*PLEASE NOTE LOCATION CHANGE FOR APR 23- NO LONGER IN LOWER EVANS- NOW IN LUCHSINGER LOUNGE*

The annual Academic Colloquia Monthly Exchange Lecture Series features Agnes Scott faculty presentations on research work. It is a wonderful way to learn more about our professors and their fields work. The upcoming speakers and topics are:

April 23rd: Professor Enkeshi El-Amin, Sociology & Anthropology Dept 

“I Didn’t Feel Out of Place”: Black Narratives of Safety, Place, and Belonging in Urban Appalachia

In this paper, I focus on East Knoxville, a place that, due to its large concentration of Black residents, is widely understood as the Black side of town in Knoxville, an Appalachian city. I examine the unique, collective value East Knoxville holds for Black Knoxvillians navigating a city where they are often made to feel out of place. Drawing on their narratives, I show how residents not only define the neighborhood on their own terms but also challenge dominant constructions of Black spaces, where the white gaze has rendered them unsafe, undesirable, and unworthy. Moreover, I argue that, despite ongoing cycles of structural violence, Black residents find forms of safety in East Knoxville that they do not experience elsewhere in the city.