SSSP 2024 Annual Meeting

Date: Saturday, August 10

Time: 2:30 PM - 4:10 PM

SPECIAL

Session 072: Author Meets Critics: Murder Town, USA: Homicide, Structural Violence, and Activism in Wilmington by Yasser Arafat Payne, Brooklynn K. Hitchens, & Darryl L. Chambers, Rutgers University Press, 2023
Room: Salon 7

Sponsor: Program Committee

Organizer: Claire M. Renzetti, University of Kentucky

Presider: Jamie J. Fader, Temple University

Description: 

In their book, Murder Town, USA: Homicide, Structural Violence, and Activism in Wilmington, authors Yasser Payne, Brooklynn Hitchens, and Darryl Chambers, present their ethnographic study of the relationship between structural opportunity and violence in the city of Wilmington, Delaware. Through their engagement with city residents who were formerly involved with street activities and/or the criminal justice system, the authors provide a radical reconceptualization of violence in low-income Black communities, showing how involvement in violence and crime is a logical, "resilient" response to the perverse context of structural inequality. The authors will be joined by a panel of scholars who will engage in an insightful discussion of this important work.

Authors:

Yasser Arafat Payne, University of Delaware

Brooklynn K. Hitchens, University of Maryland

Darryl L. Chambers, Center for Structural Equity and University of Delaware

Critics:

Jamie J. Fader, Temple University

Anthony A. Peguero, Arizona State University

Louis Edgar Esparza, California State University, Los Angeles

Robert L. Peralta, The University of Akron