2024/05/14 by Jorge Daniel Vásquez · 2 voices · 7 citations
Mathematics · Social Sciences · #Art #Art history #Color line #Computer science #Contemporary Sociological Theory and Practice #Economics #Gender studies #Knowledge management #Knowledge production #Line (geometry) #Mathematics #Production (economics) #Race (biology) #Race, History, and American Society #Social and Cultural Dynamics #Sociology
paper · doi:10.1177/08912432241252609
published in Gender & Society 38(3), 317-350 (SAGE Publishing)
openalex publication_date 2024/05/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/26
The global sociology of W.E.B. Du Bois developed during the 1940s relies significantly on a collaborative relationship with African-American sociologist and anthropologist Irene Diggs (1906–1998). Diggs was mentored by Du Bois as a graduate student at Atlanta University and later became his research assistant, secretary, and colleague. No person worked for and with Du Bois as Diggs did, for nearly 14 years. In her own work, Diggs transcended Du Bois. Using archival documentary research, I analyze the connection between Diggs and Du Bois to show how they developed a global sociological perspective that included an analysis of the color line in Latin America. My analysis has two goals: (1) to show how the Du Bois–Diggs relationship was permeated by gender inequalities and a misrecognition of Diggs’s critical contribution and (2) to introduce Irene Diggs’s work on Latin America between 1942 and 1953 to show how it was inscribed within the project of a global sociology of the color line. I discuss how Diggs’s historical sociology expands the analysis of the Latin American color line today.