LaToya Eaves (University of Tennessee Knoxville) - Uncomfortable Spaces: Reflections on Black Feminist Geographies in the U.S. South

Abstract: Over four decades, feminist geographies scholarship has troubled normative notions of gendered lives and places and has provided space for thinking through power and agency. Invigorated by these histories, this paper centers the “uncomfortable spaces” of the U.S. South. Drawing on the embodiments and experiences of Southern Black women, I deliberate on how feminist geographies bolsters our understanding of the spatial logics manifested by histories of colonization, displacement, oppression, and anti-Black racism. By doing so, I consider how the South conjures possibilities for expanding key ideas in feminist geographies by elucidating the insurgent knowledge production of Southern Black women.