Abstract
Prior research examining political behavior outside of the United States, has shown that violence can have a mixed impact on political engagement. Building on that work, this research examines whether violence shapes the political lives of poor Black women within the United States. I argue, neighborhood violence in the United States can and often does, shape the political behavior of Black women living below the poverty line in public housing. I use ethnographic data to parse out a conceptual framework which articulates connections between residential violence experienced by Black women living in poverty and their politics. Ultimately, my analysis shows violence can cause isolation and harm, and in doing so dampen political engagement. When residents experienced high levels of violence and did not feel a sense of belonging or connection to their neighborhood, they rarely engage d in visible political behaviors. However, residents who expressed a sense of connection to their neighborhood continued to engage in politics. Those residents who had interpersonal relationships within their residential neighborhood, frequently maintained and sometimes further developed their individual politics, despite and sometimes in response to, personal experiences with residential violence.
Introduction
Scholars have noted the link between violence within the domestic United States, aimed at subduing Black people, and Black political consciousness (Davis 1983). Black women living within the United States have a long history of being disproportionately targeted by sexual violence, criminal violence, domestic violence, state-sponsored brutality, and systemic violence (Carter and Willoughby-Herard 2018; Feimster 2011; McGuire 2011). Unfortunately, the socio-political impact of residential violence domestic to the United States has been understudied. Recently, more scholars have begun studying how knowledge of police violence shapes the political attitudes of Black people in the United States across age and gender (Weaver, Prowse, and Piston 2019; Prowse, Weaver, and Meares 2019; Williamson, Trump, and Einstein 2018; Soss and Weaver 2017; Lerman and Weaver 2014). However, research has shown there are meaningful differences between the socio-political impact of experiencing violence firsthand, versus learning about local violence secondhand (Brison 2002; Bateson 2012; Clark et al. 2008; Blattman 2009; McGuire 2011).
As a result, there is a pressing need for political science to assess whether firsthand experiences of residential violence within the United States, shape individual politics and socio-political tools. Accordingly, in this article, I shift away from the study of more public forms of anti-Black state-sanctioned violence, usually experienced by Black men, and occasionally video recorded and made viral for the world to see (Bryant-Davis et al. 2017; Laniyonu 2019; Loyd and Bonds 2018). Instead, I focus on the more gendered forms of residential violence, typically experienced by Black women and femmes behind closed doors, violence which eclipses easy distinctions of public and private (Ritchie 2017; Balfour 2015; Haley 2016; Miller 2010; Hill-Collins 1998, 2017; Williams 2012; Lentz-Smith 2020; Roberts 1999; Feimster 2011; McGuire 2011; INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence 2016).
Previous research demonstrates that knowledge of publicly visible police brutality directed toward Black communities impacts the political attitudes and behaviors of Black populations across race, gender, and class demographics (Francis 2018; Hooker 2016; Laniyonu 2019; Lerman and Weaver 2014). I build on that research by asking if studying individual firsthand experiences with residential violence, can help develop conceptual frameworks with the capacity to holistically and accurately assess the politics and socio-political tools utilized by adult Black women living below the poverty line. Race and politics scholars have shown how critical spatial contexts are to the political development of Black people living below the poverty line (Cohen and Dawson 1993; Cohen 1999; Burch 2013; Michener 2018; Michener 2017a; Williams 2005). Building upon that research, I argue that socio-political community networks within residential neighborhoods are critical to mitigating the harmful socio-political effects of residential violence (Hanchard 2010). In short, without a comprehensive understanding of the interpersonal social networks and spatial contexts within Black communities, scholars cannot achieve a complete understanding of the politics of secondarily marginalized Black communities (Cohen 1999; Cohen and Dawson 1993; Huckfeldt 1980; Rios 2011). To advance this argument, I examine a single case study, within which I analyze the experiences and survival of day-to-day forms of residential violence (via crime, interpersonal relationships, the state, and agents of the state, etc.), and the impact on the socio-political lives of poor Black women living in Chicago public housing (Feldman and Stall 2004; Ritchie 2017).
My case study evidence suggests that residential violence can shape the long-term socio-political development of individuals who experience residential violence firsthand. When residential violence happens, the degree of the individual connection to the local socio-political community becomes central, not only to the survival of the individuals victimized by residential violence but also to the full expression of their humanity (Isoke 2013; Williamson 2016; Berger 2006; Watkins-Hayes 2019; Perry 2013).
I begin the article with an articulation of the conceptual and theoretical frameworks undergirding this article. Both concepts, the socio-political community, and residential violence, are concepts based on Black feminist political theory. I then lay out the methodological approach, as well as the case study the article is based on. Next, I describe the socio-political context of the case study; The City of Chicago, and the Altgeld Gardens and Phillip Murray Homes Development, a public housing development within the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA). The following section provides an overview of the article's findings. Last, I present a qualitative data analysis of four subjects who best represent the key findings from the larger sample. Finally, I demonstrate the theoretical and analytical possibilities of the socio-political community and residential violence concepts. Together, they facilitate a more complete understanding of the politics of Black secondarily marginalized communities within the United States.
The Conceptual Framework
It is important to note, I am not making a causal argument, instead, I work within this article to develop two conceptual frameworks, socio-political community, and residential violence. Quite simply, I created these concepts in an effort to understand the socio-political context of an understudied population, whose socio-political knowledge and prowess go unseen (Michener 2019; Prowse, Weaver, and Meares 2019). Due to the number of respondents who participated in my research, I cannot claim the case featured in this study is widely applicable to all Black women, or all Black communities within the United States more generally. However, the case provides important insight into the political lives of secondarily marginalized populations (Cohen 1999; 2010; Berger 2006; Watkins-Hayes 2019). The concepts I develop herein provide a roadmap for future researchers seeking to further understand the complex socio-political context of secondarily marginalized populations within the United States. My case study data clarifies the need to broaden the understanding of spatial contexts, violence within the United States, and the unique nature of secondarily marginalized socio-political communities. This is key to protecting, and developing, socio-political tools within secondarily marginalized individuals and groups. Simply put, the concepts I put forth in this study may be applicable to a variety of populations. But it is up to future researchers to determine the proportions of socio-political impact when different populations, in different contexts, have firsthand experiences with residential violence.
Future research can determine whether the politics of all Black women will be shaped in similar proportions by firsthand encounters with residential violence. Ultimately, with this study, I show that residential violence and membership within the local socio-political community can have a deep and lasting effect on the development, and sustenance, of political life. In sum, I clarify that the socio-political community is critical to understanding how systemic and structural harm can sometimes be mitigated within secondarily marginalized populations (Hanchard 2010). Significantly, in order to mitigate the potential harm of residential violence, my research shows that the solution lies within the local socio-political communities of secondarily marginalized communities.
Theoretical Framework: Residential Violence + Black Women's Politics
The case I discuss and analyze within this article uses data I collected via ethnography and in-depth interviews in 2011–2012 with thirty-one Black women living in Chicago public housing. In 2011 Altgeld Gardens, the public housing development my respondents lived in, was relentlessly beleaguered by residential violence (Grotto, Cohen, and Olkon 2008b; Mignot 2011; Hudson 2009). As Patricia Hill Collins made clear, violence is not limited to physical and criminal violence, or the threat therein (Hill-Collins 1998). Within this article, I develop residential violence as a conceptual framework which builds upon, and extends, violence research developed by an interdisciplinary subset of scholars (Bufacchi 2007; Richie 2012; Ritchie 2017, 2021; Rios 2011; Venkatesh 2002; INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence 2016; Roberts 1999; Crenshaw 1991; Hill-Collins 2017; Lipsky 2010; Berger 2006; Watkins-Hayes 2019, 2009). To start, my conceptualization of residential violence aggregates a number of different characterizations of violence throughout the literature. By doing so, residential violence as a concept, allows scholars to have a firmer grasp on the pervasive and unyielding nature of the everyday residential violence encountered by people living below the poverty line within the United States.
Methodologically it is tempting to try and compile a disaggregated list of violent acts and assess their individual impact on the political lives of poor Black women. However, this approach misses the pervasive nature of violence in the everyday lives of Black women living in public housing. For the Black women in this study, violence is not something that happens once or twice in a lifetime, it is an omnipresent constant. Whether it is in the form of illegal gun play outside of their apartments, police officers who force themselves into a respondent's home, street harassment, robbery, carjacking, gang activity, an abusive family member, or even sexual assault. Each of these forms of residential violence contributes to a spatial context where the experience of violence is a persistent and unrelenting force in the lives of Black women living below the poverty line. The question is not, what type of violence has the greatest impact on their lived political experience. Instead, I examine what the firsthand (and ongoing) experience of pervasive residential violence does to the political development of Black women living in poverty.
