Ain't Nobody Checkin' For Us' Race, Fugitivity and the Urban Geographies of Black Girlhood
My dissertation examines the intimate relationship between racialized state violence, gender based violence, and Black girlhood. By studying a national nonprofit based in Chicago that runs an art and activism leadership program for African American girls, my research examines how working class black girls use their voices, bodies, and stories to navigate and contest the socio economic and political structures that lead to their and their families' disposability and displacement. In turn, building on the work of Saidiya Hartman, Fred Moten, and Stefano Harney, I identify those contested sites as "fugitive spaces" in which black girls put forth nuanced self narratives that unpack the multi layered operations that render them invisible to themselves, their communities, and the various apparati of the state. Additionally, it provides a framework for a pedagogy of care as we engage with Black girls from a place of solidarity.