Black and Latinx Urbanism: Crisis, Resistance and Memory

Catalog description

The mid- to late-twentieth century urban crises followed historical processes of economic and racial segregation, including redlining, urban renewal, deindustrialization, and financialization. In response, Black and Latinx urbanites experimented with land-based relationships that became essential means for recovering urban sovereignty, as well as a way to partake in the sequences of social reproduction on new terms. However, it is important to recognize that the power structures that adversely affect these communities form a dialectic relationship with these experimental practices, a relationship that is constantly being reiterated but also reshaped. In addition, within diasporic groups (i.e., Southern Blacks, Afro-Caribbeans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans) memories of past rituals and practices are structured and performed within reclaimed diasporic space. This course therefore asks, how have the experiences of migration, diaspora, forms of labor, and displacement informed Black and Latinx spatial imaginaries and practices? In addition, how have scholars analyzed the ways in which Black and Latinx populations have been racialized through 'ghettos' and 'barrios'? In what way are these spaces co-established by this racialization process? The course will also pay close attention to how scholars address the weaving of race with other central categories of social formation, including, community, culture, identity, and placemaking.