Imagining Black Womanhood, livre ebook

Imagining Black Womanhood illuminates the experiences of the women and girls of the Girls Empowerment Project, an Afrocentric, womanist, single sex after-school program located in one of the Bay Area's largest and most impoverished housing developments. Stephanie Sears carefully examines the stakes of the complex negotiations of Black womanhood for both the girls served by the project and for the women who staffed it. Rather than a multigenerational alliance committed to women's and girls' empowerment, the women and girls often appeared to struggle against each other, with the girls' "politics of respect" often in conflict with the staff's "politics of respectability," a conflict especially highlighted in the public contexts of dance performances. This ground-breaking case study offers significant insights into practices of resistance, identity work, youth empowerment, cultural politics and organizational power.
List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Girls Empowerment Project
2. Controlling "The Urban Girl"
3. Girls Empowerment Project's Emergent Culture of Empowerment
4. Girls Empowerment Project's Organizational Structure and Power Matrix
5. Africentric Womanist Femininity Meets Decent Girl Femininity
6. Dance Lessons
Conclusion: Imagining Black Womanhood, Imagining Social Change
Appendix: Interview Guide
Notes
Works Cited
Index