Maya Sapienza

I am an incoming PhD student in Geography at the University of California, I call both Humboldt, California and Bradenton, Florida my home. My interests lie in studying the relationships between gentrification, Black identity formation, bureaucracy, geographies of urban justice, and struggles over public (and private) space. In particular, I want to know how might these entanglements be instructive for alternative futures? I want to look at the relationship between local and federal government policies that have unevenly impacted black neighborhoods, and the ways Black residents resist physical and cultural displacement in their attempts to reclaim their neighborhoods. Historically local government policies and practices in the US have contributed to the growth of segregated geographies and the banishment of black people from their neighborhoods, but at the same time black people have worked to stay and create spaces in really diverse and interesting ways.