Afro-pessimism and a posthuman sociology

Abstract

This article is a brief, retrospective overview of key deliberations within afro-pessimism with an eye toward how sociologists have, and can continue to engage with the paradigm. The anchoring theoretical and epistemological puzzle for the article is whether and how afro-pessimism can be used for sociological analysis of race within the latest technological transformations in artificial intelligence and computational power. To think through this puzzle, I examine the epistemological basis of criticisms of political ontology to argue for the ongoing necessity of the concept to critically complement empiricist study of anti-blackness. By examining recent work coming from Luciana Parisi and Ezekiel Dixon-Roman, I argue that academic conversations stemming from afropessimism have begun to grapple with the racial implications of the increased role that the computational sphere could play in social life. In doing so, I conclude that it is possible, and increasingly necessary to recuperate political ontology as a means to pointedly interrogate how anti-blackness may function without Black populations.