“In Redefining the Political, Alex Moffett-Bateau centers the political work and imagining of poor Black women. Using an intersectional Black feminist approach, Moffett-Bateau explores the strategies poor Black women use to fight the oppressive systems that seek to define and limit them, their families, and their communities. Featuring interviews from residents in a public housing complex on the far south side of Chicago, Moffett-Bateau details the ways Black women mobilize what she labels their ‘political possible selves’ to build collective power. This is a must-read for all those interested in new frameworks and theories anchored in the political lives of Black women.”-Cathy J. Cohen, D. Gale Johnson Distinguished Service Professor and Inaugural Chair of the Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity at the University of Chicago, and author of The Boundaries of Blackness: AIDS and the Breakdown of Black Politics “Redefining the Political offers an analysis that addresses collective disenfranchisement within U.S. democracy. Building upon the author’s multiple interviews and engagement with south-side Chicago organizers, Moffett-Bateau prioritizes the experiential/theoretical contributions of Black women in under-resourced communities reshaping their lives.”-Joy James, Ebenezer Fitch Professor of the Humanities at Williams College, and author of New Bones Abolition: Captive Maternal Agency and the Afterlife of Erica Garner "Redefining the Political introduces frameworks that recognize and document the everyday political identities and engagement of low-income Black women. These frameworks capture the extra-systemic politics that disenfranchised Black women engage in to advocate for basic survival.... The first part of the book lays out the conceptual formulations. The second part provides case studies that apply the frameworks to everyday women.... [T]he book provides useful tools for understanding how marginalized Black women create political power.... Summing Up: Recommended."-Choice “[A]n in-depth analysis of what constitutes as 'politics' and 'political' for quotidian Black women who live below the poverty line.... Perhaps the most important aspect of Redefining the Political is its contribution to resistance politics as being deeply spatialized and rooted in community.... [T]his study is a valuable contribution to the literature on Black feminist politics, political participation, and ethnographic methods which will certainly leave its mark on all intended audiences.”-Ethnic and Racial Studies "Grounded in radical Black feminist thought, this book critiques and explains the exclusionary nature of the traditional political system and addresses the political power and work of marginalized communities that go beyond said system. Moffett-Bateau utilizes practices of self-definition and power evaluation to spotlight Black women’s political identities and community-focused political efforts toward collective power…. Redefining the Political arms the reader with an analytical toolkit that aids in recognizing the contributions of Black marginalized communities whose political labor has been historically invisible."-Gender & Society
