2007/10/17 by Antwi Akom · 1 citation
Health Professions · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · #Community Health and Development #Urban Agriculture and Sustainability #Homelessness and Social Issues
paper · doi:10.1080/09518390701630858
openalex publication_date 2007/10/17 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
This article challenges social (dis)organization theory by investigating the impact of religious culture on civic engagement. Using qualitative data 1 1. The ethnographic data used in this article were collected through youth participatory action research (YPAR) a critical tool for social change, in which ‘difference’ and power relations are key lines of analysis (Lykes & Coquillon, 2006 Lykes, M. B. and Coquillon, E. 2006. “Participatory and action research and feminisms: towards transformation praxis”. In Handbook of feminist research, Edited by: Hesse‐Biber, S. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. [Google Scholar]). from ‘Bridge View,’ a historically African‐American neighborhood in San Francisco experiencing environmental racism, this article asks: (1) How does the Nation of Islam (NOI) affect social organization in a low‐income community? And (2) How does the metropolitan distribution of wealth, opportunity, and resources play out in urban space? The findings suggest that the NOI has often had to replace important public institutions responsible for providing social services in low‐income communities—police protection, community welfare, and education. These findings suggest that we need to rethink the relationship between race, culture, structure, and political mobilization and incorporate a more fluid conceptualization of culture into social (dis)organization theory.