W.E.B. Du Bois and Black Heterogeneity: How The Philadelphia Negro Shaped American Sociology

Hunter, Marcus Anthony

doi:10.1007/s12108-014-9249-2

Cited by 9 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 35 publications

(22 reference statements)

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“…In the last couple decades, growing work has reassessed Du Bois's scholarship, moving from efforts at canonization to efforts at resurrecting Du Boisian methods and theories for use in contemporary sociological inquiry (e.g., Bobo 2000;Conwell 2016;Hunter 2015;Quisumbing King 2019). Several panels at the American Sociological Association's annual meetings in the past few years have engaged this project, as have recent convenings of The Du Boisian Scholar Network.…”

Section: Theorizing Criminalized Subjectivity and Legal Envisioningmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Black people's responses to the veil are heterogeneous. In much of his empirical research, Du Bois documented the diversity of material conditions and lifestyles within Black communities (Hunter 2015), which he argued were differentiated along various axes such as class, gender, and geography (Du Bois 1903a, 1903b, 1909, 1996[1899). Such diversity also existed in the subjective domain.…”

Section: Du Boisian Theory and Racialized Subjectivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Criminalized Subjectivity

Clair

2021

Du Bois Rev.

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Over the period of mass criminalization, social scientists have developed rigorous theories concerning the perspectives and struggles of people and communities subject to criminal legal control. While this scholarship has long noted differences across racial groups, it has yet to fully examine how racism and criminalization interrelate in the making of criminalized people’s perspectives and their visions for transforming the legal system. This article engages with Du Boisian sociology to advance a theory of subjectivity that is attuned to the way criminalization reproduces the subjective racial order and that aims to uncover subaltern strategies and visions for transforming the structure of the law and broader society. Through a critical review of interpretive scholarship across the social sciences and an original analysis of interviews with a diverse sample of criminal defendants conducted in the early years of the Black Lives Matter movement, I illustrate how a Du Boisian approach coheres existing theories of criminalized subjectivities, clarifies the place of White supremacy and racism, and provides a theory of legal change rooted in ordinary people’s experiences and needs. I introduce the concept of legal envisioning, defined as a social process whereby criminalized people and communities imagine and build alternative futures within and beyond the current legal system. Du Boisian sociology, I conclude, provides the methodological and theoretical tools necessary to systematically assess legal envisioning’s content and to explain its contradictions, solidarities, and possibilities in overlooked yet potentially emancipatory ways.

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Section: Theorizing Criminalized Subjectivity and Legal Envisioningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Du Boisian Theory and Racialized Subjectivitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Criminalized Subjectivity

Clair

2021

Du Bois Rev.

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“…Du Bois’s landmark study, The Philadelphia Negro (Du Bois & Anderson, 1996 ), has played a prominent role in securing his position as a pioneer of American sociology and the founder of the first scientific school of sociology at Atlanta University (Lewis, 2009 ; Morris, 2015 ; Wright II, 2002 , 2016 ). Variously described as the “first great work of American urban ethnography,” “the first sociological study done in America,” and “America’s first major empirical sociological study,” it has come to be seen as pivotal to the emergence of scientific frameworks in sociology and allied fields (Du Bois & Anderson, 1996 ; Hunter, 2015 ; Morris, 2015 ; Wright II, 2002 ; Zuckerman, 2004 ). But this and Du Bois’s other writings are yet to be granted a place in genealogies of the sociology of death.…”

Section: The Racial Politics Of Deathmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ground-breaking in its precepts on race, history, and the conditions of Black urban life as well as its adherence to systematic research, the book seeks to understand the many problems faced by African American communities. It aims to instate practical reforms to alleviate the problems from a scientific lens, while offering what Hunter describes as “… generalizable theories about race, space, and place at the dawn of the twentieth century” ( 2015 : 220).…”

Section: The Racial Politics Of Deathmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Forgotten Lives of Sociology of Death: Remembering Du Bois, Martineau and Wells

Puri

2021

Am Soc

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This article seeks to rewrite the genealogy of sociology of death by revisiting the history of sociology, from the 1830s to the early twentieth century. Providing an overview of sociological studies of death that consolidated into a subfield in the 1990s, it shows how recent attempts at including intersectional and decolonial approaches link with considerations of death in sociology’s early history. Engaging sociological thinkers Harriet Martineau, Émile Durkheim, Ida B. Wells, and W.E.B. Du Bois, the article seeks to provide an alternate genealogy of the sociology of death and to make a case for mainstreaming the study of death within the discipline. It shows that questions of suicide and Black death were a significant part of these scholars’ writings and that attention to loss and mourning shaped emergent understandings of the social, sociological frameworks, and methodologies. This view supplements efforts toward encouraging intersectional and geopolitical approaches to the study of death in sociology, approaches that are more needed than ever before to contend with the scale of loss and suffering that is filling lives.

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“…Recent efforts have helped position Du Bois at the foundation of sociology (Morris 2015; Wright 2016). These efforts include work that outlines contributions to urban sociological theory (Hunter 2015; Loughran 2015). Some scholars have also linked his less explicitly spatial concepts to urban studies (Brand 2018; Brand and Miller 2020).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Circling the Herd: Houston’s Black Trail Riders, Placemaking, and the Liberatory Potential of Second Sites

Binkovitz

2022

City & Community

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Recent scholarship on Black placemaking challenges the deficit framework of urban sociology. At the same time, more sociologists are now pushing for the recovery of long marginalized Black thinkers. This article advances both efforts. It begins by extending Du Bois’ idea of second sight to illuminate the critical and creative practices of second site production, conceptualized here as a communal process that reimagines and celebrates the centrality of Black communities in the ongoing, contested production of urban spaces. It then demonstrates that process through a case study of Houston’s Black trail riders, using evidence from 21 interviews and observations of rides and gatherings to detail the material and nonmaterial dimensions of second site production through space, place, and time. Results show how, despite urban development that attempts to marginalize Black communities, the trail riders intentionally create a second site that challenges the dominant spatial regime in durable and flexible ways.

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W.E.B. Du Bois and Black Heterogeneity: How The Philadelphia Negro Shaped American Sociology

Cited by 9 publications

References 35 publications

Criminalized Subjectivity

Criminalized Subjectivity

The Forgotten Lives of Sociology of Death: Remembering Du Bois, Martineau and Wells

Circling the Herd: Houston’s Black Trail Riders, Placemaking, and the Liberatory Potential of Second Sites

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