APADS COLLOQUIUM 2026

Maroon Geographies: A Preliminary Defense

Doctoral Dissertation

MAROON
GEOGRAPHIES

A Black Methodological Framework Rooted in Fugitive Epistemology, Cosmological Sovereignty, and Diasporic Memory

Meya E. Hargett, MA
Pepperdine University GSEP | Doctor of Education in Leadership K-12 | May 2026
Pepperdine University GSEP

Three-Article Dissertation Structure and Literature Review

Three-Article Dissertation Format — Pepperdine University GSEP

Article 1
Journal of African American History (JAAH)
JAAH documents and interprets the African American historical record, centering Black history from the colonial era to the present.
  • Recovery of Samuel Mars as unrecognized station master
  • Southern maroon network and Underground Railroad routes
  • Maroon Geographies Framework and coded WPA narratives
Article 2
Journal of Black Studies (JBS)
JBS advances interdisciplinary inquiry into African and African American culture, politics, education, and social institutions from an Afrocentric perspective.
  • Diasporic Maroon Memory Theory and its 10 branches
  • The Nefertiti Effect and Ankh Epistemologies
  • Cosmological Sovereignty and Diasporic Commons Theory
Article 3
Journal of Negro Education (JNE)
JNE focuses on educational research, policy, and practice that centers the educational experiences and advancement of African Americans.
  • Techno-Vernacular Framework for liberation
  • LMS site design for sovereignty and digital freedom
  • Diasporic digital infrastructure and sovereign authorship
◆  Three-Article Dissertation Structure  ◆

Chapter 1 · Introduction

The Recovery of
Samuel Mars

  • Unrecognized station master operating from southern maroon territories.
  • Anchored a segment of Frederick Douglass’s southern escape network.
  • His absence is archival silence structured by necessity, protection, and maroon epistemology.

Chapter 1 · Literature Review

Background of the Problem

American Exceptionalism

  • Belief in distinct moral destiny (Bellah, 1992)
  • Treats power as proxy for virtue
  • Conceals structural exclusion (Lipset, 1996; Smith, 2015)
  • Rewards compliance over collective care

Counter-Narrative

  • Centers maroon and fugitive epistemology
  • Recovers erased Black and Indigenous resistance
  • Prioritizes ancestral accountability
  • Challenges archival silence as neutral
vs
MAROON GEOGRAPHIES · Hargett, MA · Pepperdine University GSEP Chapter 1: Introduction & Literature Review

Threefold Purpose of the Study

1
Recover

Establish Samuel Mars as an abolitionist figure whose legacy expands the known contours of Black and Indigenous resistance.

2
Demonstrate

Apply Diasporic Maroon Memory Theory, Memory Line Methodology, and the Maroon Geographies Framework to recover marooned histories.

3
Introduce

Cosmological sovereignty frameworks reframe leadership as moral praxis grounded in diasporic memory and ancestral accountability.

Diasporic Maroon Memory Theory DMMT

A sovereign epistemological framework for recovering maroon and Afro-Indigenous knowledge
Core Assertion
Maroon knowledge persists through encoded cultural, spiritual, and geographic forms.
Elevates Afro-Indigenous cosmologies as sovereign repositories of truth.
Centers recovery and intergenerational continuity, not trauma.
Oral history, naming, and spatial reference are treated as valid data.
Foundational Citations
King, 2020  · Price & Price, 1983  · Scott, 1991  · DeGruy, 2005  · Du Bois, 1903  · Fanon, 1967

