Between Good And Ghetto »

Nikki Jones is an assistant professor in the department of sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Between Good and Ghetto reflects the social world of inner city African American girls and how they manage threats of personal violence. Drawing on personal encounters, traditions of urban ethnography, Black feminist thought, gender studies, and feminist criminology, Nikki Jones provides a richly descriptive and compassionate account, revealing multiple strategies used to navigate interpersonal and gender-specific violence and how gendered dilemmas of their adolescence are reconciled.

Preface and Acknowledgments ix

Introduction i

1 The Social World of Inner-City Girls 20

2 "It's Not Where You Live, It's How You Live": When Good Girls Fight 46

3 "Ain't I a Violent Person!": Understanding Gid Fighters 74

4 "Love Make You Fight Crazy": Gendered Violence and Inner-City Girls 107

Conclusion: The Other Side of the Crisis 151

Appendix: A Reflection on Field Research and the Politics of Representation 163

Notes 183

References 195

Index 203