Body-territory and scalar politics of race

Keywords: Body-territory, scale, body, place, intimate
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

My paper brings Latin American Indigenous and rural thought about the body as a scalar space with porous skin in conversation with Anglophone geographical understandings of scale, the body, and social differences. My paper provides a better understanding of Indigenous worldviews, such as those of Lorena Cabnal and Julieta Paredes, who locate the body as the first scale/place of habitation, arguing that the body is a first territory whose survival is dependent on its relationship with other bodies and territories. My paper brings this Latin American body of thought in tandem with Anglophone efforts to further scholar-activist work that questions mainstream understandings of scale and its racialized geographies, such as the work done by Doreen Massey, Melissa Wright, and Laura Pulido. Bringing these two bodies of geographical knowledge together is essential for a hemispheric conversation and praxis that decenter mainstream understandings of scale and place and its violence.