How to teach repair into a doomed world: from a sociology of doom to a sociology of repair

In November 2021, Christiana Ajai-Thomas, a MSc student in Sociology at LSE, coined the term ‘sociology of doom’ to engage critically with how sociology, as a discipline that ‘disciplined’ our minds[1], has been harming black students: To study sociology leaves me hyperaware of my own oppression. Every reading, essay and class is traumatic,” she confesses in her stunning piece. I propose here to continue the conversation instigated by Ajai-Thomas by turning our attention from the student to the teacher. This is not to diminish the importance of the experiences shared by Ajai-Thomas, but rather to broaden the conversation to include those who, like her, enter the field of sociology only to encounter feelings of despair, untimely deaths, and well, hell. Because, it is true, to be black in an anti-black world is to live in “a constant state of rage.”[2]