All Our Kin summary - All Our Kin PDF

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All Our Kin is book written by Carol Stack based on direct face-to-face fieldwork involving the poor black community and the challenges they face in a black community living in Flats. A common belief by both nonprofessionals and scholars is that, the entrenched behaviors of the black community living in urban poor are favorable for them to live in poverty despite their lack of economic mobility (Stack, 2013). Carol Stack a white young mother of one son spent several years doing her fieldwork in the Flats. The Flats is an urban region in Midwestern City of Jackson Harbor occupied by a larger community of black people living in poverty. Stack conducted her study with an aim of examining the strategies that poor people living in Flats adopt for survival. Stack while laying the strategies of doing her fieldwork did not seek the permission of any authorities for instance schools, or church instead she gained the access of the Flats through two families in a mutual acquaintances basis. The reason behind her decision is that, Carol Stack wanted to have a more representative sample of the families living in Flats. During this time, racial discrimination was still high and therefore, creating a mutual ground through acquaintances to have her fieldwork in the black community was the only option for her to get a more representative sample (Stack, 2013). Due to racial discrimination at her time of this study, the disturbing question was whether an outsider, especially a white person could gain access in the black community and expect black community’s participation and approval to collect a reliable data for her studies. Definitely, this was a hard decision to make, but Carol Stack after examining the chances of having a reliable data had to create a mutual ground to engage and have her study reflect the actual challenges of the black community (Stack, 2013). Therefore as an outsider, there was no hope for her to understand a different culture than her own. While conducting her studies, Carol Stack noticed, even with her new acquaintances that were blacks and represented the black community were referred as uppity individuals who "thought they were too good to sit down on an old couch”. This implies that, the black community did not welcome the idea of their fellow blacks to allow an outsider conduct a survey in their region. This definitely shows that, if Carol Stack had to gain access of the black community through the authorities, she could not have received the actual data. Joyce Ladner study on black adolescent girls (Tomorrow’s Tomorrow) said that, Carol Stack study, "resembles that of the oppressor and the oppressed, because it is the oppressor who defines the problems and the nature of the research and to some extent the quality of the interaction between him and his subjects”. In other words, the fundamental problem, neo colonialism could not have allowed Carol Stack to obtain reliable findings of her study (Stack, 2013).

As Carol Stack continued living in Flats as she did her studies, she successfully understood the social structure and the cultural patterns that underlined within the black community society. Through her interaction with black community in the Flats, Carol Stack had a chance to mingle with black families in terms culture and on social grounds (Stack, 2013). With her aim of illustrating the adaptations of the black community to poverty from men, women, and children or rather the entire the kin and non-kin community, Stack observed that their social-cultural network was different from her own culture. Through her interactions with the black community in trade, in health care, neighborhood, Stack discovered a system, which they termed as exchange system. This system meant that, one could get help from other blacks without the givers of the help expecting back a reward for showing kindness. Paying back was willingly but because of that kindness shown by another, there was that need for one to payback not necessarily to the same person, but to other people within the community who were in need of help. According to her research, an interviewee said to carol stack that, "you have to have help from everybody and anybody, the poorer you are, the more likely you are to pay back”. Stack through out her fieldwork admits that, she spent most her time trying to understand the complexities of black community exchange systems. At times, she found herself being asked for favors, and to adapt to the system, she gave favors and asked for favors too. Apart from these, Stack had a chance to interact with the black community on the grounds of family basis since she was able to create friendship with them (Stack, 2013). On family grounds, Stack observed several ways through which the black community lived their lives and the way these people interacted especially on family grounds (Stack, 2013). Therefore, it became easier for her to observe their child rearing patterns, marriage patterns, social and economic patterns. According to her, families in The Flats lived in poor houses with large families. In all families, everybody starting from oldest to the youngest participated on house chores. There were chores for males and females and most chores involved sharing to utilize the available time despite their challenges (Stack, 2013). Stack observed that, house chores were done very early in the morning in most of the households in the neighborhood. People had to walk for several miles for instance when doing shopping and taking laundry. To understand cultural patterns of the black people, Stack had to observe their migration patterns. Stack observed that, Jackson one of her acquaintance when migrating from urban to rural area, there was a pattern of cooperation and mutual aid among the kin during migration. In this community, there were clusters of people clustered as Kins. The kins that do not necessarily live together created a domestic cooperation and consisted of adult females. These people helped each other despite

being a kin or non-kin. Therefore, Stack believed that these cultural patterns were strategies of dealing with the economic crisis and other challenges that the black community encountered (Stack, 2013). In conclusion, the culture of having a poor notion of poverty explains the persistent poverty in the Flats. A poor community may have presumed negative qualities, which makes the poor poorer. Stack observed that, family disorganization, group disorganization, fatalism, personal disorganization, and resignation were the main factors that contributed to poverty. The author thinks that, if poor communities shunned down these notions that surround poverty, conditions of poverty would fall apart and people focus on all ways of eliminating poverty. In addition to these, the predominant racial discrimination is another factor that oppresses the poor especially when they seek help from a white authority. Despite these challenges, black community in Midwestern City of Jackson Harbor organized themselves in every way possible to withstand economic crisis and the challenges they faced....