roots
About Me
Dr. Eaves, currently Associate Professor of Geography and Sustainability at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has been instrumental in increasing the visibility of Black Geographies. In addition to her research which centers questions of race, gender, and region, Dr. Eaves was lead co-founder and chair of the Black Geographies Specialty Group of the AAG. When AAG decided that Black Geographies would be a featured theme at AAG 2018, she was the president’s obvious choice for chair.
In addition to her experiences in the South through her current position, Dr. Eaves was also an assistant professor and founding faculty member of the Department of Global Studies and Human Geography at Middle Tennessee State University, received her PhD from Florida International University, her MS from Florida State, and her BA from North Carolina State — close to her native town of Shelby, North Carolina.
Her commitment to diverse experiences and productions of the US South is reflected in her prolific record of publishing in the journal Southeastern Geographer. However, Dr. Eaves also has publications in Gender, Place, and Culture; Journal of Geography in Higher Education; Dialogues in Human Geography; Geoforum; ACME; and Progress in Human Geography. As well as a number of articles currently under review at journals such as the Annals, Tourism Geographies, and The Professional Geographer
She is also a co-editor of two anthologies, Spatial Futures: Difference and the Post-Anthropocene (2024) and Activist Feminist Geographies (2023). And is also working on a book manuscript titled “Unbounded South: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Place.”
Recipient of numerous awards including the Ronald F. Abler Distinguished Service Honors for her transformative impact on AAG through her commitment to Black Geographies, she’s also recently received a half million dollar NSF grant for a collaborative project on Museums, Public Pedagogy, and Black Geographies in the United States. Her profoundly interdisciplinary contributions reflect her experiences training and teaching across African Studies, Women’s Studies, and Geography departments.
I first came across Dr. Eaves through her emails as a member of the Black Geographies Specialty Group. In reading her recent work including “Fear of an other geography” and “interanimating Black sexualities and the geography classroom, I continue to be in awe of the way she links unbelievably complex structures and theories to the mundane ways we handle uncomfortable conversations in the classroom and beyond. Her work is particularly inspiring to me because of the way she weaves together her research and teaching; bringing the space of the classroom into theoretical conversation in ways that challenge the subsidiary treatment of teaching to research.
Her contributions on the dynamics between questions of non-essentialism and embodiment — couldn’t be more timely. Dr. Eaves teaches us that Black geographies are views on the world; providing a different way to engage geography’s beloved core concepts - such as space, place, and region.
Bio written by Dr. Ariel Rawson.
A link to her CV is available in the navigation menu on the left.
routes
research
publications
current
Books
2024. Eaves, L.E., Nast, H., and Papadopoulos, A., eds. Spatial Futures: Difference and the Post-Anthropocene. Palgrave.
2023. Boyer, K., Eaves, L.E. and Fluri, J. eds. Activist Feminist Geographies Bristol University Press
Under Contract. Solem, M., Foote, K., O’Lear, S., Eaves, L.E., and Lee, J. Aspiring Academics: Strategies for Early Career Success in the Social and Environmental Sciences. Taylor and Francis.
Journal Articles
2024. Potter, A., Cook, M., Eaves, L. E., Carter, P., and Bright, C. F. “Changing History: Placing African American Museums in the American Tourism Landscape” Tourism Geographies. 26(1), 91-119. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2023.22593512024. Eaves, L.E. for Camilla Hawthorne’s Contesting Race and Citizenship: Youth Politics in the Black Mediterranean. Non-refereed introduction to Book Review Forum for Society and Space. https://www.societyandspace.org/book-review-forums/contesting-race-and-citizenship-youth-politics-in-the-black-mediterranean-by-camilla-hawthorne
2023. Falconer Al-Hindi, K., and Eaves, L.E. Feminist Research Methods and Intersectionality: An Introduction to the Focus Section. The Professional Geographer. 75(4), 642-647, DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2023.2228871
2023. McCutcheon, P and Eaves, L.E. The KJV as Black Placemaking in the Rural South. Southern Cultures 29(2), 68–81.
2023. Eaves, L.E. and Falconer Al-Hindi, K. “Intersectional Sensibilities and the Spatial Genealogies of Ida B. Wells-Barnett and Ellen Churchill Semple in the Early Twentieth Century” The Professional Geographer. DOI: 10.1080/00330124.2022.2087694.
2023. Eaves, L.E., Gökarıksel, B., Hawkins, M., Neubert, C., and Smith, S.H. “Political geographies of discomfort feminism: Introduction to the themed intervention” Gender, Place & Culture.**
2022. Eaves, L.E. for Akira Drake Rodriguez’s Diverging Spaces for Deviants: The Politics of Atlanta’s Public Housing. Non-refereed introduction to Book Review Forum organized by LaToya E. Eaves. The AAG Review of Books. 10(4): 52-53, DOI: 10.1080/2325548X.2022.2114770
2022. Eaves, L. E. and Purifoy, D. “We Must Situate Race”: Bobby Wilson’s Black Geographies. Southeastern Geographer. 62(3): 182-186. doi:10.1353/sgo.2022.0017.
