Life in the Lab: Cheryl Case

Cheryl Case

For Cheryl Case, a graduate student of anthropology, the city of Atlanta - in particular, the Booker T. Washington Community near Vine City - is her laboratory. She's a "strategic neighbor," meaning she has intentionally put down roots in a neighborhood where she's not in the majority.

As told to Jeremy Craig

I first moved to the area because it was an under-resourced neighborhood in the shadow of the Georgia Dome. I felt very moved to come alongside the community to address issues there. I really wanted it to be people-centered, and if there was going to be development, I wanted it to really help indigenous neighbors living there so it wouldn't be a gentrification process that pushed people out. So, I wanted to be schooled in that, and to give my neighbors an opportunity to tell their stories.

In my research, I'm helping assistant professor [of geosciences] Katherine Hankins at GSU and assistant professor Andy Walter at the University of West Georgia to perform a larger online survey, talking to urban ministries and also talking to strategic, intentional neighbors from across the United States.

Here in Atlanta, the issue seems to be a divide between whites and African-Americans, and when you zoom out, it's not the same thing. Elsewhere, it goes across all of the different ethnicities. For many strategic neighbors, one of the major issues is the breaking down of the trust barriers around class and race stereotypes. They're building relationships by being good neighbors - even something as simple as bringing cookies, helping a neighbor understand a light bill or helping a neighbor plan for a birthday party for her daughter.