1887
  1. Home
  2. e-Journals
  3. Journal of Language and Sexuality
  4. Volume 7, Issue 1
  5. Article
Volume 7, Issue 1
  • ISSN 2211-3770
  • E-ISSN: 2211-3789
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Extending the work of those who center narratives in their discussions of affect, this essay considers black queer women’s (BQW) narratives describing the sensations associated with being in and out of spaces created for and by BQW. The narratives examine emerged during ethnographic interviews I conducted in Washington, D.C. between 2012 and 2015. Many BQW living in and around Washington, D.C. socialize within what is colloquially referred to as the Scene – an amorphous, loosely connected set of social networks made up of other BQW and their allies. One of the most important and recognizable aspects of the Scene are the spaces produced for and by these social networks. I refer to these as “scene spaces.” Scene spaces are highly-affect latent sites, as people frequently talk about how space makes them feel, or how they feel in particular spaces. Thus, scene spaces serve as the focal point of this paper’s discussion.

© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/jls.17010.lan
2018-02-22
2024-12-06

  • From This Site

    /content/journals/10.1075/jls.17010.lan
    dcterms_title,dcterms_subject,pub_keyword
    -contentType:Journal -contentType:Contributor -contentType:Concept -contentType:Institution
    10
    5
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Ahearn, Laura H.
    2004 Literacy, power, and agency: Love letters and development in Nepal. Language and Education18(4): 305–316. doi: 10.1080/09500780408666883
     https://doi.org/10.1080/09500780408666883 [Google Scholar]
  2. Ahmed, Sara
    2006 Queer Phenomenology. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. doi: 10.1215/9780822388074
     https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822388074 [Google Scholar]
  3. Alim, H. Samy & Smitherman, Geneva
    2012 Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language, and Race in the U.S. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Baldwin, James
    1989 An Interview with James Baldwin: Studs Terkel/1961. InConversations with James Baldwin, Fred L. Standley & Louis H. Pratt (eds), 3–23. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi.
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Bell, David , Binnie, Jon , Cream, Julia & Valentine, Gill
    1994 All hyped up and no place to go. Gender, Place & Culture1(1): 31–47. doi: 10.1080/09663699408721199
     https://doi.org/10.1080/09663699408721199 [Google Scholar]
  6. Berlant, Lauren
    1998 Intimacy: A special issue. Critical Inquiry24: 281–288. doi: 10.1086/448875
     https://doi.org/10.1086/448875 [Google Scholar]
  7. 2008 The Female Complaint the Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. doi: 10.1215/9780822389163
     https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822389163 [Google Scholar]
  8. Bernstein, Elizabeth
    2007 Sex work for the middle classes. Sexualities10(4): 473–488. doi: 10.1177/1363460707080984
     https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460707080984 [Google Scholar]
  9. Besnier, Niko
    1990 Language and affect. Annual Review of Anthropology19: 429–452. doi: 10.1146/annurev.an.19.100190.002223
     https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.19.100190.002223 [Google Scholar]
  10. Binnie, Jon
    1997 Coming out of geography: Toward a queer epistemology?Society and Space15(2): 223–237.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Decena, Carlos Ulises
    2008 Tacit subjects. GLQ14(2–3): 339–359. doi: 10.1215/10642684‑2007‑036
     https://doi.org/10.1215/10642684-2007-036 [Google Scholar]
  12. 2011 Tacit Subjects: Belonging and Same-Sex Desire Among Dominican Immigrant Men. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. doi: 10.1215/9780822393900
     https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393900 [Google Scholar]
  13. Eng, David L.
    2010 The Feeling of Kinship: Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. doi: 10.1215/9780822392828
     https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822392828 [Google Scholar]
  14. Fogg-Davis, Hawley G.
    2006 Theorizing Black lesbians within Black feminism: A critique of same-race street harassment. Politics & Gender2(1): 57–76. doi: 10.1017/S1743923X06060028
     https://doi.org/10.1017/S1743923X06060028 [Google Scholar]
  15. Hanhardt, Christina B.
    2013 Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. doi: 10.1215/9780822378860
     https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822378860 [Google Scholar]
  16. Held, Nina
