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| Publications [#6647] of John D French
Papers Published
- The Missteps of Anti-Imperialist Reason: Bourdieu, Wacquant, and Hanchard's Orpheus and Power,
Theory, Culture, & Society, vol. 17 no. 1
(February, 2000),
pp. 107-128 [PDF]
(last updated on 2005/05/12)
Abstract:
Are African and African-American Studies, as
defined and practiced in the USA, tools of US
cultural imperialism? Are discussions of
race, racial inequality or racial oppression
in other societies, when carried out by North
Americans, to be viewed as 'brutal
ethnocentric intrusions'? These are among the
central propositions of a vigorous polemic by
two French sociologists, Pierre Bourdieu and
Loic Wacquant, in a 1999 article entitled 'On
the Cunning of Imperialist Reason'. As proof,
Bourdieu and Wacquant call attention to the
recent transnational scholarly dialogue
regarding race in Brazil and denounce the
'imposition' of an 'American tradition',
'model' and 'dichotomy' of race on Brazil. In
particular, they attack as 'ethnocentric
poison' a 1994 monograph by Michael Hanchard
on Brazilian 'Black Consciousness' movements,
Orpheus and Power: The Movimento Negro of Rio
de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1945-1988.
This article dissects Bourdieu and Wacquant's
mischaracterization of the current
US-Brazilian dialogue on the African diaspora
in the New World. It identifies their
fundamental missteps and misjudgments, offers
a critique of the schematic model of
transnational intellectual circulation they
offer in the article, and demonstrates their
radical misrepresentation of Michael
Hanchard's treatment of questions of race,
colour and nation in Brazil.
Keywords: African-American, Brazil, diaspora,
identity, race, USA
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