Double Consciousness and Racialized Emotion Complexity

• In Event: 40854 - Advances in the Sociology of Emotions

Abstract

Despite advances in the sociology of emotions focused on examining the structural predictors of emotions, there has not been much attention given to the ways that the U.S. racial hierarchy structures the emotional experiences of dominant and subordinate racial groups. This paper engages with W.E.B. Du Bois’s theory of Double Consciousness to examine whether racialization creates differences in the common emotional experiences of Black and white people in the United States. Using data from the 1996 General Social Survey module on emotions, we examine whether racial identification predicts experiences of mixed emotions and consider the utility of Du Bois’s concept of twoness for understanding contemporary emotional experiences.

Authors

• Cerenity E. Collins, Clemson University

• Dawn T. Robinson, University of Georgia