradition. The question of the human was central to their thought. Moreover, for them colonialism and racism structure identity, lived experience and politics under capitalism in ways that are not reducible to class and class conflict. The Marxist appropriation of their work diminishes its originality and precludes the discipline from questioning the coloniality of its historical silences and its epistemic limits

Epistemology · Social science · Sociological imagination · Sociology · Anthropology · Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice · Philosophy · Race, History, and American Society · Social and Cultural Dynamics