Too often, violence research within political science is limited to the international or comparative politics context (Bateson 2012; Blattman 2009). Previous violence research has disaggregated violence into innumerable categories, in an attempt to piece apart its impact on the individual life. However, studying violence in this way, prohibits a clear understanding of the ever-present and seemingly inescapable nature of everyday residential violence experienced within some Black neighborhoods across the United States. In order to accurately assess how firsthand experiences with violence can shape the politics and socio-political tools of individuals and groups, scholars must begin by grappling with the totalizing experience of residential violence within many Black neighborhoods surviving below the poverty line.
To this end, Beth Richie’s (2012) understanding of violence is critical to my conceptual formulation (Richie 2012). Residential violence includes, but is not limited to, “the more subtle—but nevertheless threatening—ways that Black women are vulnerable to male violence by punitive social services, degrading public policy and rigid institutional regulations” (Richie 2012). The conceptualization of violence herein is a more holistic and comprehensive understanding of violence, which acknowledges the blurred lines between “public” and “private” forms of violence. Because the violence Black women encounter often happens behinds closed doors, it is dismissed as being a matter of the private domain. However, my conceptualization of residential violence, acknowledges that distinctions of public and private violence's are nonapplicable to populations who live on properties owned and operated by the state, and are subject to constant and perpetual surveillance (e.g., public housing, prisons, state hospitals, psychiatric institutions, etc.) (Cohen 1999; Western 2007; INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence 2016; Richie 2012; Ritchie 2017; Washington 2006). The definition of residential violence I offer here, includes violent crime, domestic violence, police violence, medical violence, and bureaucratic violence, among other types. Specifically, the bureaucratic violence the state perpetuates through street-level bureaucrats with state-granted authority to remove children from homes or take away food stamps (Roberts 1999; Lipsky 2010). I also include the neoliberal push toward an increasingly privatized public housing management which demolishes entire neighborhoods and developments for profit (Lipsky 2010; Watkins-Hayes 2009; Goetz 2013; Popkin 2016; Hunt 2010; Spence 2015; Hackworth 2014).
In a more general sense, Bufachi's framing of violence as a “loss of integrity” is especially useful for understanding how residential violence manifests itself (Bufacchi 2007). Whether the loss of integrity happens within the mind or the body, it often has a physical manifestation in the lived experienced of the victim (Bufacchi 2007; Brison 2002; Albertson and Gadarian 2015). The psycho-physical manifestation of residential violence has critical consequences for the development and maturation of healthy political life. Whether it is traditional or quotidian politics, politics requires presence, in one form or another: on the phone, in person, online, etc. In other words, the nature of participating in politics requires the act of being present, participating, and/or giving voice to something. This kind of physicality (whether analog or digital) is nearly impossible without a feeling of safety. A loss of integrity means speaking or participating in political or civic life, is no longer possible.
Two variables within my case study data had the most significant impact on respondent description of their politics and socio-political tools, (1) the amount of residential violence the respondent experienced firsthand within their neighborhood, and (2) the degree to which respondents felt they belonged or felt connected to their local socio-political community (or any socio-political community). The role of the local socio-political community proved to be crucial in mitigating the impact of firsthand experiences with residential violence, on the socio-political lives of the Black women within this study. Ultimately, belonging mattered because it signaled a level of interconnectedness to their local socio-political communities, which served as a measure of protection against residential violence (Dawson 1994; Gay, Hochschild, and White 2016; Masuoka and Junn 2013). Residential violence isolated and harmed some individuals in a way that dampened the socio-political tools they described to me in their interviews. Respondents who experienced high levels of firsthand residential violence and who seemed to lack a clear sense of connection to their local socio-political community, tended to describe themselves as alienated or apolitical. Ultimately, many of these respondents did not engage with anyone who was connected to their local socio-political community.
On the other hand, respondents who felt a sense of connection to the socio-political community within their neighborhood, described ongoing socio-political tools, even after violent encounters. Consistent with Regina Bateson’s (2012) research on violent crime in the international context, some respondents described their violent encounters as fueling the development of their individual politics and socio-political tools (Bateson 2012; Vélez, Lyons, and Santoro 2015; Lyons, Vélez, and Santoro 2013; Blattman 2009). I build upon Bateson’s (2012) research by studying a case which elucidates why some victims with firsthand experiences of residential violence further develop their politics, and others do not. My case study evidence suggests membership within the local socio-political community is what ultimately determines the individual socio-political impact of residential violence. Respondents with high levels of belonging to the local socio-political community are frequently motivated to further develop their politics after a violent encounter.
The study of Black women's politics is a growing subfield within political science (Prestage 1991; Harris-Perry 2011; Simien 2005; Farris and Holman 2014; Brown and Young 2015; Isoke 2013; Alexander-Floyd 2017; Brown 2014; Mitchell 2017; Jordan-Zachery 2014; Perry 2013; Gay and Tate 1998). While much of this research centers around Black women's participation in traditional electoral politics, there is a growing interest in Black women's extra-systemic politics (Jordan-Zachery 2018; Alexander-Floyd 2016; James 2016; Isoke 2013; Berger 2006; Watkins-Hayes 2019; Carter and Willoughby-Herard 2018; Simien 2006; Harris 2009; Cohen 2005). Similarly, a significant portion of the study of Black women's politics within political science focuses on Black women with the resources to engage in the aforementioned traditional politics.
However, the study of the politics of Black women living below the poverty line is also an ever-growing area of interest (Michener 2017b, 2016; Berger 2006; Watkins-Hayes 2019; Hancock 2004; Desmond and Travis 2018; Carter and Willoughby-Herard 2018; Perry 2013; Francis 2018; Lentz-Smith 2020; Michener and Brower 2020; Cohen 2004). The research I develop within this article, adds to the literature on Black women's politics, by focusing on the politics of secondarily marginalized Black women, many of whom have firsthand experiences with residential violence (Cohen 1999; Richie 2012). Collecting in-depth interviews and following women around as they went about their political lives, allowed me to foreground their experiences in this study (The Combahee River Collective 1974; Evans-Winters 2019; hooks 1981; Moffett-Bateau 2015; Collins 2000; Simien 2006; Alexander-Floyd 2017; Harris 2009; Roth 1999). Through integrating the Black feminist theoretical framework of centering the most marginalized within my work, I am able to discern the unique socio-political contributions being made by Black women who have learned how to survive residential violence and then move forward politically (Collins 2000; Simien 2006; Harris 2009; Dawson 2003; Hanchard 2006).
While traditional socio-political tools are noted throughout the article, I am particularly interested in everyday expressions of extra-systemic politics. My formulation of extra-systemic politics is informed by Michael Hanchard’s (2006) conceptualization of quotidian politics (Hanchard 2006). As a result, I will refer to politics as quotidian or extra-systemic interchangeably throughout the article. Scholars of quotidian politics have done important work recognizing the extra-systemic political engagement of marginalized populations living in poverty (Scott 1992; Kelley 1996; Hanchard 2006). As political scientist Michael Hanchard (2006) noted, the “explication of quotidian politics serve as a corrective to political and cultural analysis that reduces all politics to the state or macroeconomic factors,” in other words, politics (and violence) are about more than direct engagement with state institutions (Hanchard 2006; Kelley 1996). Hanchard's quotidian definition of the political is central to this project. In short, Hanchard argued politics is “the art of the possible, for opportunities and the lack of opportunities in a given situation or dynamic” (Hanchard 2006). Simply put, politics is the power to change what is, into something else.
Briefly, it is also important to note what Hanchard distinguished as non-political. He argued, “non-political acts are behaviors that are not generative of political community” (Hanchard 2006). For this reason, drive-by shootings and/or gunplay are non-political. While they may be moments of rebellion or deviance in the strictest sense, in reality, residential violence almost always causes a “breakdown of political community” (Cohen 2004; Hanchard 2006). Ultimately, my data demonstrates, when residential violence happens, relationships become central, not only to the survival of individuals, but to the full expression of their politics. Residential violence can, and often does, scar the development of individual politics, and more generally it shapes the socio-political tools of Black women living below the poverty line. In sum, residential violence can have a significant impact on the political lives of secondarily marginalized Black communities within the United States, exposed to a disproportionate amount of violence in its manifold forms (Sampson, Wilson, and Katz 2018; Morenoff, Sampson, and Raudenbush 2001; Brown and Weil 2020; Vélez, Lyons, and Santoro 2015).
Theoretical Framework: Black Feminism and Socio-Political Community
As I noted earlier, Black women living below the poverty line, who have been exposed to a disproportionate amount of violence, often develop creative, quotidian, and extra-systemic politics (Feldman and Stall 2004; Naples 1998; Levenstein 2009; Robnett 1997; Isoke 2011; Berger 2006; Hanchard 2006; Kelley 1996; Perry 2013). In order to better understand the unique politics of Black women living below the poverty line, I use the term “socio-political tools,” rather than political engagement, because the concept of socio-political tools has more breadth and flexibility. “Socio-political tools” can include traditional political engagement behaviors like voting, or extra-systemic behaviors like rioting. Significantly, the concept of socio-political tools also includes political behaviors and emotions, political dynamics, political ideologies, and/or political strategies which historically have been excluded by traditional definitions of politics and the political. In short, socio-political tools can include any method or strategy meant to subvert or push back against power structures, systems, institutions, individuals, state-actors, bureaucrats, and/or representatives, acting as an oppressive force in the life of an individual, or the lives of a socio-political community.
