Antiracist Challenges to the Gun Violence Debate
Abstract
Anthropology now 2022, Vol. 14, no . 1-2, 63–74 https://doi.org/10.1080/19428200.2022.2119765 Features Mihir sharma r esearchers, activists and artists have demonstrated the devastating intergen- erational effects of gun violence, among them trauma and disability/debilitation among survivors and kin of persons shot or killed. Following in the footsteps 1 2 3 of work done by Jodi r ios, Keona ervin and Barbara r ansby, I conducted fieldwork in st. Louis, Missouri, between March 2018 and October 2019 on organizational forms, political subjectivities and transformative processes led by a Black-led coalition of organizations, actors and movements. I volunteered for the campaign “Close the Workhouse” and for the Bail Project. During this time, I attended protests, meetings among activists, public events, informal get-togethers, city hall interventions and, in 2020, a range of online events developed by a Black-led coalition of organizers in st. Louis. a lthough the focus of my research was not gun violence, the issue appeared prominently throughout the time I spent in the s t. Louis area. Contrary to the near-exclusive emphasis on mass shootings I found in national media coverage, I became interested in how Black organizers in st. Louis had been working to address broader problems of violence