In the article, “Performance as place preservation: The role of storytelling in the formation of Shankleville community’s Black counterpublics,” Andrea R. Roberts defines placelessness as a “hegemonic idea that without clear indications of ownership, boundaries, or built environment a place is just a frontier.” Throughout the article, Roberts dissects the existence of freedom colonies and their role in the maintenance of identity. As a place begins to disappear physically, the descendants of the place persist in their practices and traditions to keep the essence alive. The concept of identity through physicality is something Roberts addresses when she describes how placelessness wields so much power over fading communities. Roberts states that “Shankville’s descendants ‘show themselves to themselves,’ when through storytelling they perform desirable imaginaries of place and themselves;” the ability to exude qualities ascribed to the collective identity proves the existence of the group.
In the graphic novel Incognegro, Matt Johnson exemplifies Roberts’s notion of placelessness through racial frontiers. One of the overarching themes of the novel is the concept of ‘passing’ which the main character, Zane Pinchback, uses for his job. Zane exists in two dimensions of placelessness—of race and justice. The race-based placelessness that he navigates for the majority of the novel is tied to the vague boundaries of passing. Zane’s predicament is one of double-consciousness, he is constantly traversing these unlabeled areas within himself while being physically present in the heavily regulated, American south. Johnson’s choice to have the graphic novel be illustrated in black and white emphasizes the ability to differentiate—it is difficult without labels. The characters that are black but are able to pass as white are the same ‘color’ as the ‘actual’ white men. Johnson demonstrates that the issue is not only internal for the characters, but is also inseparable from the onlookers.
The tiers of placelessness is not limited to those mentioned above, there is also a placelessness in the search for justice. Lynching as a extrajudicial measure is also something Zane has to maneuver through. Is it up to the sheriff’s office or is it all in the hands of the town’s occupants? Within the town’s people there are more subdivisions; the white population hosting the lynchings and the black people who deal with the aftermath. One group makes a spectacle of what they deem to be justice while the other must move in secret to even have some semblance of closure. Both racial violence and segregation are enforced and embedded within the culture of the American south during this time period. Zane has to constantly be hyper-aware of all the different categories of people as well as the geographical limitations he must abide by. Placelessness is exhausting for someone in Zane’s situation. While he has connections to all of the intangible parts of his culture, he is incapable of finding a sense of place because he wavers through the in-between of two blatantly opposing identities.
Works Cited
Roberts, Andrea R. “Performance as Place Preservation: The Role of Storytelling in the Formation of Shankleville Community’s Black Counterpublics.” Journal of Community Archaeology & Heritage, vol. 5, no. 3, 2018, pp. 146–65, doi:10.1080/20518196.2018.1480002.