    2009 Researching “race” in lesbian space: A critical reflection. Journal of Lesbian Studies13: 204–215. doi: 10.1080/10894160802695379
     https://doi.org/10.1080/10894160802695379 [Google Scholar]
  17. Held, Nina & Leach, Tara
    2008 “What are you doing here?’: The ‘look’ and (non) belongings of racialised bodies in sexualised space. InOut of Place: Interrogating Silences in Queerness/Raciality, Adi Kuntsman & Esperanza Miyake (eds), 139–175. York: Raw Nerve Books.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. Hill, Jane H.
    1995 The voices of Don Gabriel: Responsibility and self in a modern Mexicano narrative. InThe Dialogic Emergence of Culture, Dennis Tedlock & Bruce Mannheim (eds), 97–147. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. 2005 Finding culture in narrative. InFinding Culture in Talk: A Collection of Methods, Naomi Quinn (ed), 157–202. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan. doi: 10.1007/978‑1‑137‑05871‑3_5
     https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05871-3_5 [Google Scholar]
  20. 2008 The Everyday Language of White Racism. Oxfod: Wiley-Blackwell. doi: 10.1002/9781444304732
     https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444304732 [Google Scholar]
  21. Johnson, E. Patrick
    1998 Feeling the spirit in the dark: Expanding notions of the sacred in the African-American gay community. Callaloo21(2): 399–416. doi: 10.1353/cal.1998.0110
     https://doi.org/10.1353/cal.1998.0110 [Google Scholar]
  22. Lane, Nikki
    2015 All the lesbians are white, all the villages are gay, but some of us are brave: Intersectionality, belonging, and Black queer women’s scene space in Washington, DC. InLesbian Geographies: Gender, Place and Power, Kath Brown & Eduarda Ferreira (eds), 219–242. London: Ashgate.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Leap, William
    2003 Language and gendered modernity. InThe Handbook of Language and Gender, Janet Holmes & Miriam Meyerhoff (eds), 401–422. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. doi: 10.1002/9780470756942.ch17
     https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470756942.ch17 [Google Scholar]
  24. 2011 Homophobia as moral geography. Gender and Language4(2): 187–219. doi: 10.1558/genl.v4i2.187
     https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.v4i2.187 [Google Scholar]
  25. Martin, James R. & White, Peter R. R.
    2005 The Language of Evaluation: Appraisal in English. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillian. doi: 10.1057/9780230511910
     https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511910 [Google Scholar]
  26. Moore, Mignon R.
    2011 Invisible Families: Gay Identities, Relationships, and Motherhood Among Black Women. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Probyn, Elspeth
    2005 Blush: Faces of Shame. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Ross, Marlon B.
    2005 Beyond the closet as raceless paradigm. InBlack Queer Studies, E. Patrick Johnson & Mae G. Henderson (eds), 161–189. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. doi: 10.1215/9780822387220‑010
     https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822387220-010 [Google Scholar]
  29. Snorton, C. Riley
    2014a Nobody is Supposed to Know: Black Sexuality on the Down Low. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. doi: 10.5749/minnesota/9780816677962.001.0001
     https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816677962.001.0001 [Google Scholar]
  30. 2014b On the question of “who’s out in hip hop.”Souls16(3–4): 283–302. doi: 10.1080/10999949.2014.968974
     https://doi.org/10.1080/10999949.2014.968974 [Google Scholar]
  31. Spears, Arthur K.
    2001 Directness in the use of African-American English. InSociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English, Sonja L. Lanehart (ed), 239–260. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. doi: 10.1075/veaw.g27.15spe
     https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g27.15spe [Google Scholar]
  32. Stein, Perry
    2015 D.C. has a bigger income disparity than any state in the country. Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/06/24/d-c-has-a-bigger-income-disparity-than-any-state-in-the-country (October 1, 2017)
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Williams, Raymond
    1977 Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
     [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/jls.17010.lan
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): black lesbians; black queer studies; lesbians; LGBT; LGBT life in the U.S.; narrative analysis; queer theory

Most Cited

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error