THE PHILADELPHIA NEGROAND THE CANON OF CLASSICAL URBAN THEORY

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-267 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Loughran
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Urban Theory ◽  
Racial Stratification ◽  
Racial Hierarchy ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Industrial Cities ◽  
Material Conditions ◽  
The Philadelphia Negro

AbstractThis paper outlines the urban theory of W. E. B. Du Bois as presented in the classic sociological textThe Philadelphia Negro. I argue that Du Bois’s urban theory, which focused on how the socially-constructed racial hierarchy of the United States was shaping the material conditions of industrial cities, prefigured important later work and offered a sociologically richer understanding of urban processes than the canonized classical urban theorists—Weber, Simmel, and Park. I focus on two key areas of Du Bois’s urban theory: (1) racial stratification as a fundamental feature of the modern city and (2) urbanization and urban migration. WhileThe Philadelphia Negrohas gained recent praise for Du Bois’s methodological achievements, I use extensive passages from the work to demonstrate the theoretical importance ofThe Philadelphia Negroand to argue that this groundbreaking work should be considered canonical urban theory.

Redrawing the Color Line?

2007 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Lee ◽  
Frank D. Bean
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Race Relations ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Color Line ◽  
Fault Line ◽  
Racial Hierarchy ◽  
Du Bois

In 1903, W.E.B. Du Bois prophesied that the “problem of the twentieth–century is the problem of the color line,” by which he meant the tenacious black–white divide that has long characterized the nature of race relations in the United States ([1903] 1997: 45). Nearly a century later, Herbert J. Gans speculated the traditional black–white fault line may soon be replaced by a black–nonblack divide that may be qualitatively different from the black–white divide, but is hardly new for blacks, who are likely to remain at the bottom of America's racial hierarchy. Taking into account the new racial and ethnic diversity of the United States brought about by contemporary immigration, we examine patterns of intermarriage and multiracial identification to assess where color lines are fading most rapidly and where they continue to endure. We adjudicate whether a black–white divide remains the most salient, whether a Hispanic–Anglo divide is imminent, or whether a black–nonblack fault line is emerging, as Gans forecasts.

Racialization through Enforcement

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Chacón ◽  
Susan Bibler Coutin
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Racial Identity ◽  
Racial Profiling ◽  
The United States ◽  
Immigration Law ◽  
National Origin ◽  
Immigration Enforcement ◽  
Racial Hierarchy ◽  
Judicial Decisions

Immigration law and enforcement choices have enhanced the salience of Latino racial identity in the United States. Yet, to date, courts and administrative agencies have proven remarkably reluctant to confront head on the role of race in immigration enforcement practices. Courts improperly conflate legal nationality and ‘national origin’, thereby cloaking in legality impermissible profiling based on national origin. Courts also maintain the primacy of purported security concerns over the equal protection concerns raised by racial profiling in routine immigration enforcement activities. This, in turn, promotes racially motivated policing practices, reifying both racial distinctions and racial discrimination. Drawing on textual analysis of judicial decisions as well as on interviews with immigrants and immigrant justice organization staff in California, this chapter illustrates how courts contribute to racialized immigration enforcement practices, and explores how those practices affect individual immigrants’ articulation of racial identity and their perceptions of race and racial hierarchy in their communities.

Becoming ‘pet slaves’ in urban China: Transspecies urban theory, single professional women and their companion animals

Urban Studies ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 004209802199172
Author(s):  
Chris KK Tan ◽  
Tingting Liu ◽  
Xiaojun Gao
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Women ◽  
Companion Animals ◽  
Professional Women ◽  
Urban China ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
Urban Theory ◽  
Traditional Marriage ◽  
Key Sites ◽  
Material Conditions

