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.