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Communities are critical sites for studying the politics of inequality within neoliberal capitalism. We illustrate this by providing regional case studies of the enactments and outcomes of three types of neoliberal policies in the United States: (1) cutbacks in family planning policies, (2) municipal underbounding and failures to provide public infrastructure within unincorporated communities, and (3) “tough on crime” policies leading to mass incarceration. Building on insights from intersectional feminist theory and using evidence from in-depth interviews from three Southwestern communities, we argue that neoliberal capitalism is compounding intersecting inequalities affecting women of color. In particular, we claim that neoliberal policies at the local and state levels are compromising the reproductive autonomy and public health of women of color and creating new challenges for their family care work.

In the decades since the founding of the Society of American Archivists (SAA) in 1938, the array of functions considered core to archival work have grown and evolved. In the early years of SAA, the profession was largely focused on issues of collection maintenance, heavily emphasizing preservation as the fundamental mission of the archivist. Yet, at this time, there were archivists calling on their colleagues to engage with audiences outside of the archival reading room. It was not until the social history movements in the 1970s, however, that discussions of outreach as a core function of the archivist's work took hold in the profession. From the 1970s and moving through to today, outreach and proactive engagement with external communities has moved from a peripheral activity of the archivist to one seen as essential to the overall success of an archival program. In this chapter, we examine the evolving discourse surrounding outreach and engagement activities by archivists, focusing on how outreach has been discussed in professional literature. We also explore ways in which this shift in professional perspective is reflected in the work done today by archivists at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Children and youth of color in White and adult-dominated societies confront racism and adultism that shapes their peer cultures. Yet, the “new” sociology of childhood lacks the theory and methodology to explore racialized peer cultures. Thus, this chapter aims to sharpen its research tools. Theoretically, this chapter draws from Technologies of the Self (Foucault, 1988) and Critical Race Theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2012) to enhance Valentine’s (1997) “adult-youth binary” and Corsaro’s (2015) “interpretive reproduction.” Methodologically, it combines the “doing research with children” approach (Greig, Taylor, & MacKay, 2013) with Critical Race Methodology (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002) to do research with youth of color. These enhanced research tools are then used to explore how boys and girls of color (n = 150), 9- to 17-year olds, experience peer culture in suburban schools, under police surveillance, and on social media. In the field, interviewers navigated their adult privilege and racial/ethnic positionalities in relation to that of participants and the racial dynamic in the research setting, ultimately aiming to co-create a safe space for counter-storytelling. As a result, this chapter captured how White-dominated peer cultures used racial microaggressions against youth of color in suburban schools, boy peer cultures navigated racialized policing, and online-offline peer cultures curtailed protective and controlling racialized adult surveillance. Theoretically, the racially enhanced interpretive reproduction and adult-youth binary exposed the adultism-racism intersection that shapes youth peer cultures. Methodologically, counter-storytelling revealed the painful realities that youth of color face and that those with adult and/or White privilege would rather ignore.

This chapter explores processes of stratification in reproductive healthcare and considers the ways in which mechanisms of inclusion/exclusion shape reproductive opportunities and experiences. First, I consider the process of “selective inclusion” among sexual minority women. This examination questions the schisms that exist within the sexual minority population in regard to their visibility and legibility in medical, scientific, and public health discourses and constructions of reproductive health. The second process I examine is that of “exclusionary inclusion” among substance using pregnant women who have been collectively deemed “bad breeders” by medical and state authorities and whose reproduction is explicitly monitored, regulated, and criminalized. The final process I discuss is “side-stepping inclusion” which describes the healthcare and consumer decisions of women who circumvent medicalized childbirth experiences by employing the services of a midwife for their pregnancy and birth care. This chapter examines how medicalization, biomedicalization, and de-medicalization dynamically work together to expand and delimit inclusionary processes, emphasizing the spectral and interconnected quality of these processes. By exploring various processes of inclusion that shape reproductive experiences of these disparate and differentially marginalized populations, this chapter provides a conceptual and critical meditation on the ways in which “respectable reproduction” is deployed in reproductive care. In considering these processes of inclusion and the ways in which they are co-produced by medical discourses and practices, scholars may more clearly grasp some fundamental mechanisms of stratification in reproductive healthcare and knowledge production.

Is medically assisted fertilization (with the use of in vitro technology) about “reproductive rights” or about white women's privileges? What is “choice” for white and rich women seems to become a further commodification of the body for women of color and economically disadvantaged women.

Several feminists define reproductive rights by demanding social justice and a type of support for the mothers that does not include expensive technologies, which have a problematic outcome, that of generating a divide between women in the north and women in the south of the world. Some authors also talk about a “division of labor” in reproduction.

The first part of my chapter offers an outline of the historical feminist debate over gender and technology, looking at different positions regarding biotechnologies, and reproductive technologies in a specific way. The second part presents an investigation around the (often racialized) international market of eggs and surrogate mothers in the United States, India and Eastern Europe.

The third part consists of an analysis of few recent studies about the health of women who undergo ovarian hyper-stimulation in order to give eggs as “donation” (under payment); women who offer themselves as surrogate mothers and the children who have been conceived with in vitro fertilization, specifically with heterologue forms (egg donation or surrogate motherhood).

Bourdieu clearly articulates how cultural capital works at the macro-level and how it leads to the reproduction and legitimation of inequality. He is less clear about other levels of analysis. We address this gap by drawing on social psychological theories and by suggesting that cultural capital is best treated as a multi-level concept – with “cultural capital” produced at the macro-level, “subcultural capital” produced at the meso-level, and “multicultural capital” produced at the micro-level. We illustrate with an exploratory analysis of an advertising agency in Eastern Europe, thereby highlighting legitimacy processes occurring among its departments and personnel.

Feminist perspectives from women of color did not emerge solely as a result from racism in the white feminist movements; such an assumption negates the agency of feminists of color (Roth, 2004). Instead, feminist perspectives by women of color emerged from historical and sociopolitical dynamics within their own communities of origin, as well as in relationship to each other, including in opposition to, and at times in concert with, the white feminist movements. This chapter explores the development, complexities, and unique contributions of Womanist, Black Feminist Thought, hip-hop, Chicana, Native American, global, Asian American, Arab American and ecofeminism. These feminist perspectives include overarching themes, such as the intersectionality of gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, ability, age, religion, nationality, and other important identities and issues. Each contemporary feminist theory also explores the interstices of issues such as education, health, economics, reproduction, sociopolitical, historical, organizational, technological, and myriad interrelated dynamics.