TY - JOUR
T1 - Landscapes of impunity and the deaths of Americans LaVena Johnson and Sandra Bland
AU - Dowler, Lorraine
AU - Christian, Jenna
N1 - Funding Information:
We would like to thank the three reviewers who gave us constructive and essential feedback. We want to also thank Rachel Pain and Caitlin Cahill who invited us to present a earlier version of this paper in the Slow Violence session at the Boston AAG and encouraged us to pursue publication. We also want to acknowledge our colleagues who attended the following presentation venues and gave us critical feedback on this paper: The Feminist Geography Conference at Chapel Hill, The Emotional Geographies Conference at Long Beach, Colloquiums in the Rutgers Geography and Penn State Geography departments. We feel it took a [geography] village to help us tell the stories of Lavena Johnson and Sandra Bland. Jenna’s research was supported by the National Science Foundation [grant #1536298], and the Pennsylvania State University Africana Research Center. Additionally, she would like to acknowledge the community of activists she worked with in Houston for their on-going work and support.
Funding Information:
We would like to thank the three reviewers who gave us constructive and essential feedback. We want to also thank Rachel Pain and Caitlin Cahill who invited us to present a earlier version of this paper in the Slow Violence session at the Boston AAG and encouraged us to pursue publication. We also want to acknowledge our colleagues who attended the following presentation venues and gave us critical feedback on this paper: The Feminist Geography Conference at Chapel Hill, The Emotional Geographies Conference at Long Beach, Colloquiums in the Rutgers Geography and Penn State Geography departments. We feel it took a [geography] village to help us tell the stories of Lavena Johnson and Sandra Bland. Jenna's research was supported by the National Science Foundation [grant #1536298], and the Pennsylvania State University Africana Research Center. Additionally, she would like to acknowledge the community of activists she worked with in Houston for their on-going work and support.
PY - 2019/6/3
Y1 - 2019/6/3
N2 - On July 19th, 2005, American Army Private First Class LaVena Johnson died in Balad, Iraq, just 8 days shy of her 20th birthday. On July 13th, 2015, almost 10 years later, 28-year-old Sandra Bland’s life came to an abrupt end in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas. Both women’s deaths were ruled suicides, and both women’s families and friends reject these judgments. Instead, they insinuate foul play by the state, which directly governed the militarized spaces within which the women both died. At first glance, these women appear to have had very different life trajectories, one a United States soldier and the other a Black Lives Matter activist. However, in both of their cases, the ruling of the suspicious deaths as suicides illustrates the state’s attempt to render their deaths banal, and thereby diminish the state’s own culpability. In understanding the unremitting acts of violence, on women’s bodies, especially women of color, this paper focuses on how a Black feminist praxis extends feminist notions of an ethics of care.
AB - On July 19th, 2005, American Army Private First Class LaVena Johnson died in Balad, Iraq, just 8 days shy of her 20th birthday. On July 13th, 2015, almost 10 years later, 28-year-old Sandra Bland’s life came to an abrupt end in a jail cell in Waller County, Texas. Both women’s deaths were ruled suicides, and both women’s families and friends reject these judgments. Instead, they insinuate foul play by the state, which directly governed the militarized spaces within which the women both died. At first glance, these women appear to have had very different life trajectories, one a United States soldier and the other a Black Lives Matter activist. However, in both of their cases, the ruling of the suspicious deaths as suicides illustrates the state’s attempt to render their deaths banal, and thereby diminish the state’s own culpability. In understanding the unremitting acts of violence, on women’s bodies, especially women of color, this paper focuses on how a Black feminist praxis extends feminist notions of an ethics of care.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85064672635&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85064672635&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/0966369X.2018.1553863
DO - 10.1080/0966369X.2018.1553863
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85064672635
SN - 0966-369X
VL - 26
SP - 813
EP - 829
JO - Gender, Place and Culture
JF - Gender, Place and Culture
IS - 6
ER -
