Speculative Fictions of Legal Personhood: Reimagining Jurisdiction in N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became

Abstract

N.K. Jemisin’s speculative tropes in The City We Became capture a significant legal reality: the entanglement of legal personhood with jurisdiction and how the powers of jurisdiction are often exercised in racial directions. This article juxtaposes her novel with canonical case law, re-reading Dred Scott v. Sandford, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1 in order to show how speculative imaginings intertwine jurisdiction with the racialized legitimation of certain selves. The City We Became critiques the ways in which we overlook these entanglements of personhood and jurisdiction and offers new ways of envisioning collectivity.