Heather Merrill

Heather Merrill is a Professor of Africana studies at Hamilton College, a geographer, and an anti-racist scholar. She is of Jewish and Hungarian origin. She grew up in New York city and Southern Massachusetts, where she attended public schools. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon, and also lived in Niger and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. She has lived for long periods of time in Italy since 1990 while researching immigration and the African diaspora there. Her work examines black geographies, including lived experiences among people of the African Diaspora in Italy, and racial structures of knowledge. Her most recent book, Black Spaces: African Diaspora in Italy (Routledge 2018), examines Blackness and anti-blackness among African Italians, immigrants, and refugees in contemporary Italy. This book may be useful to those interested in racial and ethnic concerns in the United States.