Strategies of Resistance in the Everyday

The Political Approaches of Black Women Living in a Public Housing Development in Chicago

Bibliographic Data

ID6409697
AuthorsAlex J Moffett-Bateau (0000-0003-3630-4199, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume44
Issue4
Pages525-547
Publication date2023-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueWomen & Politics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0195-7732 • E-ISSN: 1540-9473
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1554477x.2023.2248858
OpenAlexW4386601298
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited75

Black women living in poverty in the United States have been shown to develop non-traditional, or what I call extra-systemic, political engagement to combat their vulnerability to government power. With that in mind, I ask the following question: what conceptual framework of “politics” is best suited to fully understanding the politics of poor Black women living in the US? To answer this question, I examined an ethnographic case study of the politics of 31 Black women living in Chicago public housing, over the course of one year (2011 through 2012). The evidence suggests some marginalized Black women incorporate an oft-hidden resistance strategy against forces exerting a disproportionate amount of power over their lives. The political strategies used by the marginalized Black women I observed, were best understood using an expanded extra-systemic conceptualization of politics, informed by Black feminist political theory

Black women · Conceptualization · Government (linguistics · Political science · Politics · Poverty · Power (physics · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Vulnerability (computing · Gender Studies · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Migration, Refugees, and Integration · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies