Don’t shoot! Black mobilities in American gunscapes

Abstract

This paper posits that mobilities research should include consideration of how the gun mediates racial difference, and notably when it is articulated with a camera in policing practices. This paper builds on mobilities research on automobilities and black im/mobilities by widening the lens on how automobile, gun and camera are articulated to mediate a policing gaze during the racial profiling practice known as Driving While Black. It brings together critical gun studies and mobilities studies in order to consider the shared linguistic terrain of gun and camera and to posit that the gun is overlooked as a mobile technology in mobilities research. It employs the concept of ‘gunscapes’ to interpret how articulations of gun and camera frame ways of seeing black im/mobilities in selected moments in pre-digital and digital eras.

Keywords:

• Gunscapes
• gun
• camera
• black im/mobilities
• Driving While Black

Acknowledgements

An early version of this paper was presented at the 2015 Mobilities Intersection workshop at Lancaster Center for Mobilities Research. The author wishes to thank the organizers, Monika Büscher, Mimi Sheller and David Tyfield, as well as other workshop participants for their encouragement and insightful comments.