Razza, assoggettamento e cultura in William Edward Burghardt Du Bois

Despite the fact that it is widely established that the concept of race doesn’t have a biological foundation, it is still discussed whether it might have a political and social meaning. A key elaboration of a possible non-biological use of this concept is the one of W. E. Du Bois, which we try to analyze in this paper. Thanks to recent theoretical formulation and reinterpretation of this author, we try to articulate Du Bois use of “race” following three axes (social ontology, subjection and subjectivation process). In conclusion we discuss a potential major critical issue in Du Bois’s argument.