Repurposing Queens: Excavating a Black Feminist Eco-Ethic in a Time of Ecological Peril

Frazier, Chelsea Mikael

doi:https://doi.org/10.21985/n2-f0cc-d360

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Repurposing Queens: Excavating a Black Feminist Eco-Ethic in a Time of Ecological Peril

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“Repurposing Queens: Excavating a Black Feminist Eco-ethic in a Time of Ecological Peril,” articulates how Black feminist theories of race, gender, and science critique both conservative and liberal trends in environmentalism and environmental studies. The project is transnational in scope in that it analyzes figures/objects from the United States and Kenya by engaging theories and discourses developed across the African diaspora. The project also focuses on the Modern Environmental Movement period (running from the inaugural “Earth Day” in 1970 to the present) in order directly confront how contemporary Western cultural biases limit the political impact of environmentalism and the intellectual reach of environmental studies. I confront these limitations through an interdisciplinary exploration of four Black women ecoactivists through the race, gender, and class-focused framework of Black feminist studies. Each chapter focuses primarily on one of the forward thinking and vigilant “Queens” centered in “Repurposing Queens” (so named to emphasize their roles as vanguards and leaders in environmental discourse). These figures include Hazel Johnson (widely recognized as the “Mother” of the environmental justice movement and founder of pre-eminent environmental justice organization People for Community Recovery); science fiction author and theorist Octavia Butler; contemporary visual artist Wangechi Mutu; and Nobel Peace Prize winning Dr. Wangari Maathai of the Green Belt Movement. Using their writings, art, and advocacy, I argue that they “repurpose” ecological wounds wrought by ongoing colonial and state violence—wounds such as deforestation in Kenya or the unethical citing of waste facilities in Black communities in Chicago. Despite their entanglement in the grips of (post) colonialism’s raced, gendered, and classed toxicities; I contend that their aesthetic methods of “repurposing” enable them to empower themselves and their communities. Moreover, “Repurposing Queens” positions the cultural productions of these marginalized communities as indispensable to better conceptualizations of our ecologically degraded present as well as ethical discussions of more sustainable futures.

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