Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2006. / Ralph E. LaRossa, committee chair; Elisabeth O. Burgess, Charles A. Gallagher, Romney S. Norwood, committee members. Electronic text (264 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed June 29, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 222-248).

Previous research on grandparents as kinship care providers demonstrated that grandparents are confronted with both challenges and rewards. Using qualitative research methods, I examined the lives of 35 black aunts who served as kinship care providers for nieces and nephews. I found that grandparents and aunts experienced increased time demands, financial burdens, and family stress. However, this study demonstrated that aunts’ experiences differ from grandparents’, due to the younger age of aunts and the fact that aunts are of the same generation as the biological parents. Moreover, I found that aunting, or the care and nurture of children by aunts and great-aunts, is gendered and invisible work that, at the most basic level, salvages children’s lives. Salvaging children’s lives involved three non-linear stages: making the decision to become a kinship care provider, transitioning from aunting to parenting, and parenting nieces and nephews. I utilized a synthesis of symbolic interactionism and black feminist thought as a theoretical framework that examines how the meanings that black women attach to family influence their definitions of self and affect their decisions to act on behalf of family members. These findings extend the research on black women’s lives and on kinship care within black families. I used a narrative style that allows the respondents’ voices to be heard, as these are their stories. I offer suggestions for future research, as well as outline a number of policy and theoretical implications. This research is important because black children are disproportionately represented within the child welfare system. If interventions and policies are to influence other black women or black men to accept responsibility for many of the most at-risk children in their families and neighborhoods, research must explore and report the challenges, sacrifices, costs, and rewards of becoming kinship care providers within black families.

Aunts are constantly perceived as extended family members designated to support the nuclear family according to western familial traditions. Previous research has consistently relied on said traditions for studying Aunts within different cultures. Consequently, this hegemonic ethnography has not only hindered the ability of Aunts to be examined through other cultural perspectives, but it actively reinforces their role as universal, assuming everyone adheres to western family structures. This study will utilize data from TikTok in identifying and examining the social role of Black Aunts in the African American community through Afrocentricity and Africana Womanism. Contrary to the initial research, Black aunts’ responsibilities stem from West African traditions. My findings will indicate that Black aunts serve multiple roles within their communities necessary for survival, entertainment, cultural memory, and aid / Africology and African American Studies