Project Title: African Diasporic Migration and Freedom Studies (ADMiFS): On the Place-Making and Belonging of Black Migrants in Japan
Project Description: Inspired by Saidiya Hartman’s critical fabulation and fieldwork conducted by Alexis Jones in Japan (spring 2023), this project desires to explain African Diasporic Migration and Freedom Studies (ADMiFS) as a framework and praxis that pulls from Feminist Refugee Epistemology, and (black) speculative fiction to self-reflexively approach the teaching-learning process. Using interview transcripts from fieldwork, Jones’s project presents a preliminary application of ADMiFS through three fields: anthropology, creative writing, and fine arts, to add an accessible analysis of how black migrants in Japan form place and belonging. Therefore, in using ADMiFS to discuss black migrants place-making, this work maintains an epistemological practice through kinship stories. And, by elaborating on how the African diaspora is but one reference, that converges across marginalized and/or privileged groups, this project hopes to be an example of how insights gained from our studies can be applicable to further diasporic groups across, and despite, space and time. This kinship centering of, often obscured, people’s nuanced and speculative living highlights the ways in which “othered” forms of existing, i.e. black women, black persons in Japan, queer identities, migrants, etc., ubiquitously reflect intersections between all of our living.
Most Important Accomplishment: Working for a legal nonprofit: DC Justice Lab my entire sophomore year.
Reflections on the College Scholar Program: The College Scholar Program has given me the space to actually love what I study. Honestly, this program is the only reason I applied to Cornell, so, needless to say, it is the highlight of my Cornell education. I am excited to be able to work alongside and have discourse with other students that are pursuing independent research.