Gender and Sexual Geographies of Blackness is pleased to announce a themed issue of Gender, Place, and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography. The central aim of this proposed themed issue is to examine the spatial relationships between gender, sexuality and blackness. Abstract deadline: March 1, 2010.
Gender, Place, and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography Call for Papers
Co-editors: Rashad Shabazz (University of Vermont) &
Marlon M. Bailey (Indiana University, Bloomington)
Broadly, race, gender and sexuality are categories of social life and power that are inextricably linked to space. Like Black feminists and queer theorists, who have forever changed how we examine race, gender and sexuality, human geographers theorize space in ways that illuminate the geographies of race, gender and sexuality. Hence, human geographers have taken up and expanded spatial analyses to examine not only how space is imbued with power, but also the ways in which various forms of social stratification and marginalization are structured and experienced in spatial terms. And although space plays a profound role in constituting the conditions of social stratification and marginalization, it also provides possibilities for resistance and social and cultural transformation. This is most evident for Black communities, especially those who live at the intersections of and are marginalized by gender, sexuality, class, disease and location. Therefore, they propose a themed issue to mark a critical and interventive turn in human geography, one that conceives and treats space as a social agent and not merely as a physical location and/or concrete spatiality.
The central aim of this proposed themed issue is to examine the spatial relationships between gender, sexuality and blackness. In an effort to explore these intersecting categories and the conditions of violence and social deprivation to which Black people from many walks of life are subjected, they seek, through interdisciplinary knowledges and methodologies, to elaborate these intersections of gender, sexuality, blackness and space. In addition, they are interested in highlighting the ways in which Black communities and social spheres of Black alterity draw upon space and spatial practices to negotiate or transform the conditions under which they are situated. They understand that blackness, sexuality, gender and space are not fixed categories. Conversely, they are fluid; they overlap and function in many different forms and expressions. Therefore, in addition to the aforementioned, they will invite essay submissions that engage the following themes:
*Black queer spatialities
*Blackness space and class
*Carceral spaces
*Blackness, space and disease
*Performance and theatrical spatialities
*Blackness, sexuality and location
*Blackness, gender and space
*Black urban youth cultural practices
*Black culture and space
This proposal for this themed issue is the brainchild of the late Dr. Glen S. Elder, former Associate Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of geography at The University of Vermont. A month before his passing last spring, he suggested they think of doing this special issue. Thus, the themed issue of Gender and Sexual Geographies of Blackness is in memory of our dear colleague and friend, Dr. Glen S. Elder.
Please send abstracts to baileymm@indiana.edu or Rashad.shabazz@uvm.edu by March 1st.
