'Stony the Road' to Change
Black Mississippians and the Culture of Social Relations

An anthropological study of issues within a Black community that affect social action, political participation, and social cohesion.

Marilyn M. Thomas-Houston (Author)

9780521829090, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 December 2004

232 pages
23.7 x 15.7 x 2.3 cm, 0.423 kg

'The involvement of the black community in a southern town during the height of the civil rights movement of the 1960s may not seem like the classic setting for an ethnography but Thomas-Houston demonstrates that in deft hands anthropological analysis is not constrained by time or place.' William Arens, Stony Brook University

This book is the result of an ethnographic study on the impact of Black cultural diversity on social action. The ethnography has three important characteristics. First, it incorporates the multiple perspectives of the ethnographer with the diverse voices of the people through an unusual form of reflexivity that provides additional insight for the descriptions, analyses, and conclusions of the book. This epistemological method is used to challenge traditional structures of ethnographies. Secondly, it argues for the consideration of non-traditional approaches to studying the Black experience - a focus away from race relations and issues of class and an emphasis on intragroup interaction and diversity. Thirdly, it investigates the processes, social institutions, and structures within the Black community of a small college town that influence social change and social action since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Part I. The Cultural History of the Region: 1. Placing the stones: an historical look at the construction of a region
2. Getting around the stones: the civil rights movement
Part II. Social Consciousness, Social Action: 3. Social consciousness and black public culture
4. Social action in practice
Part III. Construction of an Intra-Racial Identity: 5. The interconnection of place, space, and belonging
6. It's a white 'thang': ethnic identifiers
7. Space: the final (AF) front.

Subject Areas: Physical anthropology [JHMP], Social & cultural anthropology, ethnography [JHMC], Sociology [JHB], Ethnic studies [JFSL], Social groups [JFS]