A Du Boisian Sociological Imagination: The Black Radical Tradition, Marxism and Du Boisian Sociology.

Abstract

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.