From "Serene" to "Law and Order Crackdown": A Genealogy of (De)segregation in Suburban Maryland

• In Event: 18.071 - Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: 18.071-20 - Foucauldian Genealogy as Disruptive Inquiry in Educational Research

Abstract

Drawing on notions of space from geography, and theories of racial formation, this paper will think genealogically about (de)segregation in Prince George’s County Maryland with a focus on the county’s court ordered busing plan which began in 1973. Using post structural discourse analysis of primary source documents to consider how space and race were co-constitutive, I argue that the county’s busing policy reconfigured, but did not fundamentally alter the relationship between race and space in the public imaginary. Instead, busing for racial mixing was a signaling event that shifted public sentiment away from a fear of “desegregation” and toward an expression of the problem with Prince George’s County schools as one of lawlessness, an anxiety that still pervades local representations.

Author

• Deirdre Dougherty, Rutgers University - New Brunswick/Piscataway