The Nightly Round: Space, Social Capital, and Urban Black Nightlife

Abstract

Using data generated from participant observation and semistructured interviews, I consider the ways in which nightlife, or what might be imagined as the nightly round—a process encompassing the social interactions, behaviors, and actions involved in going to, being in, and leaving the club—is used to mitigate the effects of social and spatial isolation, complementing the accomplishment of the daily round. Through an analysis of the social world of The Spot, I argue that understanding the ways in which urban blacks use space in the nightclub to mediate racial segregation, sexual segregation, and limited social capital expands our current understanding of the spatial mobility of urban blacks as well as the important role of extra‐neighborhood spaces in such processes. Further, I highlight the ways that urban blacks use space in the nightclub to leverage socioeconomic opportunities and enhance social networks. While I found that black heterosexual and lesbian and gay patrons used space in similar ways at The Spot, black lesbians and gays were more likely to use the club as a space to develop ties of social support.

Examining identity development among gay men of color

“…Social spaces also provide avenues for expressing and performing sexuality and sexual identity. For example, Hunter (, p. 166) demonstrates how gay Black men, as well as Black lesbians and straight Black people, engage in the “nightly round,” a process of social interaction within an urban bar that helps to not only “mediate racial segregation, sexual segregation, and limited social capital” but also build social networks, establish social connections, and increase social capital. In examining the ways that sexual desire are negotiated in a hip‐hop club by Black men, McCune (, p. 298) introduces the term “architexture,” to discuss the way that a gay Black nightclub provides a space that allows non‐gay‐identified Black men to “negotiate their masculine ideals and queer desires.”…”

The Moral Economy of Violence in the US Inner City

“…Using mobilization, the authors help to show that there is a division of labor in urban violence and that such organization operates like a structural force within such communities, often countered by efforts of local residents to create safe spaces for neighborhood children (Gotham and Brumley 2002). Mobilization is also key because it reveals a relative agency already embedded and in practice in poor and working-class urban minority communities like North Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican enclaves (e.g., Hunter 2010, 2013). How then can we generate the necessary intersection between urban policies that reduce the climate of violence while also recognizing the agency of urban minorities that is always and already present?…”

The Moral Economy of Violence in the US Inner City

“…Using mobilization, the authors help to show that there is a division of labor in urban violence and that such organization operates like a structural force within such communities, often countered by efforts of local residents to create safe spaces for neighborhood children (Gotham and Brumley 2002). Mobilization is also key because it reveals a relative agency already embedded and in practice in poor and working-class urban minority communities like North Philadelphia's Puerto Rican enclaves (e.g., Hunter 2010Hunter , 2013. How then can we generate the necessary intersection between urban policies that reduce the climate of violence while also recognizing the agency of urban minorities that is always and already present?…”