The Laws of Indiscipline: Anténor Firmin, Racial Justice, and the Case for a Humanist Anthropology

Abstract

ABSTRACT Haitian intellectual Anténor Firmin is seldom recognised for his contribution to the social sciences outside of the Caribbean. Yet, as a member of the Société d'anthropologie de Paris, Firmin authored a robust critique of the discipline at a moment when it was most invested in North Atlantic racist and colonial politics. Rereading his 1885 De l'égalité des races humaines as a work of intellectual and political indiscipline, this article demonstrates how Firmin's unique engagement with anthropology has led to an enduring problem of formal and substantial illegibility, one largely responsible for its silencing in the history of the discipline.