What would it mean to decolonize Detroit? How does anthropology figure?

Abstract

With Detroit as its principal site, this essay examines the possibility and the hope for developing a decolonial practice as part of the research in and of a “Black” city. What can we learn from Detroit and what needs to change about ethnography in order for this kind of learning to take place? Can ethnography become a decolonial form or must it be undone and re-emerge as a different kind of intervention in order to effectively contribute to a decolonizing practice? Who should be the interlocutors? Who should be the authors? To what extent must we reimagine the audience? How must ethnography’s practitioners reconfigure processes of collaboration in order to effectively change the form?