Word.ws English Dictionary

double consciousness

double consciousness noun: the awareness of a subordinated or colonized individual of having two selves, their inward self and the self, created by how the oppressor group sees them.

Noun

double consciousness (uncountable)

  1. The awareness of a subordinated or colonized individual of having two selves, their inward self and the self, created by how the oppressor group sees them.
    • Double-consciousness is the African American’s awareness of possessing two souls: an outward self based largely on how whites perceive him and an inward self that he comes to realize as his truer self.2008, Danny Sexton, “Lifting the Veil: Revision and Double-Consciousness in Rita Dove’s The Darker Face of the Earth”, in Callaloo, page 778
    • Postcolonial theorists often describe the colonial subject as having a double consciousness or double vision, in other words, a consciousness or way of perceiving the world that is divided between two antagonistic worlds, a consciousness or way of perceiving the world that is divided between two...1999, Lois Tyson, chapter 11, in Critical Theory Today: A User-Friendly Guide, page 368

Questions about double consciousness

What does double consciousness mean?
Double consciousness means the awareness of a subordinated or colonized individual of having two selves, their inward self and the self, created by how the oppressor group sees them.
What part of speech is double consciousness?
Double consciousness is a noun.

Words near double consciousness in the dictionary

  1. double coding
  2. double codings
  3. double concave
  4. double conical drum
  5. double conical drums
  6. double consciousness
  7. double copula
  8. double copulas
  9. double count
  10. double counted
  11. double counting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: double consciousness (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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