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 (Illustration by Wesley Carrasco)
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My research imagines what abolition geographies mean in practice -- a Tacoma without a detention center? a Seattle without a police department? All too often, seeking to end violence ends up relying on hierarchies of oppression, the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC), and individualized charismatic leadership. Instead, I think about radical placemaking that is centered on relationships of solidarity rather than individualism, an abolition that means that no person --and no land -- is disposable, and building non-hierarchical relations across communities on the same place.
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My research working with Q'eqchi' land activists challenged my assumptions about a singular Chicanx / Latinx identity. Attention to place-making in Latinx geographies reveals what is at stake in Latino studies' cultural appropriation of Indigenous language and art for Indigenous nations' material claims to their homelands.
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