La convergence des âmes opprimées. Expérience vécue et expérience représentée dans le processus de subjectivation de Brissot et Du Bois

Abstract

Based on a phenomenological reading, the following reflections aim to make an exploratory contribution to a historical sociology of the experience of oppression. Through the figures of Jacques-Pierre Brissot and William E. B. Du Bois, we will see how the struggle for the universal application of civil and civic rights in two modern Western societies (pre-revolutionary France and post-Reconstruction United States) rests 1) on the lived experience of the oppression of a dissident elite 2) on a two-level objectification, both on the level of intersubjective representations and societal discriminations. We will thus show how this elite, by referring to other oppressions in different eras and places, inscribes itself in a tradition of the oppressed and in a historical struggle to support its own fight.

Keywords

• historical sociology
• experience of oppression
• convergence of struggles
• phenomenology
• Brissot
• Du Bois