2021. Mollett, S and Eaves, L.E. for Tiffany Lethabo King’s The Black Shoals: Offshore Formations of Black and Native Studies. Non-refereed introduction to Book Review Forum organized by Sharlene Mollett and LaToya Eaves for Society and Space. https://www.societyandspace.org/book-review-forums/the-black-shoals-by-tiffany-lethabo-king
2021. Shannon, J; Hankins, K.; Shelton, T.; Bosse, A.; Scott, D.; Block, D.; Fischer, H.; Eaves, L.; Jung, J.; Robinson, J.; Solís, P.; Pearsall, H.; Rees, A.; and Nicolas, A. “Community Geography: Toward a Disciplinary Framework.” Progress in Human Geography, 45(5): 1147–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132520961468
2021. Eaves, L.E. “Controversy, Feminist Pedagogies, and the Need for Revolutionary Praxis.” ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 20(5), 562-568. https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1935
2021. Alderman, D., Perez, R.N., Eaves, L.E., Klein, P, and Muñoz, S. “Reflections on Operationalizing an Anti-Racism Pedagogy: Teaching as Regional Storytelling.” Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 45:2, 186-200,DOI: 10.1080/03098265.2019.1661367
2021. Eaves, L.E., “Power and the Paywall: A Black Feminist Reflection on the Socio-Spatial Formations of Publishing.” Geoforum. 118: 207-209. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geoforum.2020.04.002
2020. Eaves, L.E. and Falconer Al-Hindi, K., “Intersectional Geographies and COVID-19” Dialogues in Human Geography, 10(2), 132–136. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820620935247
2020. Eaves, L.E., “Interanimating Black Sexualities and the Geography Classroom.” Journal of Geography in Higher Education. 44:2, 217-229, DOI: 10.1080/03098265.2020.1753029
2020. Eaves, L.E., “Fear of (An)other Geography.” Dialogues in Human Geography, 10(1), 34–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820619898901
2019. Eaves, L.E. “The imperative of struggle: feminist and gender geographies in the United States,” Gender, Place & Culture, 26:7-9.
2017. Bledsoe, A. Eaves, L.E. and Williams, B. 2017. “Black Geographies in and of the United States South” in Southeastern Geographer. 57(1): 6-11.
2017. Eaves, L. “Black Geographic Possibilities: On a Queer Black South”. in Southeastern
Geographer. 57(1): 80-95.
2016. Eaves, L.E. “We wear the mask”. Southeastern Geographer, 56(1): 22-28.
Chapters in Edited Books
Forthcoming. Eaves, L.E. and Hernández, M. Á. Creating Socially Just Classrooms. In Solem, M., Foote, K., O’Lear, S., Eaves, L.E., and Lee, J. Thriving in an Academic Career. Taylor and Francis.
2024. Eaves, L.E. “Katherine McKittrick” in Key Thinkers on Space and Place.
2023. Eaves, L.E. Legacies of Black Feminist Activism in the U.S. South. For Kate Boyer, LaToya Eaves, and Jennifer Fluri, eds. Activist Feminist Geographies
2022. Falconer Al-Hindi, K. and Eaves, L.E. “For an intersectional sensibility: feminisms in geography” In The Handbook of Methodologies in Human Geography. Lovell, S. A., Coen, S. E., and Rosenberg, M. W. Routledge, pp. 70-82.
2021. Eaves, L.E. “Interview with LaToya Eaves.” Feminist Geographies Unbound: Discomfort, Bodies, and Prefigured Futures. Gökarıksel, B., Hawkins, M., Neubert, C., and Smith, S.H. editors. West Virginia University Press, pp. 253-259.
2016. Eaves, L.E. “Outside Forces: Black Southern Sexuality”. In Queering the Countryside: New Directions in Rural Queer Studies, edited by Mary L. Gray, Colin R. Thompson, and Brian Gilley. New York: NYU Press, pp. 146-157.
black geographies
current
Black Geographies is a term used to center a Black sense of place and
Black spatial knowledges in my approach to theory, research methods, and applications.
black geographies
www.blackgeographies.org
An affiliate of the American Association of Geographers
The BLACK GEOGRAPHIES SPECIALTY GROUP strives to create a global platform for: (a) promoting study of the social, political, cultural, economic, and ecological aspects of the race in/and geography; (b) encouraging critical reflection on the issues, processes, intrinsic qualities, and interconnections that shape Black lives and geographies on local, national, continental, and international scales; (c) exchanging research and teaching ideas among scholars of race in/and geography; and (d) building greater ties between geographers and the Black and Africana Studies community.
a black sense of place