Urban spaces in China have traditionally been marked by hetero-patriarchy, making them key sites for exploring gendered power relations. Reflecting on the growing importance of companion animals, this study investigates the roles that these animals now play in the lives of unmarried women in urban China. Using transspecies urban theory to examine interview data gathered primarily from Guangzhou, we draw three conclusions. Firstly, as material conditions increasingly define pet keeping, companion animals have become both a class symbol and a safe refuge from the stressful demands of working life. Secondly, as professional Chinese women construct positive intimate relationships with their companions to preserve their autonomy as persons at work, they increasingly turn their backs on traditional marriage and family in an instantiation of ‘emergent femininity’. Thirdly, pets offer a new venue of online sociality for their owners. By centring women in Chinese urban studies, we argue that companion animals co-construct the living conditions of their urban, female, middle-class owners.

scholarly journals STATEMENT FROM THE DIRECTOR OF THE W. E. B. DU BOIS INSTITUTE

2004 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Louis Gates
Keyword(s):  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The United States ◽  
First Century ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Color Line ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
The Past ◽  
Considerable Work ◽  
Public Policy Decisions

In 1903, William Edward Burghardt Du Bois famously predicted that the problem of the twentieth century would be the problem of the color line. Indeed, during the past century, matters of race were frequently the cause of intense conflict and the stimulus for public policy decisions not only in the United States, but throughout the world. The founding of the Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race at the beginning of the twenty-first century acknowledges the continuing impact of Du Bois's prophecy, his pioneering role as one of the founders of the discipline of sociology in the American academy, and the considerable work that remains to be done as we confront the “problem” that Du Bois identified over a century ago.

scholarly journals “For Heart, Patriotism, and National Dignity”: The Italian Language Press in New York City and Constructions of Africa, Race, and Civilization

2011 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-105
Author(s):  
Peter G. Vellon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
York City ◽  
The United States ◽  
Moral Outrage ◽  
Italian Language ◽  
Racial Hierarchy ◽  
The Press ◽  
Dark Continent

“For Heart, Patriotism, and National Dignity”: The Italian Language Press in New York City and Constructions of Africa, Race, and Civilization” examines how mainstream and radical newspapers employed Africa as a trope for savage behavior by analyzing their discussion of wage slavery, imperialism, lynching, and colonialism, in particular Italian imperialist ventures into northern Africa in the 1890s and Libya in 1911-1912. The Italian language press constructed Africa as a sinister, dark, continent, representing the lowest rung of the racial hierarchy. In expressing moral outrage over American violence and discrimination against Italians, the press utilized this image of Africa to emphatically convey its shock and disgust. In particular, Italian prominenti newspapers capitalized on this racial imagery to construct a narrative of Italianness and Italian superiority in order to combat unflattering depictions of Italian immigrants arriving in the United States.

scholarly journals The Need for Shared Nomenclature on Racism and Related Terminology in Psychology

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 886-892
Author(s):  
Angela M. Haeny ◽  
Samantha C. Holmes ◽  
Monnica T. Williams
Keyword(s):  
Clinical Research ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Racial Microaggressions ◽  
The United States ◽  
Multiple Forms ◽  
Social Construct ◽  
Racial Hierarchy ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Impact

With the increased desire to engage in antiracist clinical research, there is a need for shared nomenclature on racism and related constructs to help move the science forward. This article breaks down the factors that contributed to the development and maintenance of racism (including racial microaggressions), provides examples of the many forms of racism, and describes the impact of racism for all. Specifically, in the United States, racism is based on race, a social construct that has been used to categorize people on the basis of shared physical and social features with the assumption of a racial hierarchy presumed to delineate inherent differences between groups. Racism is a system of beliefs, practices, and policies that operate to advantage those at the top of the racial hierarchy. Individual factors that contribute to racism include racial prejudices and racial discrimination. Racism can be manifested in multiple forms (e.g., cultural, scientific, social) and is both explicit and implicit. Because of the negative impact of racism on health, understanding racism informs effective approaches for eliminating racial health disparities, including a focus on the social determinants of health. Providing shared nomenclature on racism and related terminology will strengthen clinical research and practice and contribute to building a cumulative science.

scholarly journals Beyond the Psychological Wage: Du Bois on White Dominion

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ella Myers
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
White Supremacy ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The United States ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
Historical Fact ◽  
The Universe

