Two decades after Mimi Sheller and John Urry (2006) conceived a “‘new mobilities’ paradigm” in the social sciences, little scholarship produced within Mobility Studies is concerned with racism and even fewer studies examine the workings of anti-Blackness. If we consider aeromobility in particular, it becomes obvious that Mobility Studies are lagging behind other fields in grasping how anti-Blackness informs not just the politics of flight, but even the very ability to draw in breath. In this paper, I examine the workings of breathing and flying while Black by turning to renown Haitian American writer Edwidge Danticat’s award-winning memoir Brother, I’m Dying (2007), which provides a unique lens into air, airports, and the racial politics that inform them, showing that the abilities to breathe and speak are themselves racialized and structured in anti-Blackness. Ultimately, I argue, there is a need to center anti-Blackness if we are to understand the politics of aeromobility in their full complexity, starting from the air that we breathe.

Authors:
Marzia Milazzo, University of Johanesburg, South Africa

About the Presenter(s)
Marzia Milazzo is Associate Professor of English at the University of Johannesburg and serves as associate editor for the Journal of Postcolonial Writing.

Connect on Linkedin
https://www.linkedin.com/in/marziamilazzo/

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