3 Key Takeaways from My Research on Black Creatives in Atlanta

A-SIDE: Anuli successfully defended her dissertation exactly a year ago this week.

A dissertation defense is where a doctoral candidate presents their research to a committee of faculty members at the end of their PhD program. My defense on April 30, 2024, was an important milestone in my five-year doctoral journey because it was when my committee decided whether or not my dissertation passed. Their decision determined whether I could move forward in the process towards having my degree conferred, or submitted and approved, by my University. It’s so wild to realize that a whole year has passed!

Welcome to the B-Side.

I chose to embargo or delay the public release of my dissertation until 2028 (the maximum period), meaning that my dissertation is not accessible through databases like ProQuest or my University’s digital repository. I made this choice because I plan to publish parts of my dissertation as a book.

HOWEVER, as a proponent of public scholarship, I do want to share parts of my research with the public before then. One way that I will do this is through public speaking engagements such as my presentation at the Atlanta Studies Symposium on May 2 which is rooted in a section of my dissertation titled, “One for the money, yes, sir, two for the show”: The ‘Elevators’ of Caste in Atlanta. You can keep up with this and all of my upcoming public speaking engagements on my website, www.anuliwashere.com.

Another way that I am sharing parts of my research with the public is in this very blog post. Below for your reading pleasure are three key takeaways from my dissertation titled, The South Got Something to Share: A Behind-the-Screens Look at the Work/Lives of Black Creative Contract Workers in Atlanta.

Key Takeaway 1: Atlanta is a city that has been made by and for people who defy categorization

If we situate places as sites where social inequality and exclusion can be observed, then we can interrogate how place-based identity interacts with issues of race and class. This is why examining Atlanta’s very complex place-based history and identity was so central to this work. Myth-building through narratives of rebirth and reinvention has been essential to Atlanta’s self-image as a regional center, a model of economic prosperity and racial progress, and as an international city. Atlanta’s image as a “Black Mecca'' and a city of opportunity is greatly contradicted by its racial and class divisions as well as the prioritization of the wealthy in its city planning efforts. However, its heritage as a center of African American leadership and culture is foregrounded in the minds of its residents, who see the city as a place where anyone can defy convention and categorization. In Atlanta, anyone can see themselves as a celebrity, despite their identity markers, through the sheer will of their imagination and self-determination. This study suggests that the freedom to “imagine otherwise” (Sharpe 2016) helps to explain why Atlanta has led all other American metro areas in Black in-migration (i.e., people moving within their own country) for the past four decades (Brookings Institution).

Key Takeaway 2: Internal and external perception greatly influences the career trajectories of Black workers

My ethnographic encounters with Black creative contract workers in Atlanta revealed the tensions that they face in navigating the fractures between pursuing work arrangements that allow them to thrive spiritually and those that enable them to survive economically. Participants actively made distinctions between financially motivated contract projects and those aligned with their spiritual fulfillment as Creators. Some of these workers intentionally manage both standard and alternative work arrangements, maintaining wage jobs in different industries to support their creative projects. These creative projects are seen as expressions of the self and provide an escape from the mundanities of standard employment. However, no matter the working arrangement, my research participants primarily indicated freedom as the ultimate marker of success. Freedom in this context pertains to self-determination and the ability to exert control over their time and talents. The influence of perceptions on their livelihoods is significant, particularly in traditional wage employment, where self-presentation and character traits can impact hiring decisions. In many instances, fictive kin relationships and non-familial friendships serve as sources of both spiritual and economic support for these workers. All in all, my research participants largely seek wholeness across their personal and professional lives and are not necessarily striving to achieve a traditional work-life balance.

Key Takeaway 3: An Afrocentric approach to research design can bridge the gap between scientific rigor and storytelling resonance

The study of unconventional people and unconventional places requires an unconventional approach. From a methodological perspective, my introduction of crazy quilt ethnography provides a distinct and intentionally afrocentric approach to the practice of anthropology that foregrounds the positionality of the researcher and underscores their ethical commitments to intersecting racialized, gendered, and geographic communities. Crazy quilt ethnography encourages interdisciplinary engagement and weaves together diverse pieces of data and experiences to craft a more comprehensive understanding of a cultural phenomenon. My practice of crazy quilt ethnography for this study challenges conventional participant recruitment tactics by emphasizing the importance of in-person encounters and organic conversations. I also promote the incorporation of multiple modalities and a more accessible writing style in academic research to ensure that the work reaches as wide an audience as possible. Prominent in my practice of crazy quilt ethnography is an openness to flexibility and adaptability, which allowed me to embrace the unexpected and incorporate new insights as they emerged during my fieldwork. By embracing complexity and fluidity, crazy quilt ethnography offers a new paradigm for the study of Black life that explores how various sites interact with and influence each other to ultimately contribute to a more dynamic and inclusive interpretation of culture through ethnographic research. As such, it opens up an inclusive dialogue between the academy and the public that extols the virtues of anthropological research as a means to simultaneously make the unfamiliar familiar and the familiar unfamiliar. 

This blog post offers a glimpse into my five-year effort to explore the imaginative possibilities of Atlanta as a Black cultural epicenter and the nuanced negotiations of self-worth and survival in the gig economy, all through a research approach rooted in care, creativity, and community. I look forward to sharing more of my work publicly!