Aporias at the intersection of geography and feminist science and technology studies: Critical engagements with Black studies

Abstract

In this review, we read the interdisciplinary traffic across critical human geography and feminist science and technology studies (FSTS) in light of the insights and destabilizing aporias—in other words, irresolvable contradictions or logical disjunctions—emerging from Black radical and feminist study. We highlight three thematic areas that have received sustained attention and debate and that resonate across the three fields: objectivity and subjectivity, agency, and life and its excesses. Inspired by the methodological provocations of Katherine McKittrick’s Dear Science and the political demands of multiple intellectual currents within Black studies, we venture a modest upending of the form of the review itself. Rather than seek to delineate and codify contributions to a scholarly debate, we point to troubled assumptions and potential openings for those working at the intersection of critical human geography, FSTS, and Black studies.