Hegel, Haiti and Fanon: Towards a Dialectic of Recognition
by
Abstract
In her now seminal work, Susan Buck-Morss links the Haitian Revolution with the slave writings of Hegel, positing that the revolt in Haiti constitutes a moment of dialectical import. She is not, however, the only dialectician to have read the Haitian Revolution through Hegel’s master–slave dialectic. Indeed, Frantz Fanon's canonical Black Skin, White Mask also made reference to such events, although Buck-Morss' engagement with him, in her work, is sparse. In this article, then, through confronting Buck-Morss' account with Fanon, I argue that Buck-Morss' argument loses sight of the material utilised in the master/slave abstraction, namely the actual lived experiences of colonial subjects, thereby glossing over the particularity of the material. In contrast, Fanon's account reincorporates the concrete situatedness into the master/slave dialectic, thereby surpassing typical limitations of philosophical abstraction, which has concrete political implications.
Keywords
dialectics Fanon Hegel Haiti Buck-Morss revolution master slave
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