West Indian childcare providers in Brooklyn: Creating community in public spaces and private places.
Item
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Title
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West Indian childcare providers in Brooklyn: Creating community in public spaces and private places.
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Identifier
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AAI3311218
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identifier
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3311218
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Creator
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Mose Brown, Tamara.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Barbara Katz Rothman
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Date
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2008
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Sociology, General | Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies
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Abstract
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Childcare labor is an integral sector of New York City's economic infrastructure. This dissertation is an ethnographic study of a community of West Indian childcare providers working in gentrified neighborhoods in Brooklyn, New York. My research illuminates a collective life among this group of women and their ability to preserve their West Indian culture through daily social interactions in public places. I learned from these women about the social world that is created based on ethnic identifiers such as food, language, and economic systems that shape workdays beyond the responsibilities of taking care of children. I observed how these childcare providers created community in both public and private spaces through the use of cellular phones and through labor organizing. Moreover, I discovered how public park employees and others engaged in the surveillance of childcare providers in public spaces. This research demonstrates the textures of childcare providers' daily work, not only the subordination they feel as employees, but of the continuous attempt to temporarily invert this subordination allowing providers to work with a sense that they are in control of how their workdays are shaped. It is this inversion that allows West Indian childcare providers to tolerate challenges and devise solutions to be carried out during their workday. Because childcare is embedded in the larger economic structures, providers view their work as unchangeable, therefore, negotiating public places in gentrifying Brooklyn proved to be an ongoing struggle for providers while at the same time providing them with social spaces needed to resist isolation.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
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degree
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Ph.D.
