Black Geographies: Methodological Reflections

With Dr Renato Emerson dos Santos, Associate Professor in Geography, (IPPUR), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and Dr Priscilla Ferreira, Assistant Professor in Geography and Latino and Caribbean Studies, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, USA.

This is an online seminar and all are welcome. Please contact sue.davis@nottingham.ac.uk for the link.

Part of the School Seminar Series.

Abstract

This paper contributes methodological reflections raised by Black geographies. We contend that methodologies are not merely a form of investigating, gathering, and processing information but rather one component of political orientation and position in producing engaged knowledge. We argue that political and epistemological challenges and commitments inherent to Black geographies imply the exercise of theoretical and methodological creativity. Understanding spatialized race relations and analysing everyday spatial experiences from a critical racial analysis requires new pathways for spatial imagination.

We ask: what are the methodological implications brought to light by Black geographies? What strategies can be seen to emerge nurtured by these projects? We present a systematisation of how Black geographies have developed spatialized readings of race relations. We identify three exercises of imagination around race relations founded on “rationales based in space.” Then, we examine strategies for reimagining the methodologies in line with what has come to be called Black geographies.