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brisimmons

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Transforming Captivity

“Can black feminist geographies be differently conceptualized as heterogeneous, alterable political sites that are continually intervening in, rather than reinscribing, the ongoing legacy of racism-sexism? Can bodymemories refuse the simultaneity of "all-body" geographies and empty metaphoric margins? What, then, is geographically at stake in black feminism? And what do we learn if we put metaphorical margins into conversation with the poetic and experiential ways of being that black women are interested in exploring” (59)

“That black women allow their particular surroundings to speak, and be heard, reorients existing spatial practices, asking us to think not only about the "where" of politics but how the production of space is not a silent process.” (61)

“The not-quite spaces of black women provide alternative paths through traditional geographies and take into account a political agenda concerned with racism-sexism, objectification, captivity, and respatialization(s).” (62)

How is Black feminist epistemology and analytics giving us a view of the world where space is being transformed, ruptured, interrogated? Is it possible, then, to transform captivity, to move beyond freedom that is tied to slavery? Through Black feminist epistemology do we hope for a different future? Or does the mention of the possibility of transformation take for granted the past and present lived experience of the garret? What does it mean to take hold of the space of captivity, the garret, to grow around it, in it, through it, and beyond it?

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Hoping in Captivity

“These multiple subject positions- formulated in the ‘last place they thought of’- gesture to several different geographies, possibilities and experiences, such as places seen, remembered, hoped for, and avoided by Brent…Her ‘freedom’ is arranged according to: the outer geographies of slavery, which remain life-threatening and violent; the tight and disabling garret; and the necessary child abandonment” (42-43)

The quote in this image states: “Hope is a good thing. Maybe the best of things.” It is hard to read the quote behind the bars and the “No Parking” signs. In this picture I gesture to this idea, what is hope when you are confined? Is it a silly image? Or is hoping despite the bars/walls resistance and persistence? What does it mean to hope for freedom when freedom is tied to geographies of slavery? What lies beyond freedom? What transcends freedom?

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Growing in Captivity

“Brent is everywhere and nowhere, north and south, unvisibly present across the landscape, in the last place they thought of” (41)

My father has had this plant for a couple years. It is confined to this pot, seemingly subjected to the movements and space my father allows it to have. Paradoxically, the plant stretches in all directions, grows towards the sun despite its captivity. It sheds old leaves on to our floor, making more space for growth. It grows as if it taking agency of its space, despite the obvious lack of space. 

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Knowing in Captivity

“The garret makes available a place for Brent to articulate her lived experiences and emancipatory desires, without losing sight of the dehumanizing forces of slavery” (41)

The books in this picture are being confined to a shelf, box, a series of walls. Paradoxically, the information within these walls transcend space, time, identity and experiences. Additionally it is only through this box/shelf, I, the reader, can transcend the walls/boxes that confine me to other ways of knowing, times, geographies, identities etc.