Where Are You Comin' From, Where Are You Goin' To:
Placing and Black Students' Discursive Construction of Community

M.A. Thesis by Corinna J. Moebius
1995

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the discursive practice of placing as enacted by ten Black students at California State University, Northridge. Placing is defined as a practice enacted in local forms through vernacular usages, through which community ideologies and identities are created, maintained, and contested.

The study also incorporates an analysis, from a critical cultural studies perspective, of the ways in which Black students consent to and/or resist to hegemonic forms of representation. Individuals place themselves in shared territories, defined as socially constructed places, including temporal and spatial places. Individuals communicate consent when they place themselves in territory that more powerful others define and name, and in which their identities are conceptualized as fixed and essentialized.

Two primary forms of placing were identified in the discourse of the ten students interviewed for the study: Face (nonverbal) and Word of Mouth (verbal). Specific Face strategies include placing by race, gender, dress, and presence at community events, and Word of Mouth strategies include ritualistic interactions based on questions such as "Where are you from?" The study also focused on gathering places popular among Black students at C.S.U.N., the university's student union, in particular, and the ways in which students placed themselves temporally and spatially at this material location.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION & DEDICATION

• Structuralist Conceptions of Community
• Interpretive Conceptions of Community
• The Critical Conception of Community
  • Placing
  • Community Ideology
• The Black Community on Campus
• Conclusion
  

CHAPTER 2: How We Get There (intro)

• The Researcher and Power
• Challenges to Power Differentials
• Research Design and Procedures
  • Informants
  • Design
  • Procedures
• Conclusion
  

CHAPTER 3: Feeling Out Of Place, Puttin' People In Place, and Finding The Right Places(s)

• Placing and Shared Territory
  • Community Ideology
  • Face
    • Establishing Face
    • Race
    • Gender
    • Dress
    • In the Know
    • Participation in Events
    • Participation Over Time
  • Word of Mouth
    
    • Where Are You From?
      
    • Are You Gonna Go?
      
    • What's Goin' On?
      
    • Flyers
      
    • Slang
      
  • Material Contexts of Placing
    
• Organizations
  
• Black Business Association
  
• Black Student Union
  
• Minority Business Program
  
• Letter Societies
  
• Pan African Studies
  
• Dorms
  
• Kickin' It: Hangouts
  
• Communal Face
  
• Migrations

CHAPTER 4: Where We Goin' To (intro)

• Constraints
• Implications for Future Research

ENDNOTES

REFERENCES

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

Copyright (c) 1995, Corinna J. Moebius

Contact the author at info@bordercross.com