Introduction: Black Geographies in and of the United States South

Bledsoe, Adam; Eaves, LaToya E.; Williams, Brian

doi:10.1353/sgo.2017.0002

Cited by 53 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 14 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…As work in Black geographies emphasizes, diverse practices of Black survival, resistance, and community-building have been generative of transformative sociospatial possibilities and epistemologies in the U.S. South and beyond (Bledsoe et al., 2017; Eaves, 2017; McCutcheon, 2011; McKittrick and Woods, 2007; Scott, 2017). From slave rebellions (James, 2001; Woods, 2007) to maroon communities (Bledsoe, 2017; Diouf, 2014), post-emancipation struggles enacting “freedom dreams” (Kelley, 2003), and practices of sustenance and food cultivation (Gumbs, 2008; McCutcheon, 2018; Ramírez, 2015; Wynter, 1971), the plantation has been the site of the “organization of collective futures” (McKittrick, 2013, 3) oriented toward Black lives and liberation.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“That we may live”: Pesticides, plantations, and environmental racism in the United States South

Williams

2018

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article situates pesticides as technologies marked by both continuities and discontinuities from previous modes of agrarian racism in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, a plantation region of the United States South. Attention to the historical-geographical specificity of pesticide intensification, I argue, provides the means to understand pesticide intensification as a mode of what I term agro-environmental racism. Anti-Black racism shaped the politics of pesticides, underpinning policies and material practices that were destructive of both the environment and human welfare in the Delta and beyond. The structures and ideologies of plantation racism helped position the Delta as one of the most pesticide-intensive sectors of U.S. agriculture during the mid-20th century—a particularly consequential period for both the intensification of pesticides and the formation of contemporary environmentalism. Pesticides were defended by agro-industrial interests as technologies supporting agricultural production—and particularly that of cotton, the most pesticide-intensive commodity crop. Simultaneously, they were figured as technologies crucial to a normative way of life. Although pesticides were articulated without explicit mention of race by the 1960s, I argue that the freedom struggle activism of the Mississippi Freedom Labor Union and Fannie Lou Hamer provide context necessary to explain the pesticide politics of the Delta’s plantation bloc. These mobilizations to enact more just, sustainable, and livable geographies were an indictment of a plantation politics which put the health of cotton and profitability of plantations above all else.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“That we may live”: Pesticides, plantations, and environmental racism in the United States South

Williams

2018

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Further, scholars explicitly address Eurocentric and white supremacist conceptualizations of geographies, and articulate Black geographies as a way to “better understand the racialization that has long formed the underpinning for the production of space” and to open up conceptualizations of space beyond the physical (McKittrick and Woods, 2007: 8; see also Bledsoe et al, 2017). They recognize and bring forth specific mapping practices and “taken-for-granted” geographic knowledges and ways of knowing that existed, and exist, beyond “official” cartography to resituate Black life as fully inside modernity (in contrast to dominant/racist conceptualizations that situate Black people and Black places outside of it) and to understand Black geographies and ways of expression, including poetics, food-nourishment maps, and music maps as part of this intellectual tradition (McKittrick, 2006, 2011; McKittrick and Woods, 2007).…”

Section: Fruitful Engagements Between Radical Geographies and Food Symentioning

confidence: 99%

Toward a radical food geography praxis: integrating theory, action, and geographic analysis in pursuit of more equitable and sustainable food systems

2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Radical geographies scholarship has evolved over the past decades in pursuit of transforming spatial, political-economic, social, and ecological engagements within oppressive structures. Similarly, food systems scholarship demonstrates increasing interest in the scalar, sociopolitical, and ecological dynamics of food systems, often with an applied or action-oriented focus. Building on these connected, yet divergent, traditions of scholarship and action, we propose a radical food geography praxis that is rooted in the intersections of active resistance to structures that (re)produce power inequity and oppression in food systems in specific places and across spaces, and an ongoing process of critical and theoretical reflection about these structures and geographies. The radical food geography praxis we propose consists of three primary and interconnected elements: (1) theoretical engagements with power and structures of oppression both inside and outside the academy; (2) action through academic, social movement, and civil society collaborations; and (3) analysis through a broadly defined geographic lens. Through bringing together radical geographies and food systems scholarship, a radical food geography praxis reveals the interconnectivity between places and movements, relationality between land and people, the flows of people, environmental resources, ideas, and culture, and the diverse approaches to achieving justice-oriented objectives. In order to build more equitable and sustainable food systems, it is essential to engage with these geographic realities in deeply theoretical and action-oriented ways.

show abstract

“…The breadth of black geographies scholarship continues to grow, as is indicated by recent special issue of Southeastern Geographer (Bledsoe, Eaves, and Williams 2017), the 2017 formalization of the black geographies specialty group in the AAG, the 2017 and 2020 black geographies conferences at the University of California, Berkeley, and the proliferation of black geographies themed panels at AAG since (and before) 2017. 7 Nevertheless, planning has yet to substantively take up this literature, despite recent calls by planners to imagine planning futures from black geographic knowledge systems (Bates et al 2018).…”

Section: From Woods’s Plantation Blues To Mckittrick’s Plantation Futmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 1. We reviewed the 2002 Special Issue in The Professional Geographer on Race, Racism, and Geography (Schein 2002; Delaney 2002; Gilmore 2007; Anderson 2002; B. Wilson 2002; Pulido 2002; Peake and Kobayashi 2002; Woods 2002) and the 2017 Special Issue in Southeastern Geographer on Black Geographies in and of the United States South (Wright 2019; Bledsoe, Eaves, and Williams 2017; Williams 2017; Bledsoe 2017; Harris and Hyden 2017; Barron 2017; Eaves 2019; McKittrick 2017). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Tomorrow I’ll Be at the Table: Black Geographies and Urban Planning: A Review of the Literature

Brand

Miller

2020

Journal of Planning Literature

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article reviews the literature on black geographies as it relates to the everyday work of urban planners. We outline the major claims and contributions of this scholarship to deepen our understanding of the relationship between the social and physical worlds. This article argues that this literature is a critical, yet missing, contribution to the field of urban planning because it provides different ways of knowing and understanding the experience of racial difference and therefore challenges us to invite more diverse views to the table and build more informed professional practices, pedagogical foundations, and empirical scholarship.

show abstract

Introduction: Black Geographies in and of the United States South

Cited by 53 publications

References 14 publications

“That we may live”: Pesticides, plantations, and environmental racism in the United States South

“That we may live”: Pesticides, plantations, and environmental racism in the United States South

Toward a radical food geography praxis: integrating theory, action, and geographic analysis in pursuit of more equitable and sustainable food systems

Tomorrow I’ll Be at the Table: Black Geographies and Urban Planning: A Review of the Literature

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About