Feminist futurities: LatinX geographies and Latin American decolonial feminist geographies

Abstract

This reflection piece addresses how LatinX geographies primarily based in the US can engage with critical geography in Latin America. There are shared intellectual and political commitments between LatinX geographies and certain strands of critical geography in Latin America, primarily those in line with decolonial feminist geography. These geographies share the same objectives of fostering another geography based on decolonial and antiracist thought and praxis, however, despite common ground there has been limited movement of ideas and languages across national borders in the Americas. This tension results in uncomfortable, yet politically relevant, embodied encounters in both the global North and South. Some questions that arise in these encounters are: should LatinX geographies travel and engage with Latin American critical geographies and vice-versa? Under what conditions and with what consequences can this dialogue and shared actions take place? Who is a legitimate subject for engaging with LatinX geographies in Latin America? As a scholar based in the global South that embodies human mobility between Latin America and the US, I have often wondered if I can engage with LatinX geographies. This short essay builds on earlier reflections that addressed the flow of transnational North-South dialogue within feminist geography, and considered the tensions wherein decolonial perspectives in geography emerge not only from the South but also from migrant bodies in the North. In this paper, I wish to further discussion on the translocation of LatinX geographies in Latin American critical geography.