Forthcoming Manuscript: Redefining the Political

Even though poor Black women are more likely to vote and are more consistent in voting than their white counterparts, they are frequently dismissed by the media as a community unwilling to participate in civic or political activities. So why are marginalized Black women depicted as anti-social and apolitical? In Redefining the Political, Alex J. Moffett-Bateau argues traditional definitions of politics are frequently too narrow to recognize the political engagement of Black women living below the poverty line in the United States. Limited understandings of traditional politics and political engagement facilitate the systematic erasure of the political power of low-income Black women. With that in mind, Redefining the Political asks a central question: what theories and concepts can recognize and document the politics of low-income Black women?

While collecting in-depth interviews and ethnographic data observing the socio-political lives of 31 Black women living (or who used to live) in Chicago public housing, Dr. Moffett-Bateau was a witness to their political power. Using past scholarship and original ethnographic data, Redefining the Political makes two contributions. First, the development of the Black feminist definitional criterion (BFDC), a rubric students, scholars, activists and policy makers can use to identify traditional and non-traditional politics and political engagement, as they occur in everyday life. The Black feminist definitional criterion for non-traditional politics understands everyday habits, speech and patterns as being a part of the broader makeup of individual political identity. Defining politics and the political using respondent words and perspectives allowed Dr. Moffett-Bateau to gather a more nuanced set of political criteria sensitive to the context of their lived reality. The women featured in this book described their power as rooted in the ability to direct their daily lives. They autonomously decided how to raise their children and who they spent time with, even within a socio-political context which demanded otherwise.

The second contribution is the political possible-self (PPS), a framework developed to improve understandings of political identity within Black marginalized communities. For those interested in studying the intersections of class, gender, race and geography, Redefining the Political provides relatable case study examples of non-traditional politics and political tactics marginalized Black women developed in response to a lifetime of stigmatized marginalization. The case studies identified the need for more flexible ideas about what counts as legitimate politics and political engagement. In doing so, Dr. Moffett-Bateau developed frameworks with the capacity to recognize and accurately document the politics and political identities of Black women living in poverty.

Redefining the Political: Black Feminism, and the Politics of Everyday Life, is forthcoming from Temple University Press, September 6, 2024.

Updated June 2024

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