Committee:
Fatma Gocek, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, University of Michigan, Dissertation Chair
Karin Martin, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, University of Michigan
Paige Sweet, Ph.D., Department of Sociology, University of Michigan
Tiffany C. Fryer, Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Cognate Member
Shani Roper, Ph.D., Curator, UWI Museum, University of the West Indies, Special Member
My primary teaching and research interests are in Black girlhoods, critical ethnography, decolonial approaches to social research, gender and sexuality, qualitative methods, sociology, and Black studies/Black study. In my dissertation research, I use critical ethnography, focus group data, and interviews to witness and understand how Black girls attending high school in Kingston, Jamaica negotiate the transition to adulthood along the backdrop of Jamaica's contested sociopolitical histories and contemporary social violence. More broadly, my dissertation investigates the collateral consequences of historical and contemporary violence on everyday social life in independent Jamaica, by attending to the enduring impacts of colonialism and other iterations of political violence, as well as the persistence of colorism(racism), classism, sexism, and gender-based violence. I situate the capital city of Kingston, Jamaica amidst discourse on race, sexuality, agency, and age, specifically discussing the racist colonial legacies of morality, reproductive coercion, social control, and performance, and how these definitions circumscribe the lives of my interlocutors.
Entitled “‘Yuh Tink Yah Big Ooman?’: Power, Violence, and the Transition to Adulthood in Kingston, Jamaica'', my dissertation explores the intersections of power, empire and coloniality, performance, gender(ed) socialization, and violence. The study pays special attention to how girls negotiate their agency at home, in school, and in their communities, including how they resist and push back against negative public perceptions and respectability discourses concerning their behaviors, activities, and their bodies. The study employs 26 months of critical ethnography, which includes 42 interviews across public, private and NGO sectors, as well as focus groups and surveys from 79 high school girls (ages 14- 19 years old) across nine local high schools. It asks the central question: How do Black girls narrate their coming of age in Kingston, Jamaica? I argue that local (interactive) factors intersect with communal, national, and global processes to shape not only the duration but also the content and form of paths leading from Black girlhood to adulthood.