The Ten Branches of DMMT
Diasporic Maroon Memory Theory
01
Diasporic Maroon Memory Theory
Memory, resistance, and Black epistemologies.
02
Ancestral Praxis Framework
Embodied ritual and family memory as data.
03
Maroon Geographies
Fugitive landscapes as intellectual sovereignty.
04
APT (Ancestral Practice Technology)
Rootwork and signal-making as resistance.
05
Lineage as Method
Genealogical fragments as primary sources.
06
Vernacular Archives
Barbershop discourse to memes as knowledge systems.
07
Vernacular Archives Expanded
Veilwalk, GrapeCode, and Presence-in-Absence.
08
Chrono-Coded Memory
Looped memory and inherited grief as timekeeping.
09
Earth-Based Testimony
Land and soil as archive and witness.
10
Maroon Mysticism
Ancestral dreams as legitimate epistemology.
Each branch constitutes a sovereign methodology within the DMMT theoretical architecture, together forming a unified framework for recovering marooned histories.

Memory Line Methodology

01
Embodied Knowledge
Begins from the researcher’s inherited and ancestral knowledge, body and lineage as the first archive.
02
Oral & Spatial Data
Collects oral history, narrative inquiry, and land-based signals, community voices and geography as evidence.
03
Symbolic Coding
Decodes silences, spatial repetition, and absence as evidence, what is missing is as meaningful as what remains.
04
Triangulated Recovery
Verifies through geographic correspondence and lineage, multiple independent streams confirm recovered histories.
Silences in the archive are data.
Andrews et al., 2006 · Smith, 2011 · Gilmore, 2018

Maroon Geographies Framework
Fugitive Landscapes as Intellectual Sovereignty
Framework I
Encoded Landscapes
Swamps, forests, and graveyards as active resistance systems, not passive refuges. Geography as agent of survival.
Framework II
Dismal Swamp Corridors
Virginia, Carolina, and Louisiana Dismals as networked survival routes, corridors of coordinated clandestine movement.
Framework III
Keetoowah Alliance
Indigenous warriors established crossings and ritual knowledge for safe passage across contested geographies.
Minges, 2003
Framework IV
Coded Wayfinding
Tree markings, water sounds, and burial placement as geographic map, embodied cartography encoded in landscape.
M.C., 1849; Hargett, 2024
Great Dismal Swamp historical landscape
Dismal Swamp
Great Dismal Swamp — networked corridor of maroon resistance

The Nefertiti Effect

Original Counter-Ideological Framework, Hargett, 2025
Pillar I

Counter-Ideology

  • Replaces institutional domination with moral accountability
  • Directly challenges American Exceptionalism in organizational design
Pillar II

Theoretical
Grounding

  • Constructivist epistemology (Creswell, 2013)
  • DMMT and Ancestral Praxis Technology (Hargett, 2025)
Pillar III

Leadership as Praxis

  • Rooted in belonging, reflection, and diasporic accountability
  • Service framed as ancestral remembrance and resistance

Ankh Epistemologies of Black Liberation

1
Ancestral Invocation as Method
Spiritual grounding opens inquiry.
2
Lineage-Centered Curriculum
Design rooted in ancestral knowledge.
3
Call and Response Pedagogy
Dialogic, participatory teaching.
4
Spatial and Embodied Learning
Body and place as pedagogical site.
5
Evaluation as Accountability
Assessment tied to communal obligation.
6
Research as Ritual Integration
Inquiry as sacred practice.
Foundational Theorists
Du Bois · Woodson · Fanon · Lorde · Collins · hooks · Wynter · McKittrick
Exemplar
Harambee Weusi Shule Initiative

Lineage as Method & Sovereign Authorship

Lineage as Method

RECOVERING HISTORY THROUGH INHERITED KNOWLEDGE
Family memory, naming patterns, and land ties as legitimate historical sources. (Du Bois, 1903; Asante, 1991)
Leader named as inheritor with obligations to past and future. (Dei, 2017; Wynter, 2003)
DNA read as one signal alongside oral testimony and land memory, not stand-alone proof. (Benjamin, 2019)

Sovereign Authorship

DEFINING IMPACT ON ANCESTRAL TERMS
Liberatory Infrastructure , archival and digital ecosystems rooted in communal continuity. (Noble, 2018)
Legacy Through Lineage , scholarship that clears paths for intergenerational thinkers. (Gates, 2022)
Autonomous Impact , success defined by ancestral accountability. (hooks, 1994; McKittrick, 2006)
Maroon Geographies — A Black Methodological Framework
Memory is method. Leadership is inherited responsibility.

