Beyond White Urbanism: Agency in Black and Brown Spaces

Session Submission Type: Invited Session (90 minute)

Description

Urban sociology overwhelmingly focuses on marginalization when studying social phenomena, including segregation, crime, policing, and health disparities, to name a few. While important, this approach can obscure the complexity and agency of marginalized populations. It also promotes the dehumanization of Black and Brown people. Sociological research that fails to capture the everyday ways that racially marginalized groups resist domination and assert agency continues to center the white gaze both within our discipline and at our institutions. This panel builds on recent developments in Black and Latinx Sociology that simultaneously recognize the ongoing impacts of white supremacy, while centering local epistemologies, problem-solving, and strategies that emerge from marginalized communities. Understanding how groups engage in joy, meaning making, and agency is equally important for addressing structural inequality. Panelists identify new perspectives on the relation between race, space, and agency. They consider the multiplicity and complexity of communities of color in urban areas. More specifically this panel will address issues of taxation, growth-oriented politics, grassroots social infrastructure, collective joy, and representation in majority Black and Latinx spaces.

Sub Unit

• Thematic Session

Presider

• Zaire Z. Dinzey-Flores, Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Panelists

• Teresa Irene Gonzales, Loyola University Chicago

• Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana, University at Albany, SUNY

• Amaka Camille Okechukwu, Johns Hopkins University

• Angela Marie Simms, Barnard College-Columbia University

• Nicole Elise Trujillo-Pagan, Wayne State University

Session Organizer

• Nicole Elise Trujillo-Pagan, Wayne State University