In order to better understand the socio-political impact of residential violence, I use Black feminist political theory to parse through the ethnographic data collected for this project (Moffett-Bateau 2015; Alexander-Floyd 2016; Harris 2009; Roth 1999). In doing so, I have developed a concept I designated, the “socio-political community.” This concept illustrates the centrality of belonging, to the development of individual politics and social-political tools (hooks 2008; Masuoka and Junn 2013; Wong 2019; Harris-Lacewell 2004). The conception of socio-political community I articulate in this article, also demonstrates how interpersonal relationships developed within socio-political communities, have the capacity to mitigate some of the social and political harms of residential violence. While they may occasionally seem powerless, secondarily marginalized Black communities in the United States have developed extra-systemic power, and subversive socio-political tools (Cohen 2004, 2005; Kelley 1996, 1997; Iton 2010; Hanchard 2006; Berger 2006; Isoke 2011). Notably, some of these tools are only passed down via the Black oral tradition within local Black socio-political communities (Hanchard 2003; Kelley 1996; Isoke 2011; Williams 2005; Williamson 2016; Collins 2000).
The framework of the socio-political community I develop in this article builds upon a diverse set of scholarship which interrogates political community as a socio-political concept (Hanchard 2010; Dawson 1994; Simien 2005; Dawson 2003; King 1988; Jordan-Zachery 2017; Alexander-Floyd 2017; Naples 1998; Gold 2014; Mouffe 1991; Mouffe 1993). Socio-political tools are birthed in the home and developed within the spatial context of residential neighborhoods (Huckfeldt 1980; Gilmore 2002; McKittrick 2006; Hayward 2012; Cohen and Dawson 1993; Williams 2005). The quality of a person's interpersonal relationships in their home and neighborhood, create socio-political tools informed by their spatial context (Bolland and Moehle McCallum 2002). Spatial qualities like basic building maintenance (e.g., heat, access to water and electricity, clean public throughways, etc.), state violence, poverty, domestic abuse, environmental racism, residential violence, and access to public space, all play a role in whether an individual learns and develops a firm and clear politics (Hayward 2012; McKittrick 2006; Trounstine 2018; Michener 2018; Gay 2004; Burch 2010; Bolland and Moehle McCallum 2002; Huckfeldt 1980). This matters, not only because the materiality of residential spaces (e.g., the neglect of the public housing infrastructure and the surrounding ecological space by the CHA) gives birth to a specific set of socio-political tools within its residents. But residential spaces also circumscribe the behavioral boundaries of members within the socio-political community (Huckfeldt 1980; Lipsky 2010; Bolland and Moehle McCallum 2002; Ralph 2014).
My data shows that the logics of politics are deeply tied to the relational bonds within socio-political communities, as other feminist and Black feminist scholars have shown before (Naples 1998; Isoke 2013; Watkins-Hayes 2019; Feldman and Stall 2004; Berger 2006). I build upon that work by interrogating the role the socio-political community plays within a violent spatial context. A sense of belonging is a critical mechanism needed to understand an individual's political identity (Masuoka and Junn 2013; hooks 2008; Harris-Perry 2011; Bolland and Moehle McCallum 2002; James 2016). To what extent does the individual feel they belong to their neighborhood? To their city? And to their nation? Because of the stigma and the lack of access tied to being a Black public housing resident, many respondents in the CHA understood their sense of belonging within the space of a couple of neighborhood blocks (Polikoff 2006; Burch 2013; Ralph 2014; Feldman and Stall 2004; Venkatesh 2002). As scholars have shown, the activism in public housing is often limited to a few city blocks, due to residential violence, gang activity, limited time and resources, and state monitoring (Williams 2005; Venkatesh 2002; Ralph 2014; Feldman and Stall 2004; Naples 1998; Burch 2013; Polikoff 2006; Sampson 2013).
Structures, institutions, spatial context, social norms, & culture, collectively create the politics of the individuals within a given socio-political community (Hanchard 2010; Scott 1992; Huckfeldt 1980; McKittrick 2006). The more restrictions citizens have on their ability/capacity to move from one place to another, the more unique and specific their socio-political community (and its socio-political tools) will be (Hanchard 2006; Perry 2013). Chantal Mouffe (1993) was correct when she argued the “free individual” (as understood in the contemporary western world) is only possible within the United States due to the specificity of U.S. socio-political history (Mouffe 1993). Similarly, nation-states and the populations who live within them, end up developing their own unique understandings of justice, as well as the socio-political community. Michael Hanchard (2010) defines political community, in part, as follows. The creation of political community necessarily entails more than recognizing a problem or phenomena, such as racism. It encompasses the combination of ideas, peoples, and practices mobilized in response to a set of circumstances that involves other political communities, peoples, and institution (Hanchard 2010).
Building upon Hanchard’s (2010) ideas about political community, within this article, I use the concept of “socio-political community,” to describe a voluntary grouping of people, who profess a sense of socio-political loyalty to one another. Specifically, socio-political communities are made up of people who intentionally, conspicuously, consistently, and publicly, attest to their mutually linked-fate (Mouffe 1991, 1993; Cohen 1999; Dawson 1994, 2003). In the case, I analyze within this article, the shared identity which linked the respondents’ fates was the residential neighborhood they lived in, as well as their shared race and class identities. In short, membership within a socio-political community requires members to understand their social identity, neighborhood, workplace, or circumstances (for example), as more than a descriptive identifier (Hanchard 2010). A socio-political community understands a shared reality, as a shared political destiny (Dawson 1994).
Central to the interventions of Black feminism within the social sciences, is an understanding politics (socio-political community in particular) is relational (Collins 2000; hooks 1981, 1994; Ransby 2005; Robnett 1997; James 2016). It is through interpersonal relationships, specifically, those relationships rooted within larger communities (residential communities, socio-political communities, digital communities, etc.), that Black women navigate the social and political impact of their intersectional stigmas, throughout their lives (Berger 2006; Watkins-Hayes 2019). For some Black women living in poverty within the United States, their socio-political isolation has created an environment where there are few places within the public sphere welcoming and encouraging of their political contributions (Polikoff 2006; Mitchell 2020; Naples 1998; Wilson Gilmore 2015; Gold 2014; Trounstine 2018). As a result, scholars of public housing politics, as well as Black feminist social science scholars, have noted community building, home-building, being in home spaces, and belonging, are all central to the politics of many Black women within the United States (Levenstein 2009; Williams 2005; Williamson 2016; Isoke 2013; Watkins-Hayes 2019; Berger 2006). Black feminist political theory provides a framework through which we can better understand how the intersection of politics and socio-political tools come together in the lives of Black socio-political communities within the United States (Ransby 2018; Carruthers 2018; Dawson 2003).
Scholars of mainstream feminist work, as well as scholars of Black feminist work, have successfully argued that residential spaces shape political behavior and identity (Feldman and Stall 2004; Gold 2014; Naples 1998; Williams 2005; Isoke 2013; Mitchell 2020). We also know friendship is an important site of political identity formation (Frazer 2008). Similarly, the social network literature points out that social networks shape political beliefs and engagement (Sinclair 2012; Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1996; Morenoff, Sampson, and Raudenbush 2001). What complicates this narrative within the social network literature in political science, is there is a significant need for more research on the effect poverty has on the shape of social networks (Desmond and Travis 2018).
Consider the following: if individuals live in public housing, they can be placed anywhere in their city upon submission of their application to the local housing authority. Given recent trends in public housing policy over the last twenty years (e.g., mass demolitions of high-rises and the purposeful dismantling of high-rise social support networks that were built over generations), many residents are placed in developments which isolate them from friends, family, and job opportunities (Polikoff 2006; Gay 2012; Goetz 2013; Popkin 2016; Fuerst and Hunt 2004). As a result of the CHA's Plan for Transformation, the social networks of those receiving public assistance are being tremendously—and forcefully—transformed (Massey and Kanaiapuni 1993; Goetz 2013; Feldman and Stall 2004; Gay 2012; Trounstine 2018; Chaskin et al. 2012; Popkin 2016; Hunt 2010). Betsy Sinclair’s (2012) framework for understanding social networks is critical, in order to understanding the connections between social networks and individual political development (Sinclair 2012). I extend her work in this article, by demonstrating that the social networks of individuals receiving various types of social welfare are in some ways defined by, and politically developed by, residential violence across the course of their lives (Weaver, Prowse, and Piston 2019; Prowse, Weaver, and Meares 2019; Soss and Weaver 2017).
