Description:
Racism remains a pressing socio-political issue globally. This book examines the means philosophy and social sciences have to address this social harm, acknowledging that academic practices can also embody prejudice. Against the backdrop of the complexities of understanding racism, the importance of listening to those directly affected is emphasized. Insights from African philosophers provide stimulus for reflecting on agency and strategies to oppose racism. The book also theorizes racism through a historical case study, focusing on racist ideology from apartheid, and explores how racism requires complex normative practices to be socially effective. Three chapters are devoted to self-reflection regarding racism's infiltration in academic practices. The aim is to identify ways to eliminate racial prejudice and serve in constructing a world in common. The whole book navigates the tension between deconstructing essentialized identities and finding collective strategies to confront racism in society. By incorporating intersectionality theory and insights from politics, the conclusion reflects on dilemmas in orienting academic work toward effective antiracist practices.
Review Quotes:
"It is an impressive collection of the past, present and possible future against and without racism. Relevant for research and activism across and between generations committed to a more just society." -- Philomena Essed, Professor in Critical Race, Gender and Leadership Studies, Antioch University, Yellow Springs, USA
"In this pathbreaking study, South Africa's leading philosopher Ernst Wolff delivers a masterclass that reconfigures existing, stale discourses around race, identity, and academic responsibility. Via a brilliant critical dialogue with interlocutors like Adam Small, Fabien Eboussi-Boulaga, and Hermann Giliomee, Wolff positions his own view of philosophy and the social sciences not as neutral observers, but as embedded practices deeply entangled with the structural legacies they analyze. Through a vital integration of theory and practice, the book forcefully argues that scholarly work cannot escape its political vocation nor its normative duty to oppose inhumanity. Wolff masterfully balances intersectional sensitivity with a realist grasp of the strategic compromises required to challenge systemic injustice. Philosophy in the Shadow of Racism offers an indispensable roadmap for global social critique and a definitive case for globalising philosophy and making it 'intercontinental' in a changing world." -- Thulasizwe Simpson, Professor of History, University of Toronto, Canada
"Ernst Wolff's willingness to study racism in the concrete, together with his capacity to learn from such luminaries as Adam Small and Fabien Eboussi-Boulaga, gives this meticulously documented collection of essays a power so often lacking from more abstract studies. That the book ends with extended and provocative reflections on how philosophy should be taught is truly energizing." -- Robert Bernasconi, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Philosophy and African American Studies, Pennsylvania State University, USA
"If racism is a social practice in the service of normative self-justification, opposing it calls philosophy to the tasks of unmasking, reflecting, documenting and theorizing. In this book, Ernst Wolff goes further. To combat new age racism (racism without racists, covert racism), he equips philosophy and social sciences with a modus operandi and a modus vivendi under the label of transfunctionalization. In doing so, he reconnects with the moral and intellectual vocation of these disciplines, which is to grasp their era, to think beyond it, and sometimes even against it." -- Amélie Aristelle Ekassi, Lecturer of Philosophy, École normale supérieure, Yaoundé, Cameroon