Black Studies in Babylon: Practice, Politics and Pedagogy - A TESS Talk

Dr Rita Gayle (University of Birmingham) will utilise her PhD research which focused on millennial Black women in Britain who had formed creative collectives between 2013-2020 to illustrate her reflections on undertaking Black Studies in Britain.

Rita is an historical-cultural geographer working at the intersection of race, gender and the city. She is based in the Department of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham, UK. Rita is currently the Postdoctoral Research Fellow for the Conjunctures NOW strand of the Stuart Hall Archive Project led by Professor Patricia Noxolo. Since its inception in 2023, Conjunctures NOW has formed partnerships with creatives, community groups, activists and scholars to platform debates and cultural production that speaks to the politics of today. 

In the first part of the lecture, Rita Gayle will assess the legacy of the Millennial Generation of Black British Feminist Creative Collectives. The collectives which inspired Rita’s PhD thesis form part of a wider cohort of Black women born between 1981-1996 who had retained a presence within the inner cities. This will be done using Stuart Hall’s conjunctural analysis (2010) to situate the socio-political-economic forces that brought about their advent.

In the second part, the debate will shift to exploring the discipline of Black Studies with regard to the research and dissemination of knowledge concerning the lives of African and Caribbean heritage communities located in Britain.

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