Methodological Overview
Within this article, I examine the politics and socio-political tools of a group of Black women who were exposed to, and sometimes victimized by, pervasive residential violence. As Prowse, Weaver, and Meares (2019) noted, “subjugated knowledge offers a vital accounting of the American state and the democratic condition in our time” (Prowse, Weaver, and Meares 2019). Said more simply, the words, and the wisdom, of the women featured in this study, can facilitate a better understanding of the complex interactions between residential violence and the development of individual politics, in the hyper-racialized context of the United States. The ethnographic data and interviews I reference in this article are used to inform the development of a theoretical conceptual framework of the socio-political communities present in the lives of some Black women living in poverty. Specifically, I use my single case study to propose a set of concepts which could enable a more holistic understanding of the mechanics between secondarily marginalized populations, their socio-political communities, and the socio-political impact of firsthand experience with residential violence.
It is beyond this article to make any broad causal claims about the experiences of all Black women living in public housing within the United States. Instead, I use ethnography to bring attention to more subtle socio-political experiences large N survey's sometimes miss (Small 2009; McKeown 1999). As Bakshi et al. (2016) noted, “the traditional survey approaches … [come] at a cost. They constrain subversive forms of expression by avoiding the articulation of ideas that the researcher does not ask. Moreover, survey research can sacrifice dynamic interactions for replicability and generalization” (Bakshi, Meares, and Weaver 2016). In other words, by focusing on larger data sets, the more subtle nuances found in the fine details can be missed (Johnson 2021; Prowse, Weaver, and Meares 2019; Michener 2019). The ethnographic study I discuss in this article brings attention to the unique set of fears circumscribing the socio-political lives of this group of Black women living below the poverty line.
Ethnographic Case Study
Between April 2011 and April 2012, I conducted a year-long ethnography in the Altgeld Gardens and Phillip Murray Homes on the far South Side of Chicago, IL. I use case study methodology to examine whether firsthand experiences of residential violence within a public housing development in Chicago, shape the politics and socio-political tools of Black women living in the Altgeld Gardens and Phillip Murray Homes Public Housing Development within the CHA. I am using a single case study methodological design because case studies allow me to “understand real life phenomenon in depth … [while encompassing] important contextual conditions—because they … [are] highly pertinent to … [the] phenomenon of study” (Yin 2017). Through using the case study method, I can interrogate the shifting politics of CHA tenants. Within my study design, the context cannot be easily separated out from the case itself. More specifically, using the case study method facilitates the “study [of] a case when it itself is of very special interest. We look for the detail of interaction with its contexts. Case study is the study of the particularity and complexity of a single case, coming to understand its activity within important circumstances” (Stake 1996). I argue, Altgeld residents with firsthand experiences of residential violence, cannot separate those experiences from their politics and socio-political tools. Ultimately, violence within their residential spatial context had a deep impact on the development of the broader socio-political community within Altgeld Gardens, as well as the maturation of individual socio-political tools and politics.
I conducted a two-month pilot study in the Altgeld Gardens Housing Development in April 2012 to assess if the project would be feasible. To gain access to the development, I reached out to researchers and news reporters who had written and published past work about the Altgeld Gardens development. Two Altgeld community leaders were repeatedly recommended as potential initial points of contact: Bernadette Williams, the Local Advisory Council President of Altgeld Gardens and Cheryl Johnson, the President of the local community organization, People for Community Recovery (PCR). Cheryl is the daughter of Hazel Johnson, the founder of People for Community Recovery. A well-known Chicago environmental activist, Hazel was responsible for introducing a young Barack Obama to several residents within the development and was infamous for hosting him at her kitchen table. After Hazel's death, Cheryl followed in her mother's footsteps, staying within public housing in large part to continue her mother's work (Coffey et al. 2020). Altgeld Garden's has a long history of community activism and has been a critical site of public housing movement work in Chicago, too much to go into here (Polikoff 2006).
As is typical in case study methodology, I triangulated the data with three sources of information: in-depth interviews, participant observation, and archival analysis. I conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews with thirty-one Black women who were past and present residents of Altgeld Gardens. Collecting the interviews helped me develop a greater understanding of the context and nuances of respondents lives within the housing development and surrounding neighborhoods. The interview questions were organized around respondents’ life history, as well as how each person understood politics and socio-political tools. I took particular care to ensure the interviews examined how each respondent felt about Chicago public housing, as well as their feelings about the presence (and/or non-presence) of government actors in their daily lives. While each in-depth interview was based loosely on the same interview guide, I left the questions open-ended to allow each individual's narrative to develop. I did not aim to shape how the respondents told their stories. Instead, my research sought to get as close to an authentic self-description of respondents’ politics, and socio-political tools, as possible (Moffett-Bateau 2015). Once I reached saturation within the interview process, I sent all of the interviews to a professional transcriber. Once all of the interview transcripts were delivered, I thematically coded each of the interviews, as well as my field notes. The thematic coding focused on the socio-politics tools, and individual politics, articulated by the respondents.
Creating the Respondent Sample and Recruiting Participants
The case is defined by a sample of thirty-one Black women who lived within the CHA development, the Altgeld-Murray Homes. All respondents were over eighteen years old, and a diversity of age ranges were intentionally recruited. Respondents ages ranged from eighteen to seventy years old. To have a diverse sample, I recruited respondents by posting fliers throughout the housing development. I also recruited respondents via introductions made by Cheryl and Bernadette. A snowball or convenience sampling method was used as a third recruitment tool. Women who volunteered for the study and met the sample parameters were interviewed in their homes for their convenience and comfort. Each respondent was also compensated US$20. After their interview, each respondent was asked to voluntarily recommend other Black women living in Altgeld Gardens for the study.
This sampling method enabled a better understanding of the community, as well as the political and social networks of the respondents. As has been noted previously by other scholars, the political and social network of an individual has a meaningful impact on their political identity (Verba, Schlozman, and Brady 1996). As such, understanding the broad networks of the respondents provided analytical leverage when parsing out the political development of respondents. Given that respondents were recruited using four different points of entry (Cheryl, Bernadette, snowball recommendations, and fliers throughout the development), multiple social networks were engaged and analyzed throughout the study. Respondents were recruited and interviewed until the point of saturation, in other words, interviewing continued until, as Mario Luis Small noted, “each subsequent case … replicate[d] the prior ones” (Small 2009). The four cases below represent the most consistent themes repeated throughout the study. Ultimately I used a single case to construct conceptual categories which could help political science further examine the politics of secondarily marginalized groups (McKeown 1999).
Context
The single case used for this study is based in Chicago. The City of Chicago serves as a unique case study for my research, specifically an analysis of whether residential violence shapes the political lives of Black women living below the poverty line. Within the city boundaries, Black Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and White Americans live in distinctly different neighborhoods and communities (Polikoff 2006; Hunt 2010; Sampson 2013). As a result of this segregation, racial groups have vastly different lived experiences within the same city. While many Black Americans have little access to healthy food options, many Latinos lack access to basic social services (Sampson 2013). By contrast, White American neighborhoods on the north side have been beneficiaries of heavy economic and social development, in hopes of bringing greater tourism to the city (Sampson 2013). Meanwhile, minority residents within the City of Chicago are segregated in terms of housing, and social marginalization, as a result, most job opportunities bring them into contact with more privileged city inhabitants (Feldman and Stall 2004; Ralph 2014; Polikoff 2006).
Consequently, the Black communities in Chicago have a heightened awareness of the differential treatment their neighborhoods receive at the hands of local, state, and federal government (Polikoff 2006; Feldman and Stall 2004). This awareness, in turn, makes Chicago the ideal case study for an examination of the way in which residential neighborhoods can shape how residents understand their individual politics (Cohen and Dawson 1993; Bolland and Moehle McCallum 2002). News media frequently report on instances of violent crime, gang activity, and neighborhood deterioration, making public housing within the City of Chicago a constant source of public fodder for political outcry (Mignot 2011; Coffey et al. 2020).
Altgeld Gardens “sits in one of the city's most isolated areas. The nearest supermarket is miles away, and only one bus route serves the development” (Grotto, Cohen, and Olkon 2008a). Across the street from the Altgeld Gardens and Phillip Murray Homes are several abandoned steel mills; the area is actually an industrial site. As a result, residents frequently complain about the chemicals emitted from the old mills, and the illness this environment [allegedly] causes within the community. Altgeld Gardens was surrounded by industry and built on a toxic waste dump and sewage farm that had been created by the Pullman Palace Car Company decades earlier. The far south side of Chicago has been a dumping ground for industrial waste since the late nineteenth century, and it became officially sanctioned as the waste site for the whole metropolitan area when the city opened a large municipal dump there in 1940, five years before Altgeld Gardens opened. [At one point], about 250 underground chemical storage tanks actively leaked into the groundwater. Altgeld Gardens was also surrounded by approximately 50 landfills …
… The Chicago Housing Authority, which owned and operated Altgeld Gardens, made resident exposure even worse by ignoring what toxins were coming from the former waste dump underneath Altgeld Gardens, using building materials containing asbestos and dumping PCB waste at the site (Coffey et al. 2020).
