Results by title

In Plenty and in Time of Need demonstrates how the unique history of Barbados has contributed to complex relations of national, gendered, and sexual identities, and how these identities are represented and interpreted on a global stage. As the most widespread manifestation of social commentary, the book uses music and performance to analyze the competing ideals and realities of the national culture. It details the histories of prominent musical artists, including the prolific Pan-Africanist calypsonian the Mighty Gabby, the world-renowned Merrymen, Soca Queen Alison Hinds, artist/activist Rupee, and international superstar Rihanna. Using these artists, the project analyzes how femininity, masculinity, and sexuality are put in service of Barbadian nationalism. By examining websites, blogs, and digital products of these artists in conversation with Barbadian tourism, the book re-examines the ways in which commodity, sexuality, gender performance, and diasporic consciousness undergird individual careers and national representations.

Americans think of suburbs as prosperous areas that are relatively free from poverty and unemployment. Yet, today more poor people live in the suburbs than in cities themselves. In Places in Need, social policy expert Scott W. Allard tracks how the number of poor people living in suburbs has more than doubled over the last 25 years, with little attention from either academics or policymakers. Rising suburban poverty has not coincided with a decrease in urban poverty, meaning that solutions for reducing poverty must work in both cities and suburbs. Allard notes that because the suburban social safety net is less-developed than the urban safety net, a better understanding of suburban communities is critical for understanding and alleviating poverty in metropolitan areas.
 
Using census data, administrative data from safety net programs, and interviews with nonprofit leaders in the Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. metropolitan areas, Allard shows that poor suburban households resemble their urban counterparts in terms of labor force participation, family structure, and educational attainment. In the last few decades, suburbs have seen increases in single-parent households, decreases in the number of college graduates, and higher unemployment rates. As a result, suburban demand for safety net assistance has increased. Concerning is evidence suburban social service providers­—which serve clients spread out over large geographical areas, and often lack the political and philanthropic support that urban nonprofit organizations can command—do not have sufficient resources to meet the demand.
 
To strengthen local safety nets, Allard argues for expanding funding and eligibility to federal programs such as SNAP and the Earned Income Tax Credit, which have proven effective in urban and suburban communities alike.  He also proposes to increase the capabilities of community-based service providers through a mix of new funding and capacity-building efforts.
 
Places in Need demonstrates why researchers, policymakers, and nonprofit leaders should focus more on the shared fate of poor urban and suburban communities. This account of suburban vulnerability amidst persistent urban poverty provides a valuable foundation for developing more effective antipoverty strategies.
 

Standing in the Need presents an intimate account of an African American family’s ordeal after Hurricane Katrina. Before the storm struck, this family of one hundred fifty members lived in the bayou communities of St. Bernard Parish just outside New Orleans. Rooted there like the wild red iris of the coastal wetlands, the family had gathered for generations to cook and share homemade seafood meals, savor conversation, and refresh their interconnected lives.

In this lively narrative, Katherine Browne weaves together voices and experiences from eight years of post-Katrina research. Her story documents the heartbreaking struggles to remake life after everyone in the family faced ruin. Cast against a recovery landscape managed by outsiders, the efforts of family members to help themselves could get no traction; outsiders undermined any sense of their control over the process. In the end, the insights of the story offer hope. Written for a broad audience and supported by an array of photographs and graphics, Standing in the Need offers readers an inside view of life at its most vulnerable.

Revealing how people in need advocated for and negotiated their own care until the development of standardized medicine

The Voices of Need uncovers how men and women in Charlestown, Massachusetts, who turned to municipal authorities for aid, actively shaped how their need was understood and addressed. Through a close examination of Charlestown’s care networks, Angela Keysor shows how town selectmen relied on sufferers themselves to articulate what would relieve their distress, while local women—paid by town authorities—provided hands-on care in homes and neighborhoods. These networks flourished in the early and mid-eighteenth century, but their flexibility and responsiveness were increasingly strained by crisis and change. A devastating smallpox epidemic in 1763, followed by racialized debates over belonging after the legal end of enslavement in Massachusetts in 1783, exposed the limits of community-based care.

After the American Revolution, rising numbers of aid requests prompted town officials to reorganize care through a contract system in which paid caregivers attended to multiple dependents at once. As care became centralized and standardized, the space for individuals to define their own needs—and to influence how those needs were met—steadily narrowed. By 1819, with the founding of Massachusetts General Hospital, sufferers were fully redefined as patients, expected to submit to professional authority rather than participate in decisions about their own care.

Tracing this transition from negotiated assistance to institutional medicine, The Voices of Need illuminates a largely forgotten history of agency among the poor and infirm. In doing so, Keysor challenges conventional narratives of early American health care and shows how the rise of standardized medicine fundamentally reshaped the meaning of need, care, and authority.