Sweetwater ─ Black Women and Narratives of Resilience

Boylorn (interpersonal and intercultural communication, U. of Alabama) draws on first-hand accounts of black women in her former hometown in North Carolina, integrating her own experiences into the study, to show the complexities of their experiences and the common trait of resilience. She examines their lives over generations to show how they use narratives to cope and communicate about their experiences and acts of social resistance. She shares stories related to various themes, then relates her own autoethnography of growing up in the town to show how her experiences are informed by family, culture, identity, and community, concluding with a discussion and interpretive analysis of the stories, including ethical dilemmas and nontraditional educational practices. She illustrates what the stories can teach readers about intersections of race, gender/sex, and class, and how they inform understanding of social justice and how black women respond to injustices communicatively and as a community. Some chapters are followed by poems by Mary E. Weems to serve as a personal response and reaction to the preceding stories. The book is based on her dissertation. No index is provided. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Robin M. Boylorn is Assistant Professor of Interpersonal and Intercultural Communication at The University of Alabama, where she teaches and writes about the intersections of race, gender/sex, class, and sexuality. Her primary research interests focus on the lived and storied experiences of black women, social identity, diversity, and critical auto/ethnography. In addition to academic publications she also writes feminist and cultural critiques as a member of the Crunk Feminist Collective.