Down the street from the old mills is a toxic landfill. Originally, the entire area was covered in the swamp. As a result, in 2003, past and present residents of Altgeld Gardens won a class action lawsuit against CHA because of CHA's failure to notify residents of the toxic PCBs below their homes (Brinson 2004). In 2003, residents of Altgeld Gardens received a $10.5 million settlement after they filed a class action lawsuit against CHA, accusing the agency of exposing them to medical risks linked to PCBs, which were released after employees dumped oil as they took copper from electric transformers. The settlement money went toward CHA tenants’ monthly rent (Johnson 2022).
According to residents, because of their exposure to such a broad range of toxins, abnormally high rates of cancer and asthma in young people who grew up on the development have been reported (Hudson 2009; Chase 2020; White and Hall 2015; Chan 2017; Grotto, Cohen, and Olkon 2008b). In 2011–2012, the development looked abandoned; there were more rows of abandoned/boarded-up homes than I was able to count. Notably, in 2011 the crime rate at Altgeld was double the City of Chicago's crime rate (Hudson 2009). The spatial realities described here, particularly the varying forms of residential violence (which includes environmental and bureaucratic violence) witnessed and experienced by residents, deeply affect the political development of those who lived within Altgeld, in marked and unique ways.
Findings
The multiple marginalizations of Black women living below the poverty line make them more susceptible to residential violence (Cohen 1999; Richie 2012). Beth Richie (2012) argued, the political ramifications of violence against poor Black women are compounded by their multiple sites of marginalization, “race/ethnicity, class, sexuality, age, disability, compromised legal status, and other conditions and marginalized identities [complicate] the experience of violence against women” (Richie 2012). Violent experiences can, and often do, shape the socio-political tools secondarily marginalized populations feel efficacious enough to use. Violence can have the power to shape who Black women understand themselves to be as members of their socio-political communities (Hill-Collins 1998; Brison 2002). Interpersonal connection to the community also seems to have the power to shape the politics and socio-political tools of Black women (Williamson 2016; Isoke 2013; Berger 2006).
I use the ethnographic data I collected in the Altgeld Gardens and Phillip Murray Homes development within the CHA, to develop a conceptual and theoretical framework. My conceptual and theoretical framework design is meant to help future scholars study the socio-political lives of secondarily marginalized populations, more holistically and accurately. The two concepts I lay out in this article are the “socio-political community,” as well as “residential violence.” As I mentioned earlier in this article, the findings herein are not meant to make causal claims. Instead, the theoretical understanding of the means through which belonging to the socio-political community, can sometimes mitigate the socio-political harms of residential violence, provide political scientists with greater insight into the utility of studying the spatial context and interpersonal networks, of respondents.
The two variables which had the most impact on how residents described their socio-political tools, were (1) the amount of firsthand residential violence they experienced and (2) the degree to which individuals belonged, and/or felt a sense of connection, to the local socio-political community. Ultimately, belonging mattered because it signaled a level of interconnectedness to the local socio-political community. Belonging and/or connection to the local socio-political community can serve as a measure of protection against residential violence (Gay, Hochschild, and White 2016; Masuoka and Junn 2013; Wong 2019; Isoke 2011). Belonging also means the resident felt an investment and commitment to the neighborhood that seemed to extend into their individual socio-political tools (Wong 2019). I go on to specify why a connection to the local socio-political community can help to mitigate some of the socio-political harm residential violence can cause in the next sections. In the following sections, I flesh out a selection of socio-political experiences described to me by four respondents, in order to illustrate the connection between residential violence and socio-political community. Specifically, how both concepts influence socio-political identity formation.
The Political Consequences of Isolation From the Socio-Political Community
This section features the narratives told to me by two respondents, Kate, and Laura. The socio-political lives of both respondents illustrate how varying levels of isolation and residential violence, impact the socio-political development of the Altgeld Gardens residents interviewed for this study. Kate and Laura were isolated from neighbors and residents within Altgeld Gardens, however, their levels of isolation and the subsequent socio-political impact, manifested differently. Kate had no relationships within Altgeld Gardens; however, she did have friends and family outside of the development. As a result, Kate occasionally engaged in politics in neighborhoods she remained connected to. Laura, on the other hand, described herself as having no interpersonal relationships outside of her nuclear family, as a result, the politics she described during our interview were almost completely alienated. As will become clear, without a sense of connection to some form of community, respondents seemed to find politics and social-civic engagement more broadly to be pointless.
For many of the respondents in this study, the residential violence they experienced occurred at the hands of the CHA. CHA can often serve as both a help and hindrance to residents within the Chicago Public Housing system. When I interviewed Kate, she was a newer resident to the Altgeld Gardens and Murray Homes. She was forty-one years old and moved to Altgeld Gardens in 2009. In the narrative Kate recounted to me, one of her firsthand experiences with residential violence occurred around her inability to leave Altgeld. Months before our interview, Kate's son was beaten up by approximately twenty children. Kate also witnessed multiple shootings and attacks near her apartment. Because of these experiences with residential violence, Kate requested an emergency transfer to move herself and her children out of the Altgeld Gardens and Phillip Murray Homes. Without a transfer approval from the CHA, Kate could not move to another public housing development in Chicago. Because of the violence, Kate fell into a deep depression and could not find steady work after she moved to Altgeld. She also struggled with making friends and developing relationships with her neighbors in Altgeld.
Although Kate requested help and an emergency transfer from CHA multiple times, they did nothing about the residential violence her family experienced. As a result, Kate described herself as paralyzed and stuck in a place where she had a pervasive sense of being in danger. Because Kate experienced multiple forms of residential violence, was new to the development, and had no socio-political community or institutional support, her politics were hardly visible, but her politics were not nonexistent.
Do you vote or participate in any political activities?
I vote. I haven’t participated in any political activities out here. I haven’t gotten involved in any political activities out here and I don’t know if it's because they … well, that's not true, the LAC, the Advisory Council has little forms and things, and I just attended the CHA listening forum they had …
You said you didn’t get involved in any political activities here, but have you done political activities elsewhere?
I helped a friend of mine. He was running for Illinois State Representative.
Ok, and what was that experience like for you?
It was interesting. Kind of get to see the inside of how it operates. You know, you’re normally on the outside being a voter, but this way you’re communicating with people, you’re asking them to be involved and you’re asking them to sign petitions and things like that. So just more community activity.
Kate was not very involved with political activities happening within the development. She rarely spoke to her neighbors or went to community events. However, as Betsy Sinclair (2012) noted in her study, friendship networks outside of the residential neighborhood often facilitate political behavior (Sinclair 2012). Because Kate kept in contact with a friend who eventually ran for Illinois State Representative, she took part in some of their get out the vote activities. In some respects, Kate could be defined as politically alienated because her politics did not include many of what are considered traditional socio-political tools. However, Kate occasionally took part in traditional political activities when asked by friends, and she envisioned her future self as being capable of leaving public housing and changing public housing policy for the better.
Laura was also new to the development. She was thirty-seven years old, and she moved to Altgeld Gardens in 2008. Laura was a good example of how institutional support without community support can still lead to the deterioration of political engagement. When interviewed, she had been living in Altgeld for three years. She had a job working in the CHA office on the Altgeld Gardens development, assisting other residents in one of the social services offices. Laura lived full-time with her partner, raising their children. On the surface, she received significant support via her partner and her institutional connections at her place of employment. However, Laura's lack of connection to the local socio-political community after three years left her afraid of life within the development. Her fear was exacerbated by anxiety that her apartment was located on one of the more dangerous blocks on the development. 1 Despite her acknowledgment that she lived on a section of the block which saw less residential violence because of its proximity to the bus-line, Laura remained hyper-aware of the potential for residential violence around her.
Throughout our interview, Laura emphasized her unwillingness to engage with other residents outside of what her employer required. Her job in the neighborhood CHA office meant she saw several Altgeld residents throughout the day. However, Laura did not feel she belonged to the local socio-political community, and outside of work she tried to avoid her neighbors. Many women throughout the study reported the use of similar tactics. As far as they were concerned, any verbal contact with other Altgeld residents was a risk too high for them to take. In the absence of having a community network, silence, and invisibility were their protective mechanisms of choice. However, this choice of invisibility came at a high cost. Heightened anxiety about whether her neighbors would target her or her children, meant Laura lived in constant fear of residential violence.
Where do you feel like you most belong? Where do you feel most comfortable?
Inside.
In this house?
Yeah, and up. I used to be Ok with down but then the shooting started. You know, out here, like I said, as each year went by things … you know you would think it would get better … I do tell people I will never give up on Altgeld because I believe it's going to get better.
So [for] you specifically … it's the second floor.
Yes. I mean, even though I know bullets can come up, but you have a more risk of chance of a lower level as far as … this block, we have been Ok. Where the excitement and activity is going on is in the back.
That's why you have all the covers on your windows?
Yes. Look at my back door. You can get up, yeah. This is just, you know… If this should drop [points to cans hanging from the door], I’m going to hear it. If this thing hits the floor, I’m going to hear it. I have my house rigged up … All my windows is like that. And that's pretty much not good, but I mean to make myself comfortable. That show you I’m serious about anything that you… this is what makes me feel comfortable … You not going to go to too many people's houses and see that. I been to work on my [personal] ABT [ADT] system, even though it's not in my budget, but I’m going to make it.
Laura took several daily precautions to help herself and her family feel safe. She constructed what she called “her personal ABT [ADT] system.” A system of traps covered the windows and the doors on the main floor. The back door was inaccessible; furniture and other items blocked it. The windows and front doors had noisemakers attached, so if anyone attempted entry, she would hear the intruders before they arrived on the second floor where her family spent the most time. Laura also covered the first-floor windows with heavy drapes she left drawn day and night, so no one saw the inside of her home from the street. She did not allow her children to talk about any of their belongings or to wear anything expensive at school. She believed by leading other children to think her family had nothing, her kids would be less likely to be assaulted by people within the development. Lastly, because of a rising number of shootings within the development, Laura asked her family to spend their time at home on the second floor to avoid stray bullets coming through the first-floor windows.
Between the reorganization of her home, the deliberation over how her family presented themselves, and driving her children the two blocks to and from school, Laura was exhausted. Her children were not allowed outside to play, so she kept them entertained indoors or took them elsewhere outside of the development. This was in addition to working a full-time job which required her to engage closely with the individual challenges of residents who lived in Altgeld. All considered, the emotional energy Laura spent throughout the week was enormous. Predictably, when I asked Laura if she took part in any organizations or groups, or took part in neighborhood activities, she emphatically said no. Instead, she insisted she did not take part in any activities or organizations within Altgeld, and neither did her kids. She limited her life to going to work, supporting her children with their education, and spending social time with her family. Laura's response clarifies the mechanisms at play when analyzing the socio-political tools of alienated, low-income people, particularly women. With so many stressors, including, but not limited to, work and family, they do not (always) have time or energy to take part in traditional politics (Soss 2002). When spatial realities like residential violence are considered in our analysis of politics, we get a fuller perspective on the limitations placed on the political development of secondarily marginalized groups (Huckfeldt 1980).
When I asked Laura whether she planned to vote the following year, she seemed ambivalent. This ambivalence was repeated by many of the respondents without personal ties to their neighborhood. Their anger and frustration around living in a development so stressful and fear inducing, was pervasive. With no genuine opportunity to move, their desire to engage in the socio-political community disappeared. After all, public housing residents cannot vote with their feet (Warren 2011; Bolland and Moehle McCallum 2002; Gay 2012). The spatial dynamics of Altgeld had a pervasive inter-personal effect because of the level of personal isolation respondents like Laura and Kate experienced (Hudson 2009). The seemingly arbitrary CHA policy which placed them on blocks they perceived to be especially violent, the trauma of witnessing residential violence firsthand, and in Kate's case, the violations encountered by her children, facilitated this isolation. However, Laura, unlike Kate, mentioned no non-familial friendships or ties; as a result, her politics seemed much closer to nonexistent. Not only did Laura exhibit a low sense of belonging to the local socio-political community she lived in, but she also exhibited almost no socio-political tools.
Political psychologist Bethany Albertson argued, anxiety “shapes how individual citizens interact with politics by affecting how they search for information, who they trust in times of crises, and their political attitudes” (Albertson and Gadarian 2015). However, because Albertson used a traditional definition of political engagement, she argued: “the resolution of anxiety comes from political rather than private behaviors and attitudes.” Thus, Albertson created a false dichotomy between public and private political space. As Naples (1998), Berger (2006), and Isoke (2013) showed, for Black women living in public housing, renting apartments that are owned, regulated, and surveilled by the government, the private and the public submerge into one political sphere (Naples 1998; Berger 2006; Isoke 2013; Pateman 1989).
Kate's testimony illustrates how the experience of residential violence, which included witnessing violence and direct assault, collapse in on the victim. She hesitated to apply for work requiring her to be away from home for eight or more hours a day because she felt a need to transport her children everywhere. Kate did not want them in her apartment alone because she feared they would be harmed, as a result, her children were never outside alone. In our interview, Kate discussed the difficulty of life before her car purchase because of frequent street harassment from male neighbors. Kate was hyper-aware of the residential violence around her, as well as deeply disturbed and paralyzed by that violence. Many respondents openly wondered in interviews about the purpose of the surveillance cameras CHA installed all over the development.
The respondents I interviewed insisted, gun play, robbery, and other forms of crime, never seemed to be documented via the cameras which were sometimes pointed at the front doors of resident apartments. Some respondents speculated the cameras were used to track who residents allowed to stay in their apartments, and surveil overall resident compliance with the rules set by CHA and the management company. The truth around the utility and use cases of the cameras by CHA is beyond the scope of this article. What matters here is the role of the cameras as a part of the spatial logics of Altgeld Gardens. Ironically, the cameras functioned as confirmation for many residents of the ambivalence the state had for their physical safety. Many respondents told me the CHA only cared about their compliance, not their well-being or safety.
In this way, the ecological realities of residential violence within urban environments can shut down the full expression of individual humanity. Residential violence often forecloses on the individuals desire to engage in politics, traditional, extra-systemic, community based, or otherwise. As Katherine McKittrick (2006) argues, “racism and sexism are not simply bodily or identity based; racism and sexism are also spatial acts and illustrate Black women's geographic experiences and knowledges as they are made possible through domination” (McKittrick 2006). Residential violence is inscribed onto the geography of the neighborhood, which works to restrict and reshape the socio-political tools of the Black women living within the development (Gay 2012, 2004; Popkin 2016; Desmond and Travis 2018; Kim and Bostwick 2020). When an individual is subsumed with fear they may be harmed at any moment, even attending to basic needs like getting food and going to work can be strenuous. Women I interviewed spoke about having bullets fly through their homes and police running through their houses in pursuit of a suspect. In this way, the home is not a guaranteed place of safety. If the home is not safe, and the neighborhood is not safe, why would anyone be expected to have the desire to participate in socio-political life?
The Political Impact of Belonging to Local Socio-Political Community
This section features the narratives described to me by two respondents, Mary, and Rita. The politics described to me by both residents, illustrate how critically important connections to the local socio-political community are to the development of socio-political tools that are publicly visible. When I interviewed Mary, she had been living in the Altgeld Gardens development for fifty years. At seventy-six years old, she saw the development change in dramatic ways; including watching multiple generations of young people grow up in Altgeld. As a result, when Mary talked about the development, she talked about the development with a sense of security and safety.
When you tell other people you live in Altgeld, how do they respond?
Look down. But that don’t bother me because I know where we live at is better than where they live at because we can leave our windows up. We can kind of leave our doors open. They can’t do that. And these kids, they fight among themselves. They don’t bother us. We don’t have really too many break-ins out here, you understand? In the city they’re going to break in, rob you … they don’t bother us like that out here. Now, it might get like that because we got newcomers now. But our old-comers, whose kids was raised up out here from generation to generation, like I said, they scramble among each other, you know. Even the worst child have told me, at nine o’clock I will be coming in, will tell me you out too late, it's bad out here Ma, you get in. He be the worst one out there but he's lookin’ out for me.
Scholars of public housing note Black women often develop systems of support and community within the public housing developments they live in (Bolland and Moehle McCallum 2002; Levenstein 2009; Feldman and Stall 2004; Gold 2014; Williams 2005). Throughout her interview, Mary frequently referenced a similar form of socio-political community, when she discussed the comfort she derived from knowing everyone around her. Although her health continued to deteriorate, she kept in touch with her neighbor-friends within the development over the phone (many of who were housebound themselves).
It is important to note, Mary experienced Altgeld as safer than most neighborhoods, despite the crime rate being 200% higher in Altgeld than in the rest of the city. Mary was not naïve; she admitted crime happened in the development. Instead, her experience of Altgeld was shaped by her membership within Altgeld's local socio-political community. If someone intruded on Mary's home, she believed her neighbors would intervene. Her interpersonal relationships and the management company placing Mary in an apartment in the back of the development with several other seniors, facilitated this. Many respondents noted that due to the low foot traffic, the back of the development seemed to be one of the safer places to live in Altgeld Gardens.
Mary built familial relationships across generations within the development. Mary's upstairs neighbor, a younger woman named Shonda a woman she met three years prior and who came to respect Mary and her position within the local socio-political community, became part of Mary's chosen family. Shonda and Mary developed a closeness critical to Mary's ability to function in her later years as a senior living in the development. Given Mary's inability to walk on her own, she could have easily ended up in senior housing, away from the socio-political community she spent most of her adulthood in. But as Mary herself noted, she would not leave the Altgeld community, no matter what happened. Anthropologists, sociologists, and historians have frequently noted the centrality of relationships within public housing (Williams 2005; Levenstein 2009; Gold 2014; Venkatesh 2002; Feldman and Stall 2004; Jones et al. 2021). However, the study of public housing within political science often misses the role relationships, woven together within neighborhoods, play in the wellness, survival, politics, and yes, happiness, of residents.
In the absence of firsthand experiences with residential violence, similar to what respondents like Kate and Laura experienced, Mary, socialized, worked, and led, as a mother of her local church. Mary's politics were highly engaged and visible, she was well known across the development, and she was influential amongst friends and neighbors. Mary was an example of someone with extra-systemic, or community-based, socio-political tools. Even though she did not [formally] work with any political groups or institutions on the development, Mary still had a sizeable amount of influence within the local socio-political community, because of the support and help she offered to friends and neighbors over the fifty years she lived in Altgeld.
Simply framing the dynamic of residential violence and socio-political tools, as causally negatively linked would be a mistake (Bateson 2012). Take Rita for example, an Altgeld resident who was younger than Mary, but older than Laura and Kate. When I interviewed Rita, she was fifty years old, and she moved to Altgeld Gardens seventeen years prior. Rita used to live in the Robert Taylor Homes before the demolition, and she had significant experience with working the many bureaucratic hurdles CHA throws at residents who make requests of any kind (Hunt 2010; Chaskin et al. 2012; Chicago Housing Authority 2010). She moved to Altgeld Gardens in 1987 after testifying at a trial against a resident in the Robert Taylor homes. Over time, Rita learned how to access CHA resources as needed. Unlike Kate, when Rita needed an emergency transfer from CHA because her life was being threatened, Rita had the organizational knowledge of CHA bureaucracy, as well as political connections within the bureaucracy, to advocate for herself and successfully push for her transfer. In other words, Rita had a number of socio-political tools that Kate did not have.
Since arriving at Altgeld, Rita was active within the community, she attended local organizing meetings, and participated in other forms of traditional politics. During her time at Altgeld, Rita once again became institutionally, organizationally, and bureaucratically well connected. This knowledge about the neighborhood and the inner workings of the development helped Rita develop the confidence she could care for herself and her community.
So have you ever had any problems with robbery or being stuck up?
My son.
So he was robbed [while] walking around [Altgeld]?
Going over here to the garbage. Yeah. A boy walked up to him and his friend and stuck them up. He didn’t have but $10 on him, and I always told my kids if you got some let it go because your life is more important. You can always get that money again.
They had a gun …?
The two boys, my son and the other boy, said they didn’t know if he had a gun or not, but he was in his coat with his, they don’t know if it was finger or gun. You know, you can’t take a chance ‘cuz you don’t know. So he gave it to them. But they’ve been doing a follow up with me, you know. The police. And the boy, we contact him and I came and talked to him and he told me, Ok, I’m going to give your son is money back ‘cuz I was wrong.
Oh, so you went and talked to him.
Hm-hmm. I had seen him walking to the Rosebud Farm and I had asked him why did you take my son's money, why did you do that. He was like I’m sorry; we didn’t have no food, this, that and the other. And I was like, well, you shouldn’t do stuff like that ‘cuz you could of easily got yourself killed. But now he waves at me and everything.
And you weren’t afraid to go talk to him?
No because I had heard this kid had been sticking up other people out here.
So that was pretty brave of you to go talk to him!
Yeah, yeah. (Laughter) I used to do security work back in the day and stuff so I try to be a little cautious. You don’t come to a kid in a rough tone of voice and everything, sometime you get a little information out of them, you know. And the problem, really: what's going on and the reason he's doing it.
Instead of being paralyzed by fear when her son was robbed at gunpoint, Rita used her knowledge of the community to find a solution. She found the name and address of the child through the network of the local socio-political community within Altgeld. In turn, knowing the identity of the child, transformed him from an anonymous “violent predator,” to a kid from the neighborhood whose family was struggling with food insecurity. This allowed Rita to feel safe and secure enough to go find the child and to figure out why he robbed her son. Critically, Rita did not experience this incident as residential violence; instead, it was a problem she could resolve. Rita's lifelong experience in public housing taught her how to navigate its spatial logics, to protect as well as benefit, herself, and her family.
What is crucial here is what it means to experience residential violence. Often, violence causes an individual to feel a loss of control over their lives and their bodies in some fundamental way (Brison 2002). When Rita found herself under threat of residential violence while living in the Robert Taylor homes, and after her son was robbed at Altgeld Gardens, she asserted a level of socio-political competency over what both violent experiences could do to her life. The experience of not feeling fully violated by Altgeld Gardens allowed for a fuller expression of Rita's politics (Brison 2002; Bufacchi 2007; Richie 2012; Bateson 2012; Morenoff, Sampson, and Raudenbush 2001; Hill-Collins 1998). During our interview, Rita mentioned the importance of her attendance at the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) meeting once a month. She would go to find information about crimes committed on the development, and issues reported in the neighborhood during the previous four weeks. By going to the CAPS meetings at the local police station, Rita stayed informed about her neighborhood, and its socio-political community.
Rita's relational labor had immense socio-political value. Her information gathering transformed residential violence from some unknown, unpredictable specter, to a spatial reality with certain logics and targets. Information gathering also functioned as one of Rita's most important socio-political tools. Through her conversations with local law enforcement, neighbors, friends, family, and community organizations, Rita created a more balanced view of the neighborhood she inhabited. Specifically, it provided her with a holistic and accurate understanding of the local socio-political community, from Altgeld's edges to its interior. This view allowed Rita to share critical information with her friends and neighbors. In this sense, knowledge really was power. Rita's engagement with the local CAPS meetings allowed her to build institutional relationships that could assist her during times of need. When Rita faced residential violence within the Robert Taylor Homes, her socio-political tools in the form of her institutional relationships and bureaucratic knowledge, facilitated her acquisition of an emergency transfer. Rita's sense of safety, self-empowerment, and self-efficacy allowed her to build similar kinds of institutional relationships with local police, bureaucratic relationships with CHA employees, organizational relationships with local activists, and interpersonal relationships with neighbors, at Altgeld Gardens.
Through gathering information, building relationships, and engaging in an ongoing information exchange with neighbors, secondarily marginalized Black women living below the poverty line in neighborhoods with high rates of violence, can develop visible and effective socio-political tools (Desmond and Travis 2018; Sinclair 2012; Mitchell 2020; Williamson 2016; Berger 2006; Watkins-Hayes 2019; Williams 2005; Harris-Perry 2011; Simien 2006; Alexander-Floyd 2016; James 2016; Naples 1998). Political engagement is not simply constituted of singular [traditional] political actions. Instead, politics constitutes a set of behaviors done in concert with other people, to shift the reality of things within a given socio-political community (Eliasoph 1998; Hanchard 2006; Mouffe 2005; Kelley 1996). In this sense, membership within local socio-political communities expresses a belief change is possible for the individual and the community. The belief in a future, including, but not limited to, a cleaner neighborhood, access to jobs, and a safe, daily, lived experience, allowed women like Rita to participate in their own lives publicly and visibly. Simply put, women who believed changing the material reality of their world was possible, used their socio-political tools in a way which reflected that belief. In this sense, Rita's politics leaned towards the more efficacious end of the political spectrum.
Do you feel like a member of this community?
There's two of the ladies I know that moved from Robert Taylor out here. She was saying ohh; I hate it over in this Block. They talk about Block 10, that they hate it over here. They be like oh; I wish they’d have moved me over where you at because you got it peaceful and quiet and ya’ll keep it clean right along here. I say the reason we keep it clean too because a lot of times when people go to the liquor store and the store up here; they come through here. ‘Cuz, we get good compliments a lot of times in the summer. People be like why is ya’ll stuff so clean through here! When you get to the other part, they be like what happened over there! I be like no, it's not like that, it's that we all on this row, we try to keep it a little decent, you know.
