Grieving Black Girlhoods: Black Memory Work in Current and (Re)membered Geographies of Black Girls Who've Experienced Loss

Abstract

In the legacy of Black womanhood, surviving the loss of a loved one is etched into our blood memory. Amidst some of the most unfathomable grief, we, daughters of the dust, are often expected to move forward as quickly as possible (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2009; Romero, 2000). Black women and girls have historically had to overcome–or mask–insurmountable losses at intersections of identity, to ensure Black survival (Collins, 2000; Evans-Winters, 2019). I propose a strong Black girl schema (Brown, 2021) to trouble the erasure of lived experience evident in pervasive cultural discourses like strong Black woman schema (Beauboeuf-Lafontant, 2009).

Utilizing Sista circle methodology (Johnson, 2015) and extending duoethnography (Sawyer & Norris, 2013) within embodied memory work (Dillard, 2000; Ohito, 2020) and storytelling (Evans-Winters, 2019), this paper extends the future possibilities of grief scholarship centering grieving Black girlhoods. Further, the paper acknowledges the enduring tensions in navigating grief and aspires to highlight the power of embodied memory work to illuminate the current and (re)membered geographies of grieving Black girlhoods.