Black Methodologies, Still

Katherine McKittrick is Professor of Gender Studies and Canada Research Chair in Black Studies at Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada. She authored Demonic Grounds: Black Women and the Cartographies of Struggle (UMP, 2006) and edited and contributed to Sylvia Wynter: On Being Human as Praxis (DUP, 2015). Her most recent monograph, Dear Science and Other Stories (DUP, 2021) is an exploration of black methodologies.

This presentation is divided into two parts. In the first part, Dr. McKittrick offers a confession and a reflection about geography, geographic knowledge, and race, considering how alternative spatial practices and black geographies are obscured by prevailing knowledge systems. The second part of the presentation focuses on Dr. McKittrick’s ongoing preoccupation with methodology and how radical methodologies are connected to practices of liberation, highlighting what black studies teaches us about sharing and creating ideas. This presentation draws on Dear Science and Other Stories.