@article{THESIS,
      recid = {2479},
      author = {Walter-Johnson, Fikayo},
      title = {Spatializing Kinship: A Socio-Spatial Analysis of West  African Kinship Networks in Affordable Housing  Cooperatives},
      publisher = {University of Chicago},
      school = {B.A.},
      address = {2020-06},
      number = {THESIS},
      abstract = {Scholarship has shown that immigrants form mutual support  networks based on the foundations of a shared cultural  background, trust, and obligation. Though these immigrant  networks can help circulate important resources, they can  also be extremely insular, preventing its actors from  accessing new forms of social capital. Research also shows  that how immigrants are spatially embedded, namely, the way  they engage with urban infrastructure, can create avenues  of social and economic integration into the receiving  country. However, less is known about how these two  processes interact. How do the features of an immigrant  kinship network shape how immigrants experience urban  spaces? In this paper, I examine this question using  interviews and fieldwork with West African immigrants who  currently or formerly lived in affordable housing  cooperatives on Chicago’s north side. Beyond engaging in a  socio-spatial dialectic, I argue that West African  immigrants engage in a kinship-spatial dialectic with their  built environment. Just as the physical features of the  building impact tenants’ spatial patterns and social  interactions, the features of an immigrant kinship network  impact the buildings’ symbolic and systemic  characteristics. As a result, immigrants transform  buildings in Chicago’s skyline into representations of  family, solidarity, and at times, social and spatial  immobility.},
      url = {http://knowledge.uchicago.edu/record/2479},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.6082/uchicago.2479},
}