Post-Slavery United States, Post-Slavery Brazil: Race, Capitalism, and the Transnational Formation of Sociology of Race

• In Event: Global and Transnational Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 3. Knowledge and Politics II

Abstract

This article develops a comparative analysis of the interpretations of slavery, capitalism, and post-emancipation racial orders advanced by W.E.B. Du Bois in Black Reconstruction in America, 1860-1880 and Florestan Fernandes in A integração do negro na sociedade de classes (The Negro in Brazilian Society). Both works occupy foundational positions in the development of the sociology of race in their respective national contexts and, more broadly, in the sociological understanding of the ways racial domination persists after the formal abolition of slavery. By placing these texts in direct dialogue, the article seeks to illuminate both convergences and divergences in their theoretical frameworks, empirical diagnoses, and political implications, thereby contributing to a transnational rethinking of post-slavery societies in the Americas. Throughout the sections, the article foregrounds that different conceptions of the racism-capitalism relationship produce not only different historical accounts but also different theories of Black political agency. The divergence also invites reflection on how sociology itself was constituted through transnational intellectual exchanges and disciplinary hierarchies, particularly through the lasting influence of the Chicago School of Sociology.

Author

• Nara Roberta Silva, Brooklyn Institute for Social Research