Feeling safe from the storm of anti-Blackness: Black affective networks and the im/possibility of safe classroom spaces in Predominantly White Institutions

Abstract

Abstract Black affective networks form in evanescent moments when two or more Black people in a white space cluster around a Black feeling and other things. This article is a feminist narrative inquiry into Black affective networks in classrooms on the campuses of Predominantly White Institutions (PWIs) in the United States. Authors inhabit dual roles as researchers and study participants in an investigation of affects that percolated in two classrooms, catalyzing the constitution of Black affective networks in those contexts. In the lineage of contemporary Black feminism, authors use beautiful writing as a method with which to narrate stories illustrating the formation of these assemblages. The stories show that these constellations served as locations for the production of counter-hegemonic knowledge of Blackness—that is, perceptual spaces where knowledge of Blackness not as abject but rather as a wellspring of Black excitement, pride, love, and joy was transacted. Ergo, Black affective networks provided Black faculty and students with pathways for temporary escape from the anti-Black violence built into PWIs. Authors pivot from this inquiry on the im/possibility of classrooms in PWIs functioning as safe spaces for Black faculty and students to echo calls for a turn to Black affect theory and to trouble diversity and inclusion discourses in US higher education.