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Ugly progress : W. E. B. Du Bois’s sociology of the future
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Davidson, Joe P. L. (2021) Ugly progress : W. E. B. Du Bois’s sociology of the future. The Sociological Review, 69 (2). pp. 382-395. doi:10.1177/0038026120954330 ISSN 0038-0261.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0038026120954330
Abstract
The work of W. E. B. Du Bois is a powerful but unjustly neglected resource for sociological enquiry. Powerful insofar that it cuts against the grain of sociology as it exists today, offering a distinctive set of tools that allow the social world to be approached, conceptualised and studied in new ways. Unjustly neglected insofar that the explicit and implicit racism of sociology has positioned Du Bois as a peripheral figure. The purpose of this article is to contribute to the task of recuperating Du Bois’s hidden potency by considering his theory of social time. I argue that Du Bois’s essay ‘Of the Meaning of Progress’ presents an incisive critique of the triumphalist conception of progress that was dominant in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and the diffuse desire for a better future common in sociology today. Du Bois rejects the idea that history moves in a necessary and ameliorative fashion towards an ever better world. Instead, drawing on the black experience of slavery and racial violence, Du Bois proposes a notion of ugly progress: a looping conception of time that involves shuffling between the disappointments of the past and utopian hopes for the future. To conclude, I suggest the ugly conception of progress offers a fresh perspective on how marginalised figures from the past, such as Du Bois himself, should be positioned within the discipline of sociology.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) | ||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Du Bois, W. E. B. -- (William Edward Burghardt), -- 1868-1963 -- Political and social views, Social sciences -- Philosophy, Racism in sociology, Progress, Race | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | The Sociological Review | ||||||||
Publisher: | Blackwell | ||||||||
ISSN: | 0038-0261 | ||||||||
Official Date: | March 2021 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 69 | ||||||||
Number: | 2 | ||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 382-395 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1177/0038026120954330 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 25 January 2023 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 25 January 2023 | ||||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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