Karl Lyn

KARL LYN, then a graduate student at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, Massachusetts, was approved funding in April 2024 to aid research on “A New Generation: The Everyday Political Lives of Black Young Adults in South Central Los Angeles,” supervised by Dr. Amilcar Shabazz. Through twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation and interviews, the research examined how Black young adults in South Los Angeles negotiate the limits and possibilities of their political agency in their daily lives. Findings reveal that Black young adults enact political agency through community-based efforts to repair the harms of inequality that structure their neighborhoods. Rather than relying solely on traditional forms of civic participation, they engage in everyday practices that cultivate collective well-being — organizing mutual aid, reclaiming land for community use, creating alternative economic resources, and building spaces of safety and belonging. These practices reflect what this research conceptualizes as ecologies of repair: small-scale but profound actions rooted in collective care and a commitment to creating more sustainable and equitable environments. Together, they illustrate that repair is not a single event that unfolds from the top down, but an ongoing process embedded in daily life, shaping alternative possibilities for social, economic, and political transformation.