When mainstream institutions fail to provide adequate avenues for black Americans to develop humanizing understandings of their identities and exclude them from full citizenship, how do black Americans develop identity, belonging, and community within structures of oppression? Through ethnography and archival research this study documents how the aesthetic realm historically and contemporarily serves as a site of articulation where rural black Americans recast notions of black subjectivity and local belonging. To understand the process of rural black Americans using the aesthetic realm to reposition the importance of mainstream institutions, this research uses a 'socio-diasporic' framework to view the ways those socially positioned as black come to understand that positioning via the way institutions structure their day-to-day reality; and how through the forging of diasporic connections black people have been able to construct knowledge within, alongside, and independently of those institutions. Specifically, this ethnography situates the criminal justice system as a primary institutional apparatus in defining the societal significance of blackness in northeast North Carolina. Hip-hop has served as a performative avenue to engage negotiations of identity, and through this search for identity black centered epistemological and ontological understandings of black subjectivity have been created. To appreciate black Americans' unique understandings of the world that I argue they construct, I advance the notion of "vibe" as a methodological tool to conceptualize the way specific aesthetic and cultural sensibilities are used to construct understandings of blackness, gendered identity, and local belonging. / Doctor of Philosophy / When America fails to provide black Americans spaces to develop dignity and excludes them from full citizenship, how do black Americans develop identity, belonging, and community living in an oppressive society? Through living with rural black Americans and exploring how they understand their lived experience this study documents how the aesthetic realm historically and contemporarily serves as a space where rural black Americans reshape notions of black identity and local belonging. To understand the process of rural black Americans using the aesthetic realm to challenge the taken-for-granted structure of American society, this research views the ways those socially positioned as black forge community with each other and develop new ways of understanding their selves and society in ways that don’t squarely align with mainstream assumptions. Specifically, this ethnography situates the criminal justice system as a primary structure in America that shapes the significance of blackness in northeast North Carolina, linking what it means to be black to criminal. Hip-hop has served as a performative avenue to engage negotiations of identity, and through this search for identity black centered ways of understanding the world has been created that challenge American assumptions about humanity.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/100324 |
| Date | 18 April 2019 |
| Creators | Miles, Corey J. |
| Contributors | Sociology, Harrison, Anthony Kwame, Brunsma, David L., Copeland, Nicholas M., Faulkner, Brandy S. |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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