Black Embodied Political Subjectivity

Abstract Drawing from an interpretivist framework, this paper proposes Black Embodied Political Subjectivity (BEPS) as a conceptual framework that foregrounds the body, affect, and historical memory as critical to political subjectivity. BEPS draws on Black political thought to challenge dominant epistemologies that prioritize disembodied rationality and abstract ideological commitments over lived, felt, and corporeal political experiences. Rather than treating the body as an inert vessel or secondary site of politics, BEPS argues that the body is central to the ways Black people negotiate, contest, and reconstitute power in lived political contexts.