6 - The Black Body in Nature

Summary

“The Black Body in Nature” considers writers who, in their critical and imaginative work, map the contours of an African American nature writing tradition. In this environmental canon, authors persistently attend to the violence associated with the outdoors, lurking in forests, woods, and other secluded areas.These geographies, while environmentally rich, can be threatening spaces, isolated and hostile.Yet, as the story of birder Christian Cooper attests, menacing areas needn’t always be sheltered, but are manifest in city streets, urban parks, and brightly lit neighborhoods. The African American environmental tradition is nuanced and, as such, the experience of danger and disenfranchisement is counterpointed by an equally strong and persistent affiliation with the natural world that offers, for some, a measure of relief from structural forms of oppression.Situated at the nexus of race and ecocritical thought, this chapter considers the complicated positionality of the Black body in nature through the lens of exile and belonging.