Preface vii
Acknowledgments xi
Part I. Terrain
Introduction 3
1. "We Came Here to Be Different": The Brown Family and Remapping
Detroit 38
Part II. Scripts
2. Renovations 81
3. Narratives of Protest and Play 122
Part III. Bodies
4. Sex, Gender, and Scripted Bodies 155
5. The Move Experiment 185
Epilogue 237
Notes 243
References 263
Index 273
Aimee Meredith Cox is Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies at Fordham University.
"Cox shows that 'Black girls’ lives matter' and how their
voices articulate that. This ethnographic study of young
black women and girls is an essential read and companion to the
larger picture of African American lives in urban settings, which
are often mired in poverty, crime, and despair. However, this
rare study brings hope rather than hopelessness as it delves into
the heart of human expression and gives voice to a will to live
beyond any limitations of what poverty may dictate in contemporary
North America."
*Choice*
"This lively book, Cox’s account of her work as a
participant-observer in a Detroit homeless shelter for teen girls,
reveals both the many obstacles faced by young women of color and
the creative ways in which they use self-expression (language,
music, fashion, and dance) to find a new way to live otherwise. The
stories, harrowing and fascinating, shine a light on the lives of
our least empowered citizens—teenage African American girls—while
Cox’s thinking helps us see the power of being able to
shape-shift."
*Public Books*
"A creative and compelling ethnographic study, Shapeshifters
challenges us to revise the ways we think, write, and theorize
about young black women, starting with making their voices and
self-analyses the subject of the book. Rather than analyzing the
girls’ narratives through the lens of academic theories, even those
of black feminists, Cox asks that 'we open ourselves up to a
conversation with them.'"
*Public Books*
"Shapeshifters is an engaging, powerful read of the lived
experience of young Black girls’ lives that intersects with race,
class, gender, and agency, providing a fresh perspective on
citizenship, change, and standpoint."
*Gender & Society*
"While so much urban ethnography excludes women altogether, and
black women in particular, Shapeshifters centers young black women,
not simply as the subject of the book, but as authors of a world.
Shapeshifters proceeds from a position in which black life matters,
where young women are sharp eyed critics and citizen-subjects all
too aware of where their rights and responsibilities are limited or
truncated, and further aware (and willing) to adopt the innovative
tactics they need to surmount or work around said limitations."
*Anthropoliteia*
"It is movement—its unpredictability, its interactions with space,
and its many evolutions—that organizes Cox’s work and makes it an
invaluable contribution to studies of black girlhood, feminist
theory, and ethnography."
*TDR: The Drama Review*
"Shapeshifters is a courageous and rich exploration of the lives of
power and agency of Black girls and women. . . .
A theoretically rich and ethnographically sound body of
work."
*Journal of Negro Education*
"Any serious scholar working at the intersection of race and
gender, or at the nexus where theories of identity meet
conceptualizations of a just and inclusive polity, will benefit
from taking the time to engage with Cox’s work."
*Chronicle of Higher Education*
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