Chapter Four - Land Acknowledgement

Land Acknowledgement: This essay was researched and written on lands that are part of the traditional territory of the Aniyunwiya peoples (now Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, and United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians), Tsoyahá peoples (Yuchi, Muscogee Creek), Coushatta, and Shawnee peoples. Ianna Hawkins Owen notes, in “On the Racialization of Asexuality,” that people of color – and especially Black women – are simultaneously denied access to asexual identity and dehumanized by it. While my essay centers on white, British, upper-class characters who suffer from their incorporation into compulsory sexuality, it is crucial to acknowledge those who have faced far worse fates at the hands of racist, heteronormative settler colonialism.