Black Womanhood, Occupations, and the Legacy of Labor

• In Event: Sociology of Sex and Gender Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 9. Labor and Occupational Cultures

Abstract

This paper is part of a book chapter from my book manuscript, Reverberations of Incarceration: The Carceral State and Black Womanhood. In short, this is a book about Black womanhood that focuses on reentry; this is not a book on reentry that focuses on Black women. The expected completion date is 2028. Reverberations of Incarceration: The Carceral State and Black Womanhood demonstrates how the experience of incarceration and the reentry process profoundly shapes the life course trajectories of Black women. Prisoner reentry is often framed as a process that eventually comes to an end. However, I argue the effects of incarceration continue to reverberate throughout the lives of Black women. Therefore, the reentry process is as a lifelong process. To support my argument, I focus on the concept of labor and its connection to understanding Black womanhood. Each empirical chapter analyzes a type of labor that is salient in the reentry process: (1) the labor of networking in the job search (2) the labor involved in their specific occupations (3) the labor of motherhood (4) the health effects of labor. Furthermore, I discuss the historical context of how labor has shaped the concept of Black womanhood and the exploitation of labor performed by Black women. In this chapter, I also focus specifically on the types of jobs wherein women were able to secure permanent employment. I discuss the different occupations the women held over time and the nature of the labor they performed and how this labor connected to their carceral status. This chapter also includes their narratives of work and occupations before and during incarceration to present a fuller picture of their work history and how carceral stigma has shaped their work history after release. Similarly to chapter four, I focus primarily on the experiences of Black women who have been in the reentry process the longest and in turn, had the longest work histories.

Author

• Erica Banks, Smith College