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Otherwise Worlds

Against Settler Colonialism and Anti-Blackness

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Black Outdoors: Innovations in the Poetics of Study

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Book

Pages: 400

Illustrations: 9 illustrations

Published: June 2020

Editors: Tiffany Lethabo King, Jenell Navarro, Andrea Smith

Contributors: Ashon T. Crawley, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Frank B. Wilderson, Chad Benito Infante, J. Kameron Carter, Arvin, Maile, Sandra Harvey, Cedric Sunray, Marcus Briggs-Cloud, Kimberly Robertson, Rinaldo Walcott, Chris Finley, Hotvlkuce Harjo, Se′mana Thompson

The contributors to Otherwise Worlds investigate the complex relationships between settler colonialism and anti-Blackness to explore the political possibilities that emerge from such inquiries. Pointing out that presumptions of solidarity, antagonism, or incommensurability between Black and Native communities are insufficient to understand the relationships between the groups, the volume's scholars, artists, and activists look to articulate new modes of living and organizing in the service of creating new futures. Among other topics, they examine the ontological status of Blackness and Indigeneity, possible forms of relationality between Black and Native communities, perspectives on Black and Indigenous sociality, and freeing the flesh from the constraints of violence and settler colonialism. Throughout the volume's essays, art, and interviews, the contributors carefully attend to alternative kinds of relationships between Black and Native communities that can lead toward liberation. In so doing, they critically point to the importance of Black and Indigenous conversations for formulating otherwise worlds.

Contributors. Maile Arvin, Marcus Briggs-Cloud, J. Kameron Carter, Ashon Crawley, Denise Ferreira da Silva, Chris Finley, Hotvlkuce Harjo, Sandra Harvey, Chad B. Infante, Tiffany Lethabo King, Jenell Navarro, Lindsay Nixon, Kimberly Robertson, Jared Sexton, Andrea Smith, Cedric Sunray, Se’mana Thompson, Frank B. Wilderson
 

Praise

“Ambitious, theoretically sophisticated, and timely, Otherwise Worlds stages a much-needed conversation between Black studies and Native studies as they interface with critical race theory and gender and queer theory while significantly advancing the discourses around racialized being, anti-blackness, Indigeneity, and settler colonialism.” - Alexander G. Weheliye, author of Habeas Viscus: Racializing Assemblages, Biopolitics, and Black Feminist Theories of the Human

“Presenting new analyses and theorizations of the intersections and tensions between Black studies and Native studies, Otherwise Worlds shows how these fields can speak and think with each other. It has the potential to serve as a model of decolonial love in the academy and in our communities.” - Michelle Jacob, author of Indian Pilgrims: Indigenous Journeys of Activism and Healing with Saint Kateri Tekakwitha

"There is so much to admire about this book. I am making my way through each section slowly. Artists, activists and scholars frame the questions, complexities and possibilities an 'otherwise' orientation might open up, if we find better and better ways of ‘thinking of, caring for and talking to one another’ about the ongoing effects of genocide, colonialism, enslavement and anti-Blackness." - Julia Guez, Houston Chronicle

“Otherwise Worlds offers a thought-provoking guide towards re-imagining the presence, resurgence and future of Black and Indigenous life…. Otherwise Worlds is an outstanding piece of academic work and a remarkable guide to approaching alternative worlds beyond racism, ecological destruction and racial capitalism.” - Laura Mariana Reyes, Cultural Studies

“This collection is truly a conversation between disciplines and paves the way for new ways of relating to one another. Otherwise Worlds is a compelling collection that does what it sets out to do.” - Alina Scott, E3W Review of Books

“Otherwise Worlds is a call to think beyond ourselves and curate an authentic relation to the scholarship, the land, and mainly the people. A major takeaway from each interview, essay, and artwork in this volume is the range of interdisciplinarity needed to capture the complexity of this discourse of sovereignty and liberation across the diaspora.” - Daisy E. Guzman Nunez, NACLA Report on the Americas

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Author/Editor Bios Table Of Contents Rights Additional Information

Author/Editor Bios

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Tiffany Lethabo King is Assistant Professor of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Georgia State University.

Jenell Navarro is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.

Andrea Smith is Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Riverside.

Table Of Contents

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Introduction. Beyond Incommensurability: Toward an Otherwise Stance on Black and Indigenous Relationality / Tiffany Lethabo King, Jenell Navarro, and Andrea Smith  1
Part I. Boundless Bodies
1. Stayed | Freedom | Hallelujah / Ashon Crawley  27
2. Reading the Dead: A Feminist Black Critique of Global Capital / Denise Ferreira da Silva  38
3. Staying Ready for Black Study / Frank B. Wilderson III and Tiffany Lethabo King  52
Part II. Boundless Ontologies
4. New World Grammars: The "Unthought" Black Discourses of Conquest / Tiffany Lethabo King  77
5. The Vel of Slavery: Tracking the Figure of the Unsovereign / Jared Sexton  94
6. Sovereignty as Deferred Genocide / Andrea Smith  118
7. Murder and Metaphysics: Leslie Marmon Silko's "Tony's Story" and Audre Lorde's "Power" / Chad Benito Infante  133
8. Black Malpractice (or, the Fugitive Sacred) / J. Kameron Carter  158
Part III. Boundless Socialities
9. Possessions of Whiteness: Settler Colonialism and Anti-Blackness in the Pacific / Maile Arvin  213
10. "What's Past Is Prologue": Black Native Refusal and the Colonial Archive / Sandra Harvey  218
11. Indian Country's Apartheid / Cedric Sunray  236
12. "Ugh! Maskoke People and Our Pervasive Anti-Black Racism . . . Let the Language Teach Us!" / Marcus Briggs-Cloud
13. Mississippian Black Metal Grl on a Friday Night with Artist's Statement / Hotvlkuce Harjo  291
Part IV. Boundless Kinship
14. The Countdown Remix: Why Two Native Feminists Ride with Queen Bey / Jenelle Navarro and Kimberly Robertson
15. Slay Serigraph with Artist's Statement / Kimberly Robertson  320
16. Mass Incarceration since 1492 / Jenell Navarro and Kimberly Robertson  322
17. "Liberation," Cover of Queer Indigenous Girl, Volume 4, and "Roots," Cover of Black Indigenous Boy, Volume 2 / Se'mana Thompson  330
18. Visual Cultures of Indigenous Futurism / Lindsay Nixon  332
19. Diaspora, Transnationalism, and the Decolonial Project / Rinaldo Walcott  343
20. Building Maroon Intellectual Communities / Chris Finley  362
About the Authors  371
Index
 

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Additional Information

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Paper ISBN: 978-1-4780-0838-5 / Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4780-0786-9 / eISBN: 978-1-4780-1202-3 / DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9781478012023