CAREER: Kinship, Community, and Alternative Networks of Care in Contexts of Precarity

In times of social isolation, the importance of social relations comes into sharp relief, particularly for marginalized communities who experience biomedical, environmental, and public upheaval. As communities adapt to uncertainty amid a global pandemic and societal unrest, it is imperative to ask what new cultural forms will arise in the wake of social rupture.

This project will examine how alternative networks of care are forged within marginalized communities, and whether they are transformed when stressed by heightened social isolation, precarity, and unrest. The project provides funding for the training of both graduate and undergraduate students in methods of empirical, scientific data collection and analysis, and contributes significantly to broadening the participation of groups historically underrepresented in science.

It also builds scientific infrastructure and capacity through the fostering of research collaboration between universities and local communities, and increases public literacy of science and the scientific method by making findings accessible within a range of public settings.

With the support of a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award, the researcher will conduct a multi-phase, longitudinal project that explores how African Americans create and navigate space within rapidly changing social, physical, and political landscapes. Research questions addressed will include: What is the relationship between kinship, race, and physical space?

How do marginalized individuals build physical spaces of interpersonal connection, sociality, and kinship within a context of marginalization? How might physical spaces produce or transform kinship? The research will unfold in three-phased design that includes archival methods, photography, and community mapping.

This project will advance scientific knowledge about human social difference and connection, contemporary urban life, structures of inequality and cooperation, and kinship formation in times of crisis and precarity. The project contributes to theories of racialization, social organization, spatial analysis, and urban social inequality. The research will be paired with a three-year community-based undergraduate curriculum, which will cultivate intergenerational mentorship through collaborative research and skill-sharing.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.