Bio: (1929-2016) American sociologist. Robert Blauner received his PhD from Berkeley, where he was a professor until his retirement. He contributed to several sociological fields: racial oppression in the US, alienation in the work process, men’s studies, death studies, and freedom of speech in higher education.

In his first book, based on his dissertation, Alienation and Freedom (1964), Blauner studied alienation in the work process in four different production technologies. He defines alienation as a condition of powerlessness, social isolation, meaninglessness, and self-estrangement. He concludes that levels of alienation varies proportionaly to the level of automation of the production technology. The greatest automation and the greatest alienation were in the automobile industry. Workers in this sector lost power over the productive process, their activities were unrelated to the larger goal of production, and their selfhood was destroyed.    

In the article “Death and Social Structure” (1966), Blauner studies how society reacts to death and to those who are dying or have died. He argues that in premodern times, death was a part of everyday life, while in modern times, dying persons, death, and mourning have become increasingly done in isolation, away from home.  Hospitals took over the care of the dying people, while the handling of dead bodies was transferred to funeral parlors. Isolating death and dying from the home and wider society encourages a smooth transition and minimizes social and economic disruptions.

Robert Blauner, in the article “Internal Colonialism and Ghetto Revolt” (1969) and in the book Racial Oppression in America (1972), introduced his concept of ‘‘internal colonialism’’. Internal colonialism refers to the difference in experiences of white immigrants and immigrants of African-American and Hispanic descent in the United States. Internal colonialism creates different but interconnected relations of oppression: political disenfranchisement and domination, economic exploitation, occupational and spatial segregation and isolation, discrimination, and misrepresentation in media and wider culture. He argues that “colonized minorities” were also precluded from the opportunities that poor white people could use to escape poverty.

According to Blauner, race relations in both classical colonialism and internal colonialism are shaped by a shared process of social oppression, since both arise from similar technological conditions, cultural dynamics, and power structures. He argues that colonial systems—including forms of internal colonialism affecting Black populations—can be identified by several key features: 1) The incorporation of the colonized into the dominant society is coercive rather than voluntary. 2) Their original values, cultural practices, and ways of life are systematically undermined or destroyed. 3) They develop a distinct relationship to the legal and political system, often experiencing it as external control or manipulation. 4) They are labeled as inferior based on supposed biological traits, which justifies their exploitation and social and psychological domination. 5) A clear division of labor emerges, separating the roles and statuses of the colonized from those of the colonizers.

In the book Black Lives, White Lives (1989), Blauner depicts race relations since the 1960s using the method of extended interviews with both white and black participants. In Resisting McCarthyism (2009), Blauner explores how Berkeley faculty fought against McCarthyism by refusing to sign the Loyalty Oath and inspiring the Free Speech Movement.  

Main works

Alienation and Freedom (1964);

“Death and Social Structure”, in Psychiatry (1966);

“Internal Colonialism and Ghetto Revolt” in Social Problems (1969);

Racial Oppression in America (1972);

Black Lives, White Lives (1989);

“Race and Class: A Discussion”, in New Politics (1990);

 Our Mothers’ Spirits (1997);

Resisting McCarthyism (2009).