Places Journal

Eating Clay at the Bend of the Road The Black diasporan tradition of geophagia, or dirt eating, has long been pathologized. Black writers and directors recover the practice as a sacred birthright.

"The act of dirt eating has long been deemed base, animalistic, nonproductive, and therefore practiced in hush harbors, under the cover of trees or in the dark of night...In this light, it is not surprising that the Black geophagic tradition and its representations have been rooted in the literary."

Eating Clay at the Bend of the Road The Black diasporan tradition of geophagia, or dirt eating, has long been pathologized. Black writers and directors recover the practice as a sacred birthright.

Drawing on literature and film spanning more than a century, Tiffany Lethabo King writes about the Black diasporan tradition of dirt eating, also known as geophagia: “As unfinished sites, geophagical pits open portals to geological time, offering up, in morsels, millions of years of earth-knowing.”

Eating Clay at the Bend of the Road The Black diasporan tradition of geophagia, or dirt eating. has long been pathologized. Black writers and directors recover the practice as a sacred birthright.

The Black diasporan tradition of dirt eating, or geophagia, has long been pathologized. Black literary and film artists recover the practice as a birthright — an intimate connection to the earth, passed down by Black women at clay banks.

The latest in An Unfinished Atlas, from Tiffany Lethabo King:

Prisons, Prose & Protest - #36 Rants, Musings and More

In my March edition of Prisons, Prose & Protest, I share an overview of a 1964 pamphlet by Anne Braden that remains relevant today. I recommend a podcast about a project documenting Black girlhood in photography and prose, several good recent articles and essays, and also I am raffling some prints.

The Long Fire at Lake and Minnehaha The mutual aid networks keeping people safe in South Minneapolis were forged through decades of organizing around expansive visions of community care. This is the work of queer abolition.

"To imagine the abolitionist city, we must understand policing as a joint project of property owners and the state to determine who is imagined to be safe, healthy, of the community, and thus who is allowed to be in public space."

On building a queer abolitionist future in Minneapolis:

The Long Fire at Lake and Minnehaha The mutual aid networks keeping people safe in South Minneapolis were forged through decades of organizing around expansive visions of community care. This is the work of queer abolition.

When the Minneapolis Third Precinct station burned in 2020, it destabilized the naturalness and inevitability of police power. The mutual aid networks actually keeping people safe in Minneapolis have been forged through decades of organizing, uniting activists through new visions of community care.

Myrl Beam: The Long Fire: Sexual Policing, Settler Colonialism, and the Minneapolis Uprising | Arcus/Places Prize Lecture - UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design In this talk, Myrl Beam traces the powerful and yet under-examined role that sexual policing and settler colonialism have on ideas about policing, safety, and

The Long Fire at Lake and Minnehaha: Sexual Policing, Settler Colonialism, and the Minneapolis Uprising

An Arcus/Places Prize Lecture from @myrlbeam.bsky.social, on building a queer abolitionist politics in South Minneapolis.

📅 February 25, 2026 6:00pm PT
📍 Bauer Wurster Hall, UC Berkeley CED

Bay Area folks, join us this evening at UC Berkeley!

The Long Fire at Lake and Minnehaha The mutual aid networks keeping people safe in South Minneapolis were forged through decades of organizing around expansive visions of community care. This is the work of queer abolition.

The mutual aid networks that keep people safe in South Minneapolis were forged across decades of organizing, uniting activists through expansive visions of community care. This work — of showing up for others, defending neighbors from violence + dispossession — lies at the heart of queer abolition.

Free and open to the public! Join us!

Myrl Beam: The Long Fire: Sexual Policing, Settler Colonialism, and the Minneapolis Uprising | Arcus/Places Prize Lecture - UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design In this talk, Myrl Beam traces the powerful and yet under-examined role that sexual policing and settler colonialism have on ideas about policing, safety, and

The Long Fire at Lake and Minnehaha: Sexual Policing, Settler Colonialism, and the Minneapolis Uprising

An Arcus/Places Prize Lecture from @myrlbeam.bsky.social, on building a queer abolitionist politics in South Minneapolis.

📅 February 25, 2026 6:00pm PT
📍 Bauer Wurster Hall, UC Berkeley CED

Extralibrary Loan: Making the Civic Infrastructure We Need Amid a war on public knowledge, libraries are pushing outward, enlarging the commons through new configurations of civic and creative life.

Perhaps some of my own work can help reinforce this call :)

placesjournal.org/article/extr...

placesjournal.org/article/libr...

And about 25 years’ worth of other stuff here: wordsinspace.net/work/

From the Archive: Lead Glasses, Community Plumbing, Luxury for All Essays on environmental contamination; the organizing force of local businesses; and safe and delightful public spaces.

Every so often, we send a newsletter with a selection of articles from the Places archive, recommended by us, the editors. We share writing that adds depth to issues of the moment, and stories we find gratifying to read (and re-read).

This week: Lead Glasses, Community Plumbing, and Luxury for All

Extralibrary Loan: Making the Civic Infrastructure We Need Amid a war on public knowledge, libraries are pushing outward, enlarging the commons through new configurations of civic and creative life.

"Societies are defined by their libraries — by what we hold, what we lend, what we borrow and return, the knowledge we create, values we defend.

An attack on the library sector is an attack on public knowledge, and it includes the reading public — you, me, all of us."

— @shannonmattern.bsky.social

Salmonscape California’s Central Valley Chinook salmon are landscape makers. As they migrate through the state's water projects, they have an indelible impact on the watershed.

