Black Masculinity in Racial Capitalism: Politics of Representation and Political Economy

• In Event: 3431 - Theorizing Race in Organizations

Abstract

In this paper I explore the construction of black masculinity in racial capitalism. To do so, I consider how representations of black men function as a response to their incorporation into the economy. While my empirical focus is on Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, my theoretical concern is with black masculinity in urban Africa and the African diaspora broadly. I examine colonialism to crisis as a narrative arc, with an emphasis on the crisis moment culminating in the 2002-2011 Ivoirian civil war. As a novel theoretical intervention, I argue that blackness has been symbolically positioned against the double hegemony of whiteness and capitalism, locating the terrain of black struggle in both the politics of representation and political economy. This legacy, however, risks fracturing black struggle when gains in representation oppose capitalist critique. I argue that in economies of proliferating un- and underemployment, simultaneous to the negation of black men's productive potential, iconic black men across the Black Atlantic become tropes that embody market freedoms of buying and selling. Suggesting that the commodification of blackness, as productive potential and cultural artifact, together define the project of racial capitalism, I illuminate the sustained power of representations even while capitalism affords a deficit of real opportunities.

Author

• Jordanna Chris Matlon, American University