W.E.B. Du Bois’s reading of whiteness as a “public and psychological wage” is enormously influential. This essay examines another, lesser known facet of Du Bois’s account of racialized identity: his conceptualization of whiteness as dominion. In his 1920–1940 writings, “modern” whiteness appears as a proprietary orientation toward the planet in general and toward “darker peoples” in particular. This “title to the universe” is part of chattel slavery’s uneven afterlife, in which the historical fact of “propertized human life” endures as a racialized ethos of ownership. The essay examines how this “title” is expressed and reinforced in the twentieth century by the Jim Crow system of racial signs in the United States and by violent “colonial aggrandizement” worldwide. The analytic of white dominion, I argue, allows Du Bois to productively link phenomena often regarded as discrete, namely, domestic and global forms of white supremacy and practices of exploitation and dispossession. Ultimately, the entitlement Du Bois associates with whiteness is best understood as a pervasive, taken-for-granted horizon of perception, which facilitates the transaction of the “wage” but is not reducible to it.

Understanding Children’s Perspectives on the Definitions and Importance of Play

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dayna Goldfarb
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Adult Child ◽  
The United States ◽  
Power Dynamics ◽  
Normative Beliefs ◽  
Children’S Perspectives ◽  
Societal Values ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Children’S Agency ◽  
Canadian City

Ideas about children and play are socially constructed by hegemonic societal values, beliefs, and institutions. Research engages with children’s play in ways that are constructed and reinforced by adults. Therefore, it is important to deconstruct dominant discourses about play because they are used to maintain adult-dominated power stratification and enforce normative beliefs. This study aims to understand how children define, conceptualize, and operationalize play in ways that may diverge from adult assumptions. Focusing on 6-9 year olds in a mid-sized Canadian city, it makes an important contribution to the field, which is overwhelming based on studies conducted in the United States. This study uses a drawing analysis to elicit children’s perspectives, which are frequently ignored in adult-centric research. Five to ten children will be recruited from an afterschool program. The children will draw pictures of themselves playing and be interviewed about their drawings. The results will be interpreted within the paradigms of the new sociology of childhood and playwork. These theories acknowledge the socially constructed nature of children and play, engage with children’s agency, and address the power dynamics that govern adult-child relations. This study does not aim to make predictable or generalizable findings. Instead, this study focuses on eliciting and expressing the opinions and worldviews of the children who participate. Expected results are that children conceptualize play in non-traditional ways that adults do not consider.

Leaving on a Jet Plane

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcus Anthony Hunter ◽  
Zandria F. Robinson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Black People ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
Du Bois

The last of three chapters on the power of chocolate cities, this chapter centers the lives, activism, and pioneering efforts of Mos Def (a.k.a. Yasiin Bey) and W. E. B. Du Bois. Exploring their lives, legal setbacks, and push against global imperialism and racial oppression, the authors highlight their sophisticated and politically informed racial geography of the United States. Detailing the movement of black people throughout the domestic diaspora and into and throughout Africa, this chapter illustrates the how place, race, peace politics, and power collide in the lives of black people here, there, and everywhere around the globe.

Racial Health Disparities and Questions of Evidence

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolyn Moxley Rouse
Keyword(s):  
Health Disparities ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Ethnic Disparities ◽  
Structural Data ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Average ◽  
Healthy People ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Healthy People 2010

The United States Healthy People 2010 initiative, designed to focus nationally funded health research and care on achieving a set of nationwide goals, was directed toward the elimination of racial and ethnic health disparities. While racial and ethnic disparities are complex (with the health of some minority groups surpassing the national average), the health of black Americans continues to fall short of the national average. By focusing on the presumptions embedded in the design of health disparities research, this chapter addresses why Healthy People 2010 largely failed to reduce racial health inequality. Importantly, in thinking about health inequalities, researchers initially failed to consider how race is socially constructed; how data collection is never value-neutral (see King, chapter 8, this volume); and, finally, the limits of randomized control trials (deductive methods) when it comes to making sense of complex behavioral and structural data. The chapter ends by describing how ethnographic insights can help complicate the assumptions and conclusions of health disparities research.

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