Triangulated Findings, Samuel Mars Confirmed

Documentary Evidence 1849
  • M.C. letter published in Frederick Douglass’s North Star directly references Mars and the southern escape network, a rare primary source linking Mars to Douglass confirmed through archival research.
  • Cross-referenced documentation verifies Mars’s role within the southern abolitionist network.
Narrative Coding, WPA Slave Narratives
  • Dr. DeGruy’s Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome (DeGruy, 2005) applied during coding across five WPA narrative volumes.
  • Coding identified concealed resistance practices embedded throughout the narratives.
  • Analysis revealed coordinated networks of Diasporic defiance organized toward liberation.
Oral and Lineage Knowledge Ongoing
  • Hargett family memory and Keetoowah tribal testimony confirm Mars as station master and spiritual steward.
  • Collaborative Indigenous kinship networks corroborate the southern abolitionist network, affirming Mars’s documented role.
Converging sources of empirical evidence confirm Samuel Mars is recovered.

Key Takeaways

Maroon Geographies
1
Samuel Mars expands the abolitionist record beyond the North, southern maroon resistance is recoverable.
2
DMMT, Memory Line Methodology, and Maroon Geographies provide sovereign tools for recovering erased histories.
3
The Nefertiti Effect reframes leadership as service, belonging, and ancestral accountability.
4
Ankh Epistemologies and Diasporic Commons build institutional infrastructure for liberation.
5
Freedom is spiritual geography.Memory is method.Leadership is inherited responsibility.
Meya E. Hargett, MA | Pepperdine University GSEP | May 2026

References

Ahmed, S. (2012). On Being Included. Duke University Press.
Bell, D. (1992). Faces at the Bottom of the Well. Basic Books.
Bellah, R. N. (1992). The Broken Covenant. University of Chicago Press.
Benjamin, R. (2019). Race After Technology. Polity Press.
Collins, P. H. (2000). Black Feminist Thought. Routledge.
Creswell, J. W. (2013). Qualitative Inquiry and Research Design. SAGE.
Dei, G. J. S. (2017). Reframing Blackness and Black Solidarities. Springer.
DeGruy, J. (2005). Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. Joy DeGruy Publications.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The Souls of Black Folk. A.C. McClurg.
Fanon, F. (1967). Black Skin, White Masks. Grove Press.
Hargett, M. E. (2024). Maroon Geographies Framework. Unpublished manuscript.
Hargett, M. E. (2025). Diasporic Maroon Memory Theory. Pepperdine University.
Hartman, S. (2008). Lose Your Mother. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to Transgress. Routledge.
King, J. E. (2020). Black Studies and the Promise of Transformation. Routledge.
Lipset, S. M. (1996). American Exceptionalism. W. W. Norton.
M.C. (1849, February 9). Letter. Frederick Douglass’s North Star.
McKittrick, K. (2006). Demonic Grounds. University of Minnesota Press.
Minges, P. N. (2003). Black Indian Slave Narratives. Blair Publishing.
Noble, S. U. (2018). Algorithms of Oppression. NYU Press.
Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons. Cambridge University Press.
Pease, D. E. (2009). The New American Exceptionalism. University of Minnesota Press.
Price, R., & Price, S. (1983). First-Time. Johns Hopkins University Press.
Scott, J. C. (1991). Domination and the Arts of Resistance. Yale University Press.
Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing Methodologies (2nd ed.). Zed Books.
Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization, 1(1), 1–40.
Wynter, S. (2003). Unsettling the Coloniality of Being. CR: The New Centennial Review, 3(3), 257–337.
Maroon Geographies Framework