EAGER: Cultural Produced Resources for Resilience

University Of North Carolina At Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill NC

Investigators

Abstract

One of the more challenging scientific questions for anthropologists and psychologists has been whether resources that human beings draw upon for their survival and resilience are situationally and culturally specific, or conform to universal patterns. One way to test this question is by asking whether there are temporal or spatial differences among a group of individuals with respect to their resilience to similar stressors. This exploratory project examines whether the development of cultural (collectively produced) resources and practices for resilience vary geographically and across generations. Having a better scientific explanation for the variables that influence resilience will help scholars and policymakers understand whether these systems are sustainable or dangerously stressed. Dr. Charles Price and Dr. Dorothy Holland of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will explore elicit, record, and analyze the cultural resources that African-American men in the United States use to enable their resilience in managing the difficulties that emerge from socioeconomic inequality. Resources for resilience are defined as the cultural knowledge, strategies, identities, people, and institutional supports that Black men summon to negotiate what they see as challenges to their well-being. The researchers will employ life narrative interviews, prompted group discussions, participant observation, ethnographic community-based tours, and personal document elicitation to document this knowledge and to determine where the men learned or developed these resources. The study will focus on comparative cohorts of young and older Black men from Hartford, Connecticut, and Greensboro, North Carolina. The research is collaborative, engaging study participants in the development of research questions, and is designed to answer social scientific questions about the importance of race and identity in African-American men's resilience and about the extent to which cultural resources are historically and spatially specific. Ultimately, the research should advance our understanding of resilience and race in the United States. A social scientific purpose of immediate application is to determine whether Black men's individual and collective know-how for resilience can be identified and supported. In addition to broadening the participation of underrepresented groups in the sciences, the responds to emergent interests in durable inequalities and race in the United States, exemplified by My Brother's Keeper Task Force Report to the President (2014), and innumerable nonprofit initiatives. The research will aid researchers and stakeholders in understanding the generational, spatial, and cultural nature of resilience in relation to Black men during current times. The research will produce knowledge useful to government agencies, scholars, and educational and clinical practitioners.