A Political Companion to W. E. B. Du Bois

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
Founding Editor ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Politics Of Race

W.E.B. Du Bois was not a liberal, Marxist, radical, or republican—he was all of these and none. The author of more than one hundred books, hundreds of published articles, and founding editor of the NAACP’s journal Crisis, Du Bois has been widely studied, both during his life and afterward, for his profound insights into the politics of race and class in America. Throughout his work, Du Bois insisted on the importance of the local—on individual and community sovereignty—to counter domination by elites. He founded a counter tradition of African American thought that provided a new perspective on “the political,” incorporating contingency, racialized embodiment, and lived experience, engaging religion as a mode of political action and exploring the relationship between aesthetics and politics. Du Bois explored different political theories and scientific avenues, changing his political positions as his understanding of events shifted. He drew on historical events, such as Reconstruction, to explain racial inequality in the present and advocate for racial justice. He challenged the African American community to strategically accept segregation at one point, at other times encouraging internal racial uplift and external political agitation. Du Bois’s expansive views provide a historical glimpse at the changing nature of Western political theory and American democracy, even as they reveal how much we still need to consider race, its workings, and its consequences. In these pages, Du Bois emerges as an intellectual provocateur who challenged tradition and whose work and life continue to stimulate lively and constructive debate about the theory and practice of democracy in America.

A Lighter Shade of Brown? Racial Formation and Gentrification in Latino Los Angeles

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfredo Huante
Keyword(s):  
Los Angeles ◽  
Mexican American ◽  
Racial Inequality ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Racial Formation ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Racial Ideologies ◽  
Boyle Heights

Abstract Conventional gentrification literature has meaningfully demonstrated how economic inequality is perpetuated in urban settings, but there has been a limited understanding of how racial inequality is maintained. Drawing from participant observation, interviews, and digital ethnography in the barrio of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles that were collected over five years, this study examines how gentrification functions as a racial project and supports new forms of racialization to maintain uneven development along racial lines. Examining the ways that racial formation processes unfurl at the local scale expands conventional understanding of racial formation theory and practice while, simultaneously, illustrating the centrality of place in race-making. This study finds new race and class formations are developed by casting the barrio itself and significant portions of the Mexican American population as “honorary white.” Despite colorblind and post-racial ideologies espoused in majority-minority cities like Los Angeles, this landscape fostered emerging racial formations alongside gentrification processes which have increased racial, political, and economic inequality.

scholarly journals PARE0007 PATIENT AND PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT IN CLINICAL TRIAL DESIGN

2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (Suppl 1) ◽  
pp. 1289.1-1290
Author(s):  
S. De Souza ◽  
R. Williams ◽  
E. Johansson ◽  
C. Zabalan ◽  
T. Esterine ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Public Involvement ◽  
Clinical Trial Design ◽  
Patient And Public Involvement ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Extensive Consultation ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
The Eu

Background:Patient and public involvement (PPI) is gaining increasing recognition as important in ensuring research is relevant and acceptable to participants. Rheuma Tolerance for Cure (RTCure) is a 5 year international collaboration between academia and industry; focusing on earlier detection and prevention of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) through the use of immune-tolerising treatments.Objectives:To bring lived experience and insight into scientific discussions; and to evolve collaboration between lay representatives and academia/industry.Methods:9 Patient Research Partners (PRPs) from 5 European countries were recruited via the EULAR PARE Network and institutions within the RTCure Consortium (8 PRPs with RA and 1 ‘at risk’). They were asked to enter into a legal agreement with the Consortium. PRPs participated in teleconferences (TCs) and were invited to attend face-to-face (F2F) meetings at least annually. Requests for input/feedback were sent from researchers to PRPs via the project’s Patient Engagement Expert [SK].Results:PRP involvement has given researchers and industry partners a new perspective on patient priorities, and focused thought on the ethics of recruitment for and participation in clinical trials of people ‘at risk’ of developing RA. PRPs have helped define the target populations, given their thoughts on what types of treatments are acceptable to people ‘at risk’ and have aided the development of a survey (sent to EULAR PARE members) regarding the use of animal models in biomedical research. Positive informal feedback has been received from researchers and industry regarding the contribution of PRPs to the ongoing project (formal evaluation of PPI in RTCure will be carried out in 2020 and at the project end in 2022).Challenges:Legal agreements- Many PRPs refused to sign the Consortium’s complex PRP Agreement; feeling it unnecessary, incomprehensible and inequitable. After extensive consultation with various parties (including EULAR and the Innovative Medicines Initiative) no similar contract was found. Views for its requirement even varied between legal experts. After 2 years of intense discussion, a simple non-disclosure agreement was agreed upon. Ideally any contract, if required, should be approved prior to project onset.Meeting logistics- Other improvements identified were to locate the meeting venue and accommodation on the same site to minimise travel, and to make it easier for PRPs to take breaks when required. This also facilitates informal discussions and patient inclusivity. We now have agreed a policy to fund PRPs extra nights before and after meetings, and to bring a carer if needed.Enabling understanding– Future annual meetings will start with a F2F meeting between PRPs and Work Package Leads. Researchers will be encouraged to start presentations with a summary slide in lay language. Additionally, an RTCure Glossary is in development.Enabling participation– SK will provide monthly project updates and PRP TCs will be held in the evening (as some PRPs remain employed). PRPs will be invited to all project TCs and F2F meetings. Recruitment is underway to increase the number of ‘at risk’ PRPs as their viewpoint is vital to this study.Conclusion:Currently PPI in RTCure is an ongoing mutual learning process. Universal guidance regarding what types of contracts are needed for PPI would be useful. Communication, trust and fruitful discussions have evolved through F2F meetings (both formal and informal) between PRPs, academia and industry. It is important that all parties can be open with each other in order to make PPI more meaningful.Acknowledgments:This work has received support from the EU/EFPIA Innovative Medicines Initiative 2 Joint Undertaking RTCure grant number 777357.Disclosure of Interests:Savia de Souza: None declared, Ruth Williams: None declared, Eva Johansson: None declared, Codruta Zabalan: None declared, Tom Esterine: None declared, Margôt Bakkers: None declared, Wolfgang Roth: None declared, Neil Mc Carthy: None declared, Meryll Blake: None declared, Susanne Karlfeldt: None declared, Martina Johannesson: None declared, Karim Raza Grant/research support from: KR has received research funding from AbbVie and Pfizer, Consultant of: KR has received honoraria and/or consultancy fees from AbbVie, Sanofi, Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, UCB, Pfizer, Janssen and Roche Chugai, Speakers bureau: KR has received honoraria and/or consultancy fees from AbbVie, Sanofi, Lilly, Bristol-Myers Squibb, UCB, Pfizer, Janssen and Roche Chugai

