The Black Queer Body as A Site of Contested Space
The Black Queer Body as A Site of Contested Space

Author(s): Taylor Ajowele Duckett
Subject(s): Anthropology, Gender Studies, Studies in violence and power, Victimology
Published by: Transnational Press London
Keywords: The black queer body; site; contested; space;
Summary/Abstract: Within the Africana worldview system, there does not exist a division regarding the mind, body, and spirit. Eurocentric hegemony distorts and disrupts one’s inherent ontological framework, causing epistemicide (Taylor, 2020), or an “ontological rearrangement” (Snorton, 2017, p. 74) which positions the Black Queer body as one to be contested. This contestation leads to the body being transgressed, which can result in recolonization and puts Queer futurity in jeopardy. Within this article, contestation is used to describe the debate regarding the right of Black Queer bodies to exist and occupy space, while transgressions encompass the different forms of violence that society has inflicted on these bodies. Using performance ethnographies, sacred texts, historical record, novels, and popular culture, this article examines the ways in which the Black Queer body has been, and continues to be, dismembered. The systemic dismemberment of the Black Queer body is an agency reduction formation (Tillotson, 2016) because it reduces the ability of the Black Queer person to situate and preserve their body. I interrogate how contestation and transgression interfere with the Black Queer body’s ability to (re)member.

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