A seat at the table? Reflections on Black geographies and the limits of dialogue

Abstract

This commentary uses the Black Geographies Symposium, held at UC Berkeley from October 11-12, 2017, as a point of departure to discuss the political and intellectual limits of calls for dialogue. We focus specifically on the historical exclusion of Black scholars and Black thought from human geography and understand the academy as a site for the reproduction of epistemic violence against women and people of color. Calls for dialogue within the academy that neglect to consider historically sedimented power relations—including human geography’s own entanglement with colonialism and racism—therefore commit the grave error of substituting equity for true justice. We argue instead for nonhierarchical and nonlinear modes of study that can attend to the complex geographical itineraries and interconnected struggles that continue to shape our understandings of the relations of capitalism, racism, and sexism structuring the modern world. Specifically, an intellectual praxis that begins from a place of Black humanness can enable us to tap into a wider epistemological network, one that refutes cursory lip service to Black scholarship and engages deeply with its consequences for our political and intellectual interactions.