Loved this reflection on the Central Valley's beleaguered chinook and the intensively engineered watershed in which they're enmeshed. Makes me feel like someone should write a popular history of these fish.

placesjournal.org/article/salm...

Farwell Canyon The Chilcotin River in present-day British Columbia has long divided — and joined — the Secwépemc and Tsilhqot’in nations, each with an ancient claim to the land and the cherished salmon run there.

“This is my praise song for Farwell Canyon—that glorious Coyote-blessed and bewitched cathedral of salmon—for my enemy who is also my relative, and for the fish we love and share.”

Unmissable Julian Brave Noisecat essay on rivers, memories & imagining otherwise.

placesjournal.org/article/farw...

A heartfelt essay on what it means to steward land in community with neighbors who share a vested interest in the health and prosperity of a place.

Ending Well In the birthplace of Ghana’s cocoa industry, neighbors negotiate the expansion of a harvest path — and with it, an alternative model for development in the populous West African nation.

"I understand 'Ending Well' as a socio-cultural script for the future we hope for: that development on the African continent will be something other than a linear prescription of urbanization, and that Ghana will negotiate on its own terms what growth should look like."

—Courage Dzidula Kpodo

Ending Well In the birthplace of Ghana’s cocoa industry, neighbors negotiate the expansion of a harvest path — and with it, an alternative model for development in the populous West African nation.

In the birthplace of Ghana’s cocoa industry, neighbors negotiate the expansion of a harvest path — and with it, an alternative model for development in the populous West African nation.

A new essay in Places by Ghanaian architect and researcher Courage Dzidula Kpodo.

With the Olympics underway, we're rereading this convo w/ @brenttoderian.bsky.social, who helped Vancouver prepare to host the 2010 Games.

"We didn’t set out to wow the world with architecture that we may or may not use. We know how our facilities will be used the day after the Olympics are done."

The Olympics and the City: Vancouver 2010 An interview with Vancouver planning director Brent Toderian about the urban design challenge of hosting the winter games.

Cities that host the Olympics have to finance + build a range of venues that not only make the two-week event a success but also, once the world has gone home, become enduring parts of the city fabric. Back in 2010, @brenttoderian.bsky.social spoke w/ Nate Berg about how Vancouver met the challenge.

The Olympics and the City: Vancouver 2010 An interview with Vancouver planning director Brent Toderian about the urban design challenge of hosting the winter games.

As the Milan Olympics are about the start, I find myself thinking back about our own experiences with the 2010 Vancouver Games.

“It can be a challenge to balance between boosterism & cynicism, and how well we’ve achieved our goals around the Olympics & sustainability.” In @placesjournal.bsky.social

Farwell Canyon The Chilcotin River in present-day British Columbia has long divided — and joined — the Secwépemc and Tsilhqot’in nations, each with an ancient claim to the land and the cherished salmon run there.

"Farwell Canyon: A Praise Song for My Enemy and Our Fish"

By Julian Brave NoiseCat

Farwell Canyon The Chilcotin River in present-day British Columbia has long divided — and joined — the Secwépemc and Tsilhqot’in nations, each with an ancient claim to the land and the cherished salmon run there.

"Farwell Canyon is one the best river fishing spots in the interior of British Columbia. I know that’s a subjective claim, but it’s about as close to an objective statement as a fisherman has ever made about a fishing hole."

Listen to Julian Brave NoiseCat read his new essay, "Farwell Canyon."

Listen to Julian Brave NoiseCat read his essay — part of our new audio feature.

Farwell Canyon The Chilcotin River in present-day British Columbia has long divided — and joined — the Secwépemc and Tsilhqot’in nations, each with an ancient claim to the land and the cherished salmon run there.

We're rolling out a new audio feature!

For Places, author + filmmaker Julian Brave NoiseCat wrote about Farwell Canyon in British Columbia, the ancestral ties between two enemy nations that claim the land there, and a cherished salmon run on the Chilcotin River.

Listen to NoiseCat read his essay:

Farwell Canyon The Chilcotin River in present-day British Columbia has long divided — and joined — the Secwépemc and Tsilhqot’in nations, each with an ancient claim to the land and the cherished salmon run there.

The Chilcotin River, which flows through Farwell Canyon in present-day British Columbia has long divided — and joined — the Secwépemc and Tsilhqot’in nations, each with an ancient claim to the land and the cherished salmon run there.

From Julian Brave NoiseCat:

TOMORROW 1/29: A Conversation on Federal Architecture

A panel of leading architectural voices, including Places author Belmont Freeman, will discuss Trump's 2025 executive order on classical architecture. Should the U.S. have an official architectural style? If so, what values should it reflect?

Trump’s Attack on Federal Architecture Isn’t Aesthetic. It’s Political. The Trump regime is deploying architectural rhetoric to demonize the headquarters of federal agencies. Their real targets are the agencies’ democratizing agendas.

"Trump's executive order on federal architecture is a coded threat," Belmont Freeman writes. "Far more concerning than the potential revival of classical architecture is the specious deployment of architectural rhetoric to denigrate not only federal buildings but the agencies headquartered in them."

Private Worlds Today's billionaires and technofascists threaten to rob the American people of things we are supposed to hold in common.

"'Land grab' is too quaint a term for what we are witnessing. The old tools of privatization are being helped along by a methodical effort to end regulation. Indeed, the very idea of a public realm is under attack."

@timothyaschuler.bsky.social, on Trump's proposed sale of federal lands: