Urban Black Women and the Politics of Resistance - (Politics of Intersectionality) by Z Isoke (Paperback)

About the Book

"Contemporary urban spaces are critical sites of resistance for black women. By focusing on the spatial aspects of political resistance of black women in Newark's Central Ward, this book provides new ways of understanding the complex dynamics and innovative political practices within major American cities. Activist women devote their lives to creating and sustaining clothing exchanges, sister-circles, rites of passage programs and other open and progressive spaces of struggle. In so doing, they transform blighted cityscapes into culturally symbolic homeplaces that nurture the life chances, leadership capacity of political efficacy of an emerging generation of activists. By documenting their political commitments and transformative projects, Isoke demonstrates how black women challenge, resist and transform converging systems of domination that circumscribe their lives"--

Book Synopsis

Contemporary urban spaces are critical sites of resistance for black women. By focusing on the spatial aspects of political resistance of black women in Newark, this book provides new ways of understanding the complex dynamics and innovative political practices within major American cities.

Review Quotes

"This is a powerful book that makes visible the political labor of black women in all its forms. The author broadens our understanding of black women's resistance to include both traditional acts of political engagement as well as black women's work to build social capital and create political spaces of engagement The women in this book are engaged in producing transformation in their city and communities, but Isoke also highlights the fluidity that surrounds their identities, political ideologies and strategies of engagement. This work destabilizes any idea of a monolithic black politics or a monolithic black feminist politics by paying attention to the interventions of queer and hip hop activists. This is an important book that builds on and extends our understanding of how intersectionality is enacted by black women at the local level." - Cathy J. Cohen, David and Mary Winton Green Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago

"Zenzele Isoke's Urban Black Womenand the Politics of Resistance provides much-needed research on Black political women's constraints and possibilities in implementing resistance politics in one of the U.S.'s most noted cities grappling with neoliberalization, structural inequality, and a patriarchal Black political machine. Wedding attention to race, class, and sexuality with insights from Black feminist geography, Isoke offers an innovative, deeply interdisciplinary approach to Black feminist research on Black Politics." - Nikol G. Alexander-Floyd, associate professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Rutgers University-New Brunswick and author of Gender, Race, and Nationalism in Contemporary Black Politics

About the Author

Zenzele Isoke is Assistant Professor, University of Minnesota, USA