ABSTRACT
This chapter draws attention to the raced and gendered dimensions of political science as an academic space, and the place-making politics necessary to investigate Black political women. It presents an examination of research on Black women to expose the raced and gendered spatial dimensions of political science relative to other disciplines. Political scientist Ernest Wilson III provoked discussion by highlighting the relative inattention given to studying Black issues in political science relative to other “sister disciplines”. Subsequent examination by Ernest J. Wilson and Lorrie A. Frasure revealed a consistent pattern of relative neglect from 1986 to 2003, concerning race and Black politics in political science compared to other disciplines. The paucity of research on Black women in political science, moreover, can be usefully explained by joining political science’s analysis of the circulation of power with geography’s concerns the politics of space and place.
