Abstract:

How does one respond to the history of a place that has eagerly consumed its violent pasts at the expense of Black life? This question became particularly relevant in April 2018 when the city of Sugar Land, Texas, unearthed the remains of ninety-five former convict laborers on the grounds of a former sugar plantation turned prison farm. "Eating Dirt, Searching Archives" speculatively plays with a history of Sugar Land that does not rely on the city's industrial legacies. Instead, this essay turns to dirt as the archive of Texas's invisible Black geographies. Dirt is theorized as a means of preserving Black Texas life and memory alongside the difficulty of Sugar Land's violent pasts.

摘要：

人们如何回应一个以牺牲黑人生命为代价急切地消耗其暴力过去的地方的历史？这个问题在 2018 年 4 月变得尤为重要，当时德克萨斯州舒格兰市在一个前甘蔗种植园变成监狱农场的土地上挖掘出 95 名前囚犯的遗骸。“吃土，查档案”推测性地扮演了不依赖于城市工业遗产的糖城历史。取而代之的是，这篇文章变成了泥土，作为德克萨斯州看不见的黑人地理的档案。从理论上讲，污垢是一种保存德克萨斯州黑人生活和记忆的手段，同时还能应对 Sugar Land 暴力过去的困难。