Paul C. Mocombe – författare

Using a structurationist, phenomenological structuralism understanding of practical consciousness constitution as derived from what the author calls Haitian epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, this book explores the nature and origins of the contemporary Haitian oppositional protest cry, "the children of Pétion v. the children of Dessalines." Although traditionally viewed within racial terms – the mulatto elites v. the African (black) poor majority – Mocombe suggests that the metaphor, contemporarily, as utilized by the educated black grandon class (middle-class bourgeois blacks) has come to represent Marxist categories for racial-class (nationalistic) struggles on the island of Haiti within the capitalist world-system under American hegemony. The ideological position of Pétion represents the neoliberal views of the mulatto/Arab elites and petit-bourgeois blacks; and nationalism, economic reform, and social justice represent the ideological and nationalistic positions of Dessalines as articulated by the grandon, actual children of Toussaint Louverture, seeking to speak for the African majority (the children of Sans Souci, the Congolese-born general of the Haitian Revolution) whose practical consciousness, the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism, differ from both the children of Dessalines and Pétion. In the final analysis, the moniker is a truncated understanding of Haitian identity constitution, ideologies, and their oppositions.

Using a structurationist, phenomenological structuralism understanding of practical consciousness constitution as derived from what the author calls Haitian epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, this book explores the nature and origins of the contemporary Haitian oppositional protest cry, "the children of Pétion v. the children of Dessalines." Although traditionally viewed within racial terms – the mulatto elites v. the African (black) poor majority – Mocombe suggests that the metaphor, contemporarily, as utilized by the educated black grandon class (middle-class bourgeois blacks) has come to represent Marxist categories for racial-class (nationalistic) struggles on the island of Haiti within the capitalist world-system under American hegemony. The ideological position of Pétion represents the neoliberal views of the mulatto/Arab elites and petit-bourgeois blacks; and nationalism, economic reform, and social justice represent the ideological and nationalistic positions of Dessalines as articulated by the grandon, actual children of Toussaint Louverture, seeking to speak for the African majority (the children of Sans Souci, the Congolese-born general of the Haitian Revolution) whose practical consciousness, the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism, differ from both the children of Dessalines and Pétion. In the final analysis, the moniker is a truncated understanding of Haitian identity constitution, ideologies, and their oppositions.

Joseph Anténor Firmin (1850–1911) was the reigning public intellectual and political critic in Haiti in the nineteenth century. He was the first “Black anthropologist” and “Black Egyptologist” to deconstruct the Western interpretation of global history and challenge the ideological construction of human nature and theories of knowledge in the Western social sciences and the humanities. As an anti-racist intellectual and cosmopolitan thinker, Firmin’s writings challenge Western ideas of the colonial subject, race achievement, and modernity’s imagination of a linear narrative based on the false premises of social evolution and development, colonial history and epistemology, and the intellectual evolution of the Aryan-White race. Firmin articulated an alternative way to study global historical trajectories, the political life, human societies and interactions, and the diplomatic relations and dynamics between the nations and the races.

Reconstructing the Social Sciences and Humanities is the first full-length book devoted to Joseph Anténor Firmin. It reexamines the importance of his thought and legacy, and its relevance for the twenty-first century’s culture of humanism, and the continuing challenge of race and racism.

Joseph Anténor Firmin (1850–1911) was the reigning public intellectual and political critic in Haiti in the nineteenth century. He was the first “Black anthropologist” and “Black Egyptologist” to deconstruct the Western interpretation of global history and challenge the ideological construction of human nature and theories of knowledge in the Western social sciences and the humanities. As an anti-racist intellectual and cosmopolitan thinker, Firmin’s writings challenge Western ideas of the colonial subject, race achievement, and modernity’s imagination of a linear narrative based on the false premises of social evolution and development, colonial history and epistemology, and the intellectual evolution of the Aryan-White race. Firmin articulated an alternative way to study global historical trajectories, the political life, human societies and interactions, and the diplomatic relations and dynamics between the nations and the races.

Reconstructing the Social Sciences and Humanities is the first full-length book devoted to Joseph Anténor Firmin. It reexamines the importance of his thought and legacy, and its relevance for the twenty-first century’s culture of humanism, and the continuing challenge of race and racism.

In postindustrial economies such as the United States and Great Britain, the black/white achievement gap is perpetuated by an emphasis on language and language skills, with which black American and black British-Caribbean youths often struggle. This work analyzes the nature of educational pedagogy in the contemporary capitalist world-system under American hegemony. Mocombe and Tomlin interpret the role of education as an institutional or ideological apparatus for capitalist domination, and examine the sociolinguistic means or pedagogies by which global and local social actors are educated within the capitalist world-system to serve the needs of capital; i.e., capital accumulation. Two specific case studies, one in the United States and one in the United Kingdom, are utilized to demonstrate how contemporary educational emphasis on language and literacy parallels the organization of work and contributes to the debate on academic underachievement of black students vis-a-vis their white and Asian counterparts.

In postindustrial economies such as the United States and Great Britain, the black/white achievement gap is perpetuated by an emphasis on language and language skills, with which black American and black British-Caribbean youths often struggle. This work analyzes the nature of educational pedagogy in the contemporary capitalist world-system under American hegemony. Mocombe and Tomlin interpret the role of education as an institutional or ideological apparatus for capitalist domination, and examine the sociolinguistic means or pedagogies by which global and local social actors are educated within the capitalist world-system to serve the needs of capital; i.e., capital accumulation. Two specific case studies, one in the United States and one in the United Kingdom, are utilized to demonstrate how contemporary educational emphasis on language and literacy parallels the organization of work and contributes to the debate on academic underachievement of black students vis-a-vis their white and Asian counterparts.