Here, Rita described the commitment on her block to keeping their portion of Altgeld Gardens clean. Although a lot of foot traffic went through her block because of its proximity to the development liquor store and the basketball courts, Rita, along with her neighbors, kept their block clean of debris. In a highly politicized residential space like Chicago public housing, a refusal to give in to presumptions about the development, and/or the benign infrastructure neglect forced upon residents by CHA, becomes a means through which residents can assert political self-determination (Michener 2018; Feldman and Stall 2004; Hunt 2010). In short, neighborhood cleanup became another signal of Rita's belief in the political possibilities present in her community's future. Depressed respondents were politically disengaged from the local socio-political community and had no desire to leave their homes, let alone take part in activities with their neighbors (Brison 2002; Albertson and Gadarian 2015). Rita's desire to clean up stemmed from a deep desire to provide support to her block, and the larger Altgeld community.
Throughout the interview, Rita mentioned her participation in get out the vote activities for various Chicago politicians over the years. She reflected on campaigns for candidates like Harold Washington, Carol Moseley Braun, and her district alderman. Not only did she participate in these activities, but she brought along neighborhood kids from her former residence, the Robert Taylor Homes, and her current home, the Altgeld Gardens and Phillip Murray Homes. In this way, Rita acted as a socio-political bridge-leader, linking younger people with socio-political tools they otherwise may not have accessed (Robnett 1997; Roth 1999). In contrast to earlier respondents, Rita was relatively fearless in her willingness to pass out leaflets in a variety of neighborhoods. These activities required an enormous amount of socio-political confidence, as well as a sense of safety. As ethnographers have noted, many people living in low-income neighborhoods rarely venture farther than the major streets around their community (Pattillo 2013; Sampson 2013; Trounstine 2018; Huckfeldt 1980). In Altgeld, as more new residents moved in from across the city, the rates of violence continued to rise. When faced with this, Rita did not limit her mobility, her sense of security and safety provided her with the opportunity to do political work throughout her socio-political communities.
Conclusion
The narratives described by the four respondents above represent the most consistent, and emergent, themes throughout my ethnographic research at the Altgeld Gardens and Phillip Murray Public Housing Development on the far south side of Chicago. Central to my research is the use of Black feminist methods and Black feminist political theory. Specifically, paying close attention to the words and experiences of my respondents. Black feminist methods facilitated the development of a conceptual and theoretical framework to help scholars engage in a more holistic, comprehensive, and accurate, assessment of the socio-political lives of secondarily marginalized populations generally, and secondarily marginalized Black communities within the United States more specifically (Cohen 1999; Collins 2000; Simien 2006; Harris 2009; Dawson 2003; Alexander-Floyd 2017; King 1988; Jordan-Zachery 2014; Roth 1999; Moffett-Bateau 2015). Beyond that, through the understanding of residential violence as a multi-pronged dynamic not limited to the physical violation, residential violence helps researchers develop an enhanced comprehension of the ever-present and everyday nature of localized violence in the lives of secondarily marginalized populations within the United States (Rios 2011; Richie 2012; Ritchie 2017; Feimster 2011; McGuire 2011; Alexander-Floyd 2016; Mitchell 2020; Balfour 2015; Haley 2016; Krivo, Peterson, and Kuhl 2009).
Within this article, I also fleshed out a framework for understanding the mechanisms of connection between residential violence, socio-political community, and political development within Black women living below the poverty line. Individual political development amongst the respondents within my ethnographic single case study, depended upon, (1) the amount of firsthand residential violence the respondent experienced in their neighborhood, and (2) the degree to which the respondent felt they belonged and/or felt connected to their local socio-political community. In other words, residential violence isolates and harms some individuals in a way which dampens their politics, as well as their socio-political tools. This political dampening appears to be particularly exaggerated within individuals who have varying levels of isolation, from their residential socio-political community, and/or any socio-political communities. For individuals with firsthand experiences of residential violence, the higher their level of isolation from [any] socio-political community, the more pronounced their social, civic, and/or political alienation. However, respondents with varying levels of belonging and/or connection to their residential socio-political community and/or any socio-political communities, experience some mitigation of the harm residential violence inflicts on individual political development. For individuals with firsthand experiences of residential violence, the higher their level of belonging and/or connection to their local socio-political community, the lower the impact of residential violence on their individual political development. Some mitigation of residential violence induced socio-political harm, can happen via connection to any socio-political community, anywhere. However, in this study, the closer [geographically] the analog socio-political community, and the stronger the sense of belonging to that socio-political community, the stronger the mitigation of the harm residential violence inflicts on individual political development. 2
Respondents who experienced high levels of residential violence firsthand within their neighborhood and did not feel they belonged to their local socio-political community, were infrequent participants in politics. However, respondents who felt an ongoing sense of connection via their interpersonal relationships within their residential neighborhood (or former neighborhoods), maintained and sometimes further developed their individual politics, in spite of, and sometimes in response to, personal experiences with residential violence (Bateson 2012; Blattman 2009). In short, residential violence can shape the long-term political choices of residents (Rios 2011; Ralph 2014; Garcia, Taylor, and Lawton 2007; Brison 2002). When an individual experiences residential violence firsthand, relationships become central, not only to the survival of the individual but to the fullest possible expression of their humanity (Isoke 2013; Williamson 2016; Berger 2006; Watkins-Hayes 2019; Perry 2013).
Belonging mattered because it signaled a certain level of interconnectedness to the local socio-political community, which served as a measure of protection against residential violence (Gay, Hochschild, and White 2016). Belonging to their local socio-political community fueled the respondent with a sense of investment and commitment to the neighborhood, which seemed to extend into how respondents described their politics and socio-political tools (Wong 2019; Masuoka and Junn 2013). I argue, belonging to the local socio-political community, fuels political development via an increased sense of political efficacy. Respondents who were connected to their local socio-political community, were more actively involved in local organizations and residents’ groups, which tended to provide informal political education, and information dissemination. Belonging to a local socio-political community with a shared political imagination in regard to what is possible for the community's future, combined with political education, seemed to increase respondents’ sense of what is politically possible for their community. On the practical end of things, respondents with higher levels of belonging to their local socio-political community simply had more places to go when violence disrupted their safety and/or well-being at home. For respondents within my study, higher levels of belonging to the local socio-political community also seemed to facilitate additional access to resources within the private management company, CHA, and/or the many social-service organizations and companies on the development. Within public housing, as in life, survival comes down to who you know.
Black communities living in residential neighborhoods where they are victims of re-occurring residential violence, experience a significant portion of their socio-political lives transformed by the absence of safety (Brison 2002; INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence 2016). Politically, this means you have entire groups of secondarily marginalized communities who do not feel safe, and as a result are not engaging in any form of public and/or visible politics. A democracy with segments of the population restricted in this way is not a fully functioning democracy. It is not enough to say poor people and/or individuals with less formal education have lower levels of political participation. Instead, political scientists, most take on research which examines the socio-political lives of those communities in the United States where the absence of safety has made any form of political participation a significant risk. Social scientists have established that individuals living in poverty create unique and nontraditional means of expressing their membership in the socio-political community, however, if we do not continue the study of residential violence in the United States, the differentiations between traditional political engagement and quotidian political engagement, will no longer matter (Scott 1992; Kelley 1996; Berger 2006; Watkins-Hayes 2019; Feldman and Stall 2004; Levenstein 2009; Hanchard 2003; Perry 2013).
Within this article, I illustrate a need for additional analyses of the interpersonal networks and spatial contexts of secondarily marginalized communities. Places like Altgeld, where spatial characteristics, like residential isolation, envrionmental racism, infrastructure neglect, state surveillance, violent crime, and state-sanctioned violence, complicate what we know about social networks (Sinclair 2012; Huckfeldt 1980; Bolland and Moehle McCallum 2002). Secondarily marginalized populations, particularly those living below the poverty line, require an analysis accounting for the spatial obstacles to active and fully developed politics (Cohen 1999; Rios 2011; Venkatesh 2002; Garcia, Taylor, and Lawton 2007; Ralph 2014). The respondent examples I’ve analyzed within this article, illustrate that the spatial contexts of neighborhoods, beyond the level of income, need closer consideration. As social scientists, we must pay attention to the spatial realities within neighborhoods. The residential violence experienced, and the level of belonging an individual feels in connection to their local socio-political community, are critical factors in understanding individual politics and socio-political tools.
Regardless of socio-economic status, if an individual is surrounded by daily residential violence, and believes they have no meaningful way of protecting themselves or their family, they are unlikely to participate within their local socio-political communities. It is meaningful that many of the women who felt threatened by the violence within their neighborhoods, placed their children in schools outside of the Altgeld Gardens development complex when they had the resources to do so (car, time, tuition, etc.). When interviewing individuals who live in urban environments with high rates of crime and violence, political scientists should ask respondents how they perceive and manage that violence. Going forward, researchers of American politics must consider the role domestic U.S. violence plays in the political development of the total population, nationwide.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
Collaborative to Advance Equity Through Research on Women and Girls of Color, University of Connecticut - Storres, CT. Carter G. Woodson Pre-Doctoral Fellowship, University of Virginia - Charlottesville, VA. Research Initiative Grant, University of Chicago.
