Whitewash: White privilege and racialized landscapes at the University of Georgia

This paper examines racialized landscapes at the University of Georgia to better understand the ways that whiteness-or more specifically white privilege-is positioned in and uses landscapes. Given a history of segregation, violently contested desegregation, and a contemporary student body that is disproportionately white (compared to the population of the entire state of Georgia), we investigate the meanings and contradictions of the University's historic 'North Campus'. Using a multi-method qualitative approach-including open-ended interviews and 'roving focus groups'-we argue that privileged, white landscapes operate through a kind of whitewashing of history, which seeks to deploy race strategically to create a progressive landscape narrative pertaining to 'race'.