Books by Kristen Lavelle
Whitewashing the South analyzes sociologically how ordinary white southerners recall living throu... more Whitewashing the South analyzes sociologically how ordinary white southerners recall living through extraordinary racial times—the Jim Crow era, civil rights movement, and the post-civil rights era—highlighting tensions between memory and reality.
Papers by Kristen Lavelle
Du Bois Review, 2017
Whites' sense of their racial vulnerability has been established as a key facet of U.S. post-civi... more Whites' sense of their racial vulnerability has been established as a key facet of U.S. post-civil rights racial ideology. This paper analyzes Whites' victim claims attached to a historical era, via recent in-depth interviews with elder White Southerners, and argues that, through invoking civil rights-era racial vulnerabilities-mistreatment from social changes and African Americans-White Southerners downplay institutional racism, delegitimize the Civil Rights Movement, and construct White innocence and Black pathology. In contrast, younger Whites' victim claims assert Whites as racially innocent and equitably vulnerable to racism, but these narratives of the racial past achieve similar ends. By constructing the civil rights era as dangerous and unjust, elder White Southerners lay claim to a lifelong nonracist identity and deny systemic racism. This analysis suggests that White threat and victim narratives are not products of a post-civil rights milieu, but rather are generated by Whites' use of racial framing to construct a sense of self, other, and society.
In this article, the concept of emotional labor is used to capture dilemmas of critical ethnograp... more In this article, the concept of emotional labor is used to capture dilemmas of critical ethnographic research. We frame our experiences not simply as " confessional tales, " or personalized accounts of how researchers experience their fieldwork, but as part of critical methodology itself. We identify three strategies for transforming our emotional labor into an analytic tool: contextualizing emotions, using emotions to unmask power in the research process, and linking emotions to personal biographies. Following ethnographers who question the separation between data and analysis, we explore how emotions and power intersected in two key ethnographic " moments " : collecting data and writing the research narrative.
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography
In this article, the concept of emotional labor is used to capture dilemmas of critical ethnograp... more In this article, the concept of emotional labor is used to capture dilemmas of critical ethnographic research. We frame our experiences not simply as “confessional tales,” or personalized accounts of how researchers experience their fieldwork, but as part of critical methodology itself. We identify three strategies for transforming our emotional labor into an analytic tool: contextualizing emotions, using emotions to unmask power in the research process, and linking emotions to personal biographies. Following ethnographers who question the separation between data and analysis, we explore how emotions and power intersected in two key ethnographic “moments”: collecting data and writing the research narrative.
MONTHLY REVIEW-NEW YORK-, Jan 1, 2006
... The city's public schools were in horrific shape, even in comparison to the rest of ... more ... The city's public schools were in horrific shape, even in comparison to the rest of ... residents are no strong assistance measures actually to get them back and help them rebuild ... Home, in NewOrleans neighborhoods, whether impoverished or not, provided a support network and a ...
Book Reviews by Kristen Lavelle
Ethnic & Racial Studies, 2010
In his latest book, William Julius Wilson assesses the structural and cultural factors that perpe... more In his latest book, William Julius Wilson assesses the structural and cultural factors that perpetuate the plight of the inner-city poor in the USA. The aim of the book is to weigh in on the structure versus culture debate, which questions whether structural forces beyond the control of black urban poor residents determine their outcomes, or if their own attitudes and behaviours are to blame. Catering to a non-academic, moderate audience, Wilson distances himself from both the liberal, structure-based perspective and the conservative, culture-based perspective, although he argues that the evidence supports a structural understanding. Wilson is strongest with his analysis of the relevant research, but he disappoints by muddying the structureÁculture debate and offering worrisome recommendations that deviate from his primary argument regarding the power of structure.
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Books by Kristen Lavelle
Papers by Kristen Lavelle
Book Reviews by Kristen Lavelle