(Photo courtesy of @QMULGeography)

Dr Azeezat Johnson, social geographer and critical race academic, passed away on March 7, 2022. Her research focuses on clothing practices, Blackness, Muslim identities, and Black feminism.

Dr Johnson was a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in Human Geography at Queen Mary University of London.

She completed her PhD (in Human Geography) at the University of Sheffield in 2017, focusing on Black feminism and the Clothing Practices of Black Muslim Women Project, in which she exposed how research on “Blackness in Britain” and British Muslims excludes the experiences of Black Muslims.

إِنَّا لِلّهِ وَإِنَّـا إِلَيْهِ رَاجِعون
Inna Lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji'un.
“Indeed, to Allah we belong and to Allah we shall return.”

Our beloved daughter, granddaughter, sister, aunt and friend Azeezat Johnson returned to Allah on the 7th of March 2022. pic.twitter.com/wdlm6lGEqC

— Azeezat Johnson (@azeezatj) March 8, 2022

Her PhD also explored how identity performance shifts as people interact with different objects, bodies, gazes, and spaces. Her research contradicts the static reading of Black Muslim women, who are too often defined as either Black or Muslim.

In a statement to The Muslim News, Queen Mary’s School of Geography said, “Azeezat was an inspirational scholar, a gifted public speaker, and a wonderful colleague.”

“She was also a much loved daughter, granddaughter, sister, aunt, and friend. We will miss her, but will continue to celebrate her life and work.

“Azeezat’s research on Black geographies, home, intersectionality, care, gender and embodiment has had a profound impact within and beyond Geography. Her work will continue to challenge the deep-rooted and enduring white structures of power in academia,” said a spokesman for Queen Mary University.

Alastair Owens, Professor of Historical Geography at Queen Mary tweeted: ‘Azeezat was a remarkable person in so many ways, and it was a privilege to have her work @QMULGeography. Alison Blunt and I are travelling up to join you for Azeezat’s funeral and to convey the love, affection, and deep sense of loss that is widely felt at Queen Mary.’

While in Sheffield, she co-founded Sheffield’s Critical Race and Ethnicity Black Feminist network, for whom she co-organised conferences, seminar series and, ultimately, a critically acclaimed essay collection (‘The Fire Now: anti-racist scholarship in times of explicit racial violence’) that drew together diverse academics and activists of colour to show.

In her work, Dr Johnson has also unpacked how whiteness is neutralised within spaces of power and how that impacts on everyday lived experiences, particularly for Black Muslim women.

Her research interests lie across black feminism, critical race studies, experiences of Muslims and Islamophobia, clothing practices, the presentation of identities in academia, and the valuing of different spaces of knowledge production.

The Racial Justice Network paid tribute to Dr Johnson as “an incredible, inspiring anti-racist activist who we had the privilege of sharing spaces, ideas and laughter with. Our love goes out to her loved ones.”

Dr Johnson developed deep and sustaining collaborations throughout her career, including as founder of the Geographies of Embodiment (GEM) Research Collective, ‘a community of public scholars demanding and embodying liberation.’

On March 31, 2020, Dr Johnson publicly announced her battle with cancer, in a moving and candid piece titled Covid-19 and Cancer: Following Audre Lorde.” Writing in the Feminist Review, she said, “I have been processing the widespread anxiety caused by an illness that knows no borders and has no cure.

As my loved ones and colleagues know, in October 2017, I received a call that I had been dreading for the previous 10 years: the cancer had returned. Anyone who has dealt with that type of call before knows that this is one of those moments where your soul feels frozen in horror.

For so long, I felt trapped in a body (and a world) that kept on failing me and my hopes for the future. The threat of death entwined with a cancer diagnosis has made me starkly aware of how quickly and brutally my life could be cut short.”

In Dr Johnson’s own words, “Ultimately, I want my role to be about reminding everyone that we are always responsible for the collective.”

Dr Johnson is survived by her parents, Hakeem and Safuriat Johnson, and her siblings, Kamar, Rukayat, and Basirat Johnson.

Elham Asaad Buaras