Negotiating *difference and constructing belonging: Urban, African American professional-managerial workers.
Item
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Title
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Negotiating *difference and constructing belonging: Urban, African American professional-managerial workers.
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Identifier
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AAI9986367
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identifier
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9986367
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Creator
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Prince, Sabiyha Robin.
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Contributor
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Adviser: Leith P. Mullings
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Date
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2000
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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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Anthropology, Cultural | Sociology, Ethnic and Racial Studies | Black Studies
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Abstract
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A dearth of anthropological research on African American professionals has left major gaps in our knowledge of contemporary black life in the United States. This segment of the African American population more than doubled during the 1970s. While research in this area holds tremendous potential, only a handful of ethnographic studies have examined the lives of upwardly mobile blacks. A focus on socioeconomic fragmentation can expand the view of African American life by engaging questions of intra-racial differentiation and the impact of dissimilarities on identity formation, processes of historical change and other important topics.;Looking at the communities of Central and West Harlem in New York City, this study explores the locus, form and significance of socioeconomic differentiation for African American professional-managerial workers (PMW). It starts by considering centuries of New York City history and the structural elements of class inequality to present readers with the larger context of contemporary events. The primary objective of this study is to examine the everyday lives of black professionals in Harlem and determine what bearing income-generating activities have on ideology, consumption patterns, and lifestyle, among other factors. I also examine the relationships women and men maintain with other African Americans in their neighborhoods and networks of kin and friends.;This trajectory of ethnographic inquiry reveals the complex and contradictory ways African Americans have expressed and thought about racial belonging and how they have negotiated the many fissures and fragments of group membership. In theorizing about the interstices of race and class among black PMW in New York City, this study also interrogates the "middle class" concept and its utility for explicating processes of socioeconomic differentiation among African Americans.
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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.
