Black geographic possibilities: On a queer black south

Abstract

The American South has received considerable intellectual attention. Social and cultural geographers have called attention to its diversity and the relationships of power that construct its everyday operation. An addition to the way that power and relationships can be examined is through Black Geographies. This paper seeks to interject alternatives to traditional methods and theories of doing geography. Black Geographies centralizes a Black sense of place and disrupts the normative conceptualization and mere geographic containment of Black subjects. By focusing on the ways that Black subjects and places invoke agency and create space, Black Geographies contributes to a broadened geography that resists reductionary knowledge formation. This paper expands the study of the American South by positing Black Geographies as a modality for centering queer Black Southern life.