Breaking down Wells

Abstract

This dissertation explores Residents’ Journal and how its historical and spatial formations in the Chicago community help shape practices of agency among former and current Chicago Housing Authority residents. This critical textual analysis specifically examines media practices during the construction and demolition of the Ida B. Wells Homes, Chicago’s first African-American public housing development. Evidence from the Chicago Defender and Residents’ Journal provides evidence of how public housing residents exercised contingent agency, dependent on their individual and collective community identities and embedded in specific social geographies. Ultimately, the research challenges contemporary conceptualizations of community media, and the perceived contradictions between scholarship and activism to locate spaces of resilience.