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Abstract
This research focuses on a faith-based community development network to examine the intersections between geographies of race and religion in contemporary processes of neighborhood change. Its theoretical context lies at the intersection of critical urban and housing studies, Black geographies, and the geographies of religion. I argue for conceptualizing transcendent geographies of race in which ideas and praxis around race in the city, informed by particular understandings of higher power(s), shape neighborhood dynamics and urban landscapes.Participants transcendent geographies of race took on different tenors, but shared the common thread that some injustice has afflicted Black neighborhoods in cities, and some transcendent action(s) can and must redress it. Participants also identified certain secular tools or logics as capable of changing profane geographies of race into transcendent ones, associating these with their understandings of the transcendent. The central argument based on these findings is that by sanctifying market logics as capable of turning profane geographies of race into transcendent ones, research participants articulate a spatialization of Blackness in which inclusion for some Black people in livable urban spaces comes at the exclusion of others.Taken together, these research findings highlight the need to challenge and rework the common sense logics understood as capable of transforming profane geographies into transcendent ones, if we are interested in geographies that center the right to stay put rather than the racialized privilege to stay put. The research has implications that extend beyond the study of religious groups, as grounded theologies are not exclusive to explicit religious belief or faith. If we can understand the transcendent geographies of people and institutions with capital and power, there is some possibility moving faithful intentions in directions that could better bring about racially just cities.