Terrell "TL" James

Black Radical Tradition(s) and thought, Antiblackness, Community-Engaged Research and Practice, and Critical Youth Studies

Terrell “TL” James is a Ph.D. student in the Anthropology department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. TL’s research hijacks principles from community-engaged methodologies to explore how Black youth use, re-articulate, challenge, and produce Black radical thought through activism and grassroots organizing. TL is concerned with the ways in which antiblackness underwrites the (im)possibility of ethical and reciprocal engaged practices for research with Black communities and calls for critical interrogation of the assumptive logics of community-based methods. His work brings together Black studies, critical youth studies, and community-based research and practice.

TL currently teaches a year-long residential academic programs course for the Civic Engagement and Service-Learning office that focuses on community engagement, social justice, and contemplative practice. TL supports efforts for food justice and food systems change in his hometown Springfield MA. He is also a trainer for the UMass Alliance for Community Transformation (UACT).