Abstract
This track develops the concept of embodied archives as technologies of Black sustainability in apocalyptic times. Building from Diana Taylor’s distinction between the archive and the repertoire, and in conversation with Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Christina Sharpe, Sami Schalk, Tiffani Marie and Kenjus Watson, and Ruha Benjamin, I argue that Black bodies function as living repositories of knowledge. Long before schools claimed authority over learning, communities preserved memory in movement, rhythm, oral and signed languages, tactile practices, and everyday rituals of care. Disabled Black bodyminds, through practices such as braille literacy and augmentative and alternative communication, further illustrate how assistive technologies extend embodied archives rather than replace them. By contrasting these practices with the erasures of school archives, test scores, individualized education programs, and transcripts, I show how embodied archives reveal infrastructures of survival beyond institutions. Futures emerge in Afrofuturist imaginaries, children’s play, and ancestral intelligence, pointing toward a pedagogy of learning as archive that sustains Black life among the ruins.
Recommended Citation
Rutledge, F. (2026). Embodied Archives: The Body as Technology of Black Sustainability. Black Educology Mixtape "Journal", 4(1). Retrieved from https://repository.usfca.edu/be/vol4/iss1/3