Legacy of the “Genre of the Human”: Theological Justifications for Enslavement and the Construction of Race and Gender

This article examines the theological and biblical frameworks that helped naturalise racial hierarchy in the Atlantic world. Employing a qualitative desktop methodology, the study draws on the critique of the “genre of the human” to critically discuss theological justifications for enslavement and the construction of race and gender. Wynter argues that Western modernity has over-represented a particular figure of “Man” as universal while rendering other peoples as deficient, subordinate, or not fully human. The article demonstrates how this figure of “Man” corresponds with theologies that interpret biblical passages on order, such as 1 Corinthians 14:40, as divine endorsements of hierarchical structures of power. Through critical discourse analysis, it shows how such interpretations helped justify enslavement, racism, and gendered hierarchies. The article further traces the persistence of this theological hierarchy across changing historical forms, from mediaeval Christian cosmologies through early modern race-making to modern capitalist conceptions of productivity and worth. It concludes by arguing that any credible theological response to racism must dismantle the binary logic that underwrote racialised chattel enslavement through an intersectional interrogation of religion, race, and gender and recover a decolonial account of the human grounded in relational dignity, justice, and shared vulnerability.