Show Me What Democracy Looks Like: Articulating political possibility in Durham, North Carolina
Date
2018-04-27
Author
Advisors
Nelson, Diane
Settle, Heather
Baker, Lee
Hardt, Michael
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Abstract
As in most U.S. cities, municipal voter turnout in Durham, North Carolina is stratified
by race and income level. Local politicians win elections by catering to the predominately
white and middle-class bloc categorized as "likely voters." In the face of this self-reinforcing,
systematic political bias, a Durham coalition is attempting to construct a progressive
voting bloc led by working-class people of color. Among other challenges, Justice
For All members are consistently faced with the assumption that they are investing
in the impossible. Drawing on participant observation conducted in the months preceding
Durham’s 2017 municipal election, this thesis asks: 1) how does the construction of
“reasonable,” and “radical” in political discourse work to privilege certain political
formations while undermining others? 2) How do social actors articulate the legitimacy
of political formations and strategies that have yet to be constructed? I analyze
Justice For All’s formal communications strategies as well as countless conversations
held in a variety of public and private spaces. I argue that, in each of these spaces,
group members engage in a form of discursive theorizing that works to overcome the
limits of hegemonic discourse and speak (as well as organize) new political formations
into existence.
Type
Honors thesisDepartment
Cultural AnthropologyPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16611Citation
Nuckols, Ashlyn (2018). Show Me What Democracy Looks Like: Articulating political possibility in Durham, North
Carolina. Honors thesis, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16611.Collections
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