Have Confidence in the Sea: Maritime Maroons and Fugitive Geographies

Dunnavant, Justin

doi:10.1111/anti.12695

Cited by 34 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…People living in these maroon communities not only needed knowledge to survive in such rugged, undeveloped terrain, but also needed forms of ecological knowledge that allowed them to maintain these environments, to maintain their remoteness (Hosbey & Roane, 2021 ). This included not just broad knowledge of living conditions and the plants and animals needed for food, medicine, and shelter, but more specific knowledge, for example of live fencing (Duvall, 2009 ) or of sea currents and conditions that allowed people to escape from one Caribbean island to others (Dunnavant, 2021 ). This is as much an ecological ethic as it is about specific bits of ecological knowledge.…”

Section: Black Ecological Knowledge In the Americasmentioning

confidence: 99%

The history of natural history and race: Decolonizing human dimensions of ecology

Miriti

Rawson

Mansfield

2022

Ecological Applications

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Natural history, loosely defined as the observational study of organisms in the habitats where they occur, is recognized at the roots of ecology. Although the centrality of natural history in ecology has shifted over time, natural history is currently in resurgence: many again consider it to be the foundation of ecological and evolutionary inquiry and advocate the value of organism‐centered approaches to address contemporary ecological challenges. Educators identify natural history as the foundational entryway into the practice of ecology, for example in the Ecological Society of America's Four‐Dimensional Ecology Education (4DEE) framework. A strong natural history foundation can help generate testable hypotheses to refine mechanistic understanding of the drivers regulating species distributions and abundances and to inform restoration and conservation efforts. Given the resurgence of natural history as the foundation for ecological knowledge and practice, it is important to recognize that natural history has a long history of racism that has impacted ecological thought and priorities. This history shapes not only who conducts ecological science but also foundational ecological concepts. For example, natural history's emphasis on pristine nature untouched by humans disregards or appropriates stewardship and knowledge of most of the world's population. Because of the legacy of chattel slavery, this exclusion is particularly strong for people of African descent. This exclusion narrows ecological inquiry, limits the capacity to find solutions to ecological problems, and risks interventions that perpetuate the relation between eugenics, ecological knowledge, and natural systems. If ecology is to become an inclusive, responsive, and resilient discipline, this knowledge gap must be addressed. We here present the colonial and racist underpinnings of natural history and offer strategies to expand inclusion in the study of nature. Natural history was steeped in racism, providing a hierarchy of cultures and a taxonomy of races. Complementing growing interest in traditional and Indigenous ecological knowledge, we focus on Black ecological knowledge, for example in the study of “maroon ecologies.” Addressing the racist history of natural history is necessary for removing structural and racist barriers to diverse participation and expanding ecological knowledge bases in service of better and more just science.

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Section: Black Ecological Knowledge In the Americasmentioning

confidence: 99%

The history of natural history and race: Decolonizing human dimensions of ecology

Miriti

Rawson

Mansfield

2022

Ecological Applications

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“…Notably, however, as Alex Moulton (2022) shows, runaway slaves or maroons in places like Jamaica with more dense forest cover and larger land mass eff ectively preserved the biodiversity of the interior by integrating themselves into the forest and blocking fearful would-be colonists from settling these habitats and expropriating them, illustrating that from the outset of the plantation's geographic consolidation, Black people carved out spaces of ecological subversion with continued ramifi cations in the present. Justin Dunnavant (2021) analyzes how enslaved Africans adopted parallel strategies in his archaeological work in St. Croix, exploring maritime marronage and the creation of an oceanic cartography of Black fugitivity in this landscape.…”

Section: Global Black Ecologiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction

Hosbey¹,

Lloréns²,

Roane³

2022

Environment and Society

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This collection derives from an ongoing experiment in thinking through and with the potential epistemic insurgency presented by our loose collective’s working terminology, “Black ecologies.” This term moves from the resonances between the editors’ own research in New Orleans, Puerto Rico, and Virginia, respectively. Each of us considers from our different vantages the ecological consequences of slavery and its afterlives in the enduring regime of extractivism and disposability shaping Black communities in the Diaspora. This resonance has inspired us to collaborate in various formations, including a virtual dialogue about the environment for the People’s Strike organization in July 2021, the Black Ecologies series at Black Perspectives, the virtual gathering hosted by the Black Ecologies Initiative at Arizona State University in Spring 2022, “Making Livable Worlds” (following co-editor Hilda Lloréns’ monograph title), and a zine publication, which have together added further integrity, meaning, and possibilities for thinking with this formulation outside a restrictive or proprietary vision for its potential.

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“…This is important as Abeng and West Indian Black Power weren’t just engaged in resistance to plantation spatialities and neo‐colonialism, but sought to realise decolonial futures constructed through Black Power politics (ibid.). As Dunnavant (2021) reminds us, the efforts of Abeng and its various constituents should be understood within longer histories of marronage. Maroons asserted their agency spatially, fleeing the plantation and building maroon communities that flouted the enclosing, racialised logics and practices of the plantation and colonial state.…”

Section: Black Geographies and Black Internationalism In Dialoguementioning

confidence: 99%

“…As Linebaugh and Rediker (2001) describe, impressed and enslaved seamen brought news of revolution and spread practices of resistance across the Atlantic world. Dunnavant (2021) recounts the well‐used maritime networks and mobilities of Caribbean maroons that allowed travel from island to island spreading praxes of resistance. These accounts position internationalism as a politics and practice enacted from below and exceeding the constraining spatialities of the plantation and the territoriality of empire (Featherstone 2015).…”

Section: Black Geographies and Black Internationalism In Dialoguementioning

confidence: 99%

TheAbeng’s Call: The Articulation of Place and the International in Black Power Print Production

Gowland

2022

Antipode

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This article engages with radical Black Power print production in order to examine the articulation of Black practices of place-making and Black internationalist spatial politics. These spatial politics and practices are developed through engagement with the Jamaican Black Power newspaper Abeng which was produced at the height of Black Power activity on the island in 1969. The paper draws on Black Geographies scholarship to demonstrate that Abeng represented a material and discursive means through which subaltern practices and places of resistance in Jamaica were enacted in opposition to and excess of plantation spatialities and regimes on the island. The carving out of such subaltern places allowed for the articulation of transnational imaginaries and translocal solidarities with similarly aligned communities and struggles across the diasporic world. The Abeng newspaper was again central in crafting these imagined Black internationalist geographies and coeval praxes of transnational solidarity.

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Have Confidence in the Sea: Maritime Maroons and Fugitive Geographies

Cited by 34 publications

References 35 publications

The history of natural history and race: Decolonizing human dimensions of ecology

The history of natural history and race: Decolonizing human dimensions of ecology

Introduction

TheAbeng’s Call: The Articulation of Place and the International in Black Power Print Production

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