This article investigates parent advocacy in the child welfare system amongst families living in low-income and racialized urban areas, those most impacted by this system. Drawing from my fieldwork experience at the community-based organization Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP) in East Harlem, New York, I interrogate the political trajectory of the organization, its practices, and its purpose. I analyze how the decision parents make to advocate is tied to the injustice, stigma, and surveillance they—and especially mothers—experience in the child welfare system. While exploring how parenting and its political dimension are reshaped for disfranchised mothers through advocacy, I describe the “fine line” between compliance and resistance that CWOP has walked throughout its history to preserve its existence. This article illustrates how this form of activism takes place within a fragmented and increasingly privatized welfare regime, in which community-based organizations struggle for their right to remain political actors and not be overtaken by the logic of service provision. Through my analysis, I aim to contribute to anthropological understandings of the forms of political agency taken up by stigmatized subjects in their interactions with the state, and the limits the state demonstrates in “hearing” their claims and requests for change.

Castellano V. (2021). Walking a fine line : the struggle for parent advocacy in the NYC Child Welfare System. CITY & SOCIETY, 33(3), 518-541 [10.1111/ciso.12416].

Walking a fine line : the struggle for parent advocacy in the NYC Child Welfare System

Castellano V.
2021

Abstract

This article investigates parent advocacy in the child welfare system amongst families living in low-income and racialized urban areas, those most impacted by this system. Drawing from my fieldwork experience at the community-based organization Child Welfare Organizing Project (CWOP) in East Harlem, New York, I interrogate the political trajectory of the organization, its practices, and its purpose. I analyze how the decision parents make to advocate is tied to the injustice, stigma, and surveillance they—and especially mothers—experience in the child welfare system. While exploring how parenting and its political dimension are reshaped for disfranchised mothers through advocacy, I describe the “fine line” between compliance and resistance that CWOP has walked throughout its history to preserve its existence. This article illustrates how this form of activism takes place within a fragmented and increasingly privatized welfare regime, in which community-based organizations struggle for their right to remain political actors and not be overtaken by the logic of service provision. Through my analysis, I aim to contribute to anthropological understandings of the forms of political agency taken up by stigmatized subjects in their interactions with the state, and the limits the state demonstrates in “hearing” their claims and requests for change.
2021
Castellano V. (2021). Walking a fine line : the struggle for parent advocacy in the NYC Child Welfare System. CITY & SOCIETY, 33(3), 518-541 [10.1111/ciso.12416].
Castellano V.
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
ciso.12416.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipo: Versione (PDF) editoriale
Licenza: Licenza per Accesso Aperto. Creative Commons Attribuzione (CCBY)
Dimensione 109.49 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
109.49 kB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11585/864753
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 3
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 3
social impact