How to Lose the Hounds: Maroon Geographies and a World Beyond Policing

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About the book:

In How to Lose the Hounds Celeste Winston explores marronage--the practice of flight from and placemaking beyond slavery--as a guide to police abolition. She examines historically Black maroon communities in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, that have been subjected to violent excesses of police power from slavery until the present day. Tracing the long and ongoing historical geography of Black freedom struggles in the face of anti-Black police violence in these communities, Winston shows how marronage provides critical lessons for reimagining public safety and community well-being. These freedom struggles take place in what Winston calls maroon geographies--sites of flight from slavery and the spaces of freedom produced in multigenerational Black communities. Maroon geographies constitute part of a Black placemaking tradition that asserts life-affirming forms of community. Winston contends that maroon geographies operate as a central method of Black flight, holding ground, and constructing places of freedom in ways that imagine and plan a world beyond policing.

About the author:

Celeste Winston is an abolitionist geographer and Assistant Professor of Geography and Urban Studies at Temple University. She received a PhD in Earth and Environmental Sciences in 2019 from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Her work is driven by her love and accountability for Black communities and Black people. She centers everyday Black life and placemaking practices as models for liberation. She aims to generate evidence for more livable and equitable geographies by tracing the legacies of Black alternative ways of living and building communities across space and time. Her first book How to Lose the Hounds: Maroon Geographies and a World beyond Policing is a guide to police abolition connecting slavery-era Black freedom struggles and modern efforts to build a world beyond policing. Amid rising calls for abolition, this book reveals long-standing ways to secure public safety and community well-being without police. Celeste grew up just outside of DC in Springfield, Virginia and her book focuses on histories of marronage and multigenerational Black communities in Montgomery County, Maryland.

About the host:

Dr. Jalil Mustaffa Bishop co-founded a non-profit called the Equity Research Cooperative (EqRC). The multi-million dollar cooperative conducts racial justice research on dismantling racism and inequity, redistributing its money, and providing grassroots collectives and people of color with organizational support and funding opportunities. As an organization, EqRC aims to live out the justice we want to see in the world. In addition, Jalil is the President of the MUME Collective, a consulting organization providing evaluation, research, and capacity-building services to campaigns, projects, and organizations. Through deep collaborations, his work has secured nearly $12 million in grants. Each grant focused on Black people and communities of color while allocating money directly to them and highlighting their lived experiences.