In Shapeshifters Aimee Meredith Cox explores how young Black women in a Detroit homeless shelter contest stereotypes; critique their status as partial citizens; and negotiate poverty; racism; and gender violence to create and imagine lives for themselves. Based on eight years of fieldwork at the Fresh Start shelter; Cox shows how the shelter's residents—who range in age from fifteen to twenty-two—employ strategic methods she characterizes as choreography to disrupt the social hierarchies and prescriptive narratives that work to marginalize them. Among these are dance and poetry; which residents learn in shelter workshops. These outlets for performance and self-expression; Cox shows; are key to the residents exercising their agency; while their creation of alternative family structures demands a rethinking of notions of care; protection; and love. Cox also uses these young women's experiences to tell larger stories: of Detroit's history; the Great Migration; deindustrialization; the politics of respectability; and the construction of Black girls and women as social problems. With Shapeshifters Cox gives a voice to young Black women who find creative and non-normative solutions to the problems that come with being young; Black; and female in America.
#230641 in Books Duke University Press Books 2000-11-21Original language:EnglishPDF # 1 8.30 x .59 x 5.62l; .52 #File Name: 0822325934192 pages
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