Classical American pragmatism: Practicing philosophy as experiencing life

Human Affairs ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacquelyn Kegley
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Problem Solving ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Phenomenological Analysis ◽  
Religious Development ◽  
American Pragmatism ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
Problems In Living ◽  
Applied Philosophy ◽  
Democratic Life

AbstractI argue that Classical American Pragmatists—Royce, James, Dewey, Perice, Addams, Du Bois, and Locke subscribed to this view and practiced philosophy by focusing on experience and directing a critical eye to major problems in living. Thus Royce and Dewey explored the nature of genuine community and its role in developing a flourishing individual life but also a public, democratic life. Royce and James engaged in a phenomenological analysis of human experience including religious experience developing a rich understanding of human psychological, social, and religious development. Dewey, Royce and Perice applied the lessons of the scientific communal experience to problem solving in everyday life. Dewey explored life’s aesthetic dimensions. Addams, Du Bois and Locke applied philosophy to problems of living with discrimination as an immigrant or an African American.

The Non-time of Lived Experience

2016 ◽  
Vol 136 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-95
Author(s):  
André Lepecki
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experience ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The Aesthetic

This essay analyzes the approach of Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica (1937–80) to what he called “the problem of color.” Oiticica’s conceptual-aesthetic pursuits between 1959–65 offered a renewed onto-political conceptualization of notions of time, particularly of the “liveness” of inert matters and of the “thingness” of participation. His notion of “vivência estética” (the lived experience of the aesthetic) bridged supposed gaps between performance and objecthood while offering a redefinition of what constitutes political action and what constitutes artistic matter.

“They Want the Spanish but They Don’t Want the Mexicans”: Whiteness and Consumptive Contact in an Oregon Spanish Immersion School

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Woody
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Historically White ◽  
Interracial Contact ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
Communities Of Color ◽  
The Social ◽  
Class Hierarchies ◽  
Politics Of Race ◽  
Depth Interviews

Drawing from in-depth interviews with 18 white, black, Latinx, and multiracial parents whose children attend a Spanish immersion elementary school, the author examines the politics of race, class, and resistance in a historically white community that is experiencing an influx of nonwhites. Parental narratives reveal that many whites enrolled their children in Spanish immersion to capture cultural and economic benefits they associate with bilingualism and diversity. Interviews also suggest that white support for diversity is contingent on the condition that nonwhites provide carefully controlled diversity: one that benefits whites without threatening race and class hierarchies. The maintenance of white spatial and social segregation allowed whites to engage with families of color at the school primarily through consumptive contact, a form of interracial contact predicated upon whites’ perceptions about the material benefits their children will acquire through exposure to diversity and bilingualism. Consumptive contact allows whites to selectively consume aspects of Latin American cultures without facilitating the social and institutional inclusion of the groups associated with those cultures. Findings illuminate distinct economic motivations behind whites’ engagement communities of color, adding a material dimension to our understanding of whites’ racialized consumptive practices.

scholarly journals Canon Fodder and the Intimacy of Dialogues

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Freeden Blume Oeur
Keyword(s):  
Toni Morrison ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Feminist Methodology ◽  
Du Bois ◽  
The Face

Michael Burawoy’s 2021 essay, “Decolonizing Sociology: The Significance of W.E.B. Du Bois,” forges dialogues between the scholar denied and established theorists with the aim of reconstructing the sociological canon. My commentary situates the author’s essay and his own Du Boisian turn in a long career dedicated to reflexive science and recomposing theory. I reflect on the seemingly innocuous notion of a dialogue itself: its implications for sociological theory and practice, and how it supports decolonial efforts. Thinking with Toni Morrison, Hazel Carby, Lisa Lowe, and others, I offer a sketch of a decolonial methodology—what I call a Du Boisian shadowplay—that brings into view the intimate dimensions of imperialism. Ultimately, such a feminist methodology reconstructs dialogues that reflect on researcher standpoints and nested imperial histories; and in the face of today’s social crises, nurtures dialogues that are animated by an ethic of love.

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