Mapping pleasure and pain on Black women’s bodies: Southern Black feminist geographic interventions

Abstract

Feminist geographers frequently analyze the body as a site of geographic knowledge. But we have work to do to understand, spatialize, and value Black bodies as sites of theory-making. In this article, I will focus specifically on the spatialities of pleasure and pain experienced in the southern United States by analyzing Black bodies, specifically Black women’s bodies, through the lens of state-sanctioned violence—explicitly police brutality. My work hopes to answer these two critical questions: how are the bodies of Black women treated in society? And how can we lift up, value, and include the spatiality of Black women’s bodies in feminist geography? I use a Black feminist geographic framework to review the environmental, physical, and emotional geographies of Black women’s bodies undergoing this violence, with a focus on both pain and imagined pleasure. Lastly, I contribute to feminist geographic work by bringing a critical and spatial examination of the racialization of pleasure.