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Attachment and Dislocation: African-American Journeys in the USA

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Communities, Neighborhoods, and Health

Part of the book series: Social Disparities in Health and Health Care ((SDHHC,volume 1))

Abstract

My ethnographic writing cannot sit still, as people in the text move from place to place through time and over time; they are forced to move; they may follow their hearts; they change their course, and they change before my eyes. This essay describes the methodological challenge of doing ethnography over time, space, place, and generation, and the creation of writing strategies that convey the multiple meanings of home and the complexities of race, gender, generation, and social inequality.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The assumption a “closed system” of migration (in which all migrants, both to and from the area, were linked to their original cohorts) is based upon Stack and Cromartie’s comparison between county-based census data and ethnographic research among extended families in these same counties.

  2. 2.

    Fifty-seven percent of in-migrants were returning to their home state, and an additional 31% were nonnative homeplace movers; together, they made up 88% of all in-migrants. Even this may be an underestimation, since many of the remaining 12% nonnative in-migrants who established their own household may also be acting on familial place ties.

References

  • Cromartie, John and Carol B. Stack. 1989. “Reinterpretation of Black Return and Nonreturn Migration to the South, 1975-1980.” Geographic Review. 79(3): 297–310.

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  • Stack, Carol. 1974. All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community. New York: Harper & Row.

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  • Stack, Carol. 1970 “The Kindred of Viola Jackson: Residence and Family Organization of an Urban Black American Family,” Pp. 303–312, in Afro-American Anthropology: Contemporary Perspectives, edited by N. E. Whitten and John F, Szwed. New York: The Free Press.

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  • Stack, Carol. 1996. Call to Home: African Americans Reclaim the Rural South. New York: Basic Books.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Graduate School of Education, University of California, Berkeley, USA

    Carol B. Stack (Professor Emeritus, Visiting Professor)

  2. Duke University, 1818 Martin Luther King Blvd., Suite 116, Chapel Hill, N.C., 27514, USA

    Carol B. Stack (Professor Emeritus, Visiting Professor)

Authors
  1. Carol B. Stack
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Carol B. Stack .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Sociology, Duke University, Durham, 27708-0097, North Carolina, USA

    Linda M. Burton

  2. Dept. Anthropology, Penn State University, Carpenter Bldg. 409, University Park, 16802, Pennsylvania, USA

    Stephen A. Matthews

  3. , Department of Sociology, University of Washington, 211 Savery Hall, Seattle, 98195-3340, USA

    ManChui Leung

  4. Dept. Sociology, University of Washington, Raitt Hall 206A, Seattle, 98195-4322, Washington, USA

    Susan P. Kemp

  5. Dept. Sociology, University of Washington, Raitt Hall 206A, Seattle, 98195-4322, Washington, USA

    David T. Takeuchi

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Stack, C.B. (2011). Attachment and Dislocation: African-American Journeys in the USA. In: Burton, L., Matthews, S., Leung, M., Kemp, S., Takeuchi, D. (eds) Communities, Neighborhoods, and Health. Social Disparities in Health and Health Care, vol 1. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7482-2_13

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