How Urban Black Girls Write and Learn from Ethnographically-based Poetry to Understand and Heal from Relationship Violence:

LeConte J. Dill; Bianca Rivera; Shavaun Sutton

doi:10.15663/tee.v2i1.30

LeConte J. Dill New York University
Bianca Rivera SUNY Downstate School of Public Health
Shavaun Sutton SUNY Downstate School of Public Health

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15663/tee.v2i1.30

Abstract

This paper explores the engagement of African-American, Caribbean-American, and immigrant West African girls in the critical analysis and writing of poetry to make sense of their multi-dimensional lives. The authors worked with high-school aged girls from Brooklyn, New York who took part in a weekly school-based violence prevention program, and who became both 'participants' in an ethnographic research study with the authors and 'poets' as they creatively analyzed themes from research data. The girls cultivated a practice of reading and writing poetry that further explored dating and relationship violence, themes that emerged from the violence prevention program sessions and the ethnographic interviews. The girls then began to develop 'poetic knowledge' grounded in their lived experiences as urban Black girls. The authors offer that 'participatory narrative analysis' is an active strategy that urban Black girls enlist to foster individual and collective understanding and healing.

Author Biographies

LeConte J. Dill, New York University

Dr. LeConté Dill is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Community Health Science and Practice Program within the Social Behavioral Sciences Department at the NYU College of Global Public Health. Dr. Dill is a scholar, educator, and a poet. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology from Spelman College, a Master of Public Health degree in Community Health Sciences from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Doctor of Public Health degree from the University of California, Berkeley. She has also worked in academic, non-profit, and public agencies across the country on issues related to health education, program evaluation, health policy, and youth organizing. Her recent work explores the multiple experiences of violence, coping, and resistance among urban girls of color.

Bianca Rivera, SUNY Downstate School of Public Health

Bianca Rivera holds a Master of Public Health degree from SUNY Downstate School of Public Health, where she is also currently pursuing a Doctor of Public Health degree in Epidemiology. Through her applied research, she focuses on examining violence as an infectious disease from a social and environmental perspective, and its subsequent relationship to the urban adolescent educational experience and trauma-related health outcomes.

Shavaun Sutton, SUNY Downstate School of Public Health

Shavaun Sutton is a public health professional and independent scholar who holds a Master of Public Health degree in Community Health Sciences from SUNY Downstate School of Public Health. She strives to maintain social responsibility while informing public health practice through qualitative research. Shavaun was a 2015-2016 Beyond the Bars Fellow and was a faculty member with the Sadie Nash Leadership Project’s 2016 Summer Institute.