Englewood survival: Black mothers’ coping and resiliency
This dissertation analyzes the lived experiences of 62 Black mothers living and surviving in Englewood, an impoverished neighborhood with high levels of violence on the south side of Chicago, Illinois. The interviews were analyzed using aspects of grounded theory and with the goal to learn more about how the mothers cope with everyday life, or the quotidian, in Englewood. Woven through this project, providing socio-historical context, is Black feminist thought that aims to bring to the center the complicated nature of being raced, sexed, living in poverty and mothering children. The ideological frame of this dissertation is invested in pushing back against mainstream discourses of Black women and mothering to offer a critique of the status quo and shed light on the beauty of the quotidian through mothering and coping strategies. The Black mothers in this project coped with stress through praying and connecting to a higher power which revealed how these mothers survived. Such coping mechanisms are deemed practices of active survival and revolutionary mothering.
Black Mothers, Coping, Resiliency, Resistance, Violence, Revolutionary Mothering
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign