Ruminations of Du Bois, Davis and Drake
W. E. B. Du Bois, Allison Davis, and St. Clair Drake, along with other African American pioneers of anthropology, have produced works which prefigure many recent developments in sociocultural anthropology. These scholars' detailed research into race relations and social stratification offers broad theoretical insights to processual and agency-oriented approaches to studying social life. Their work historicizes the construction of racist ideologies and the erection of racial hierarchies and considers the dynamic relationship of structures of inequality to ideological formulations. In addition, they describe the intersection of race, class, and gender and how these overlapping forms of categorization and organization impact the daily lives of positioned subjects. These pioneers situate their detailed local studies within diaspora and global contexts as they note transnational flows of people, ideas, and capital. Du Bois, Davis and Drake combine qualitative, quantitative, archival, and team research methods to produce non-realist, decentered, polyvocal texts aimed at highlighting social injustice, discrimination, and the politics of identity.