Introduction
This introductory chapter situates Women of the Storm’s emergence in the context of uncertainty about the future of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. After introducing readers to Women of the Storm, its goals, and its structure, the chapter discusses the limitations of static depictions of the group and argues for an approach that focuses on the processes by which the group came to be. It details the study’s analytic frameworks, which draw upon sociological theories of emergent groups, incipient activism, and symbolic interactionism. The chapter discusses the book’s methodology, including microhistorical analysis, techniques of “studying up” on power and inequality, as well as the narrative nonfiction approach to presenting ethnographic and historical data. The introduction ends with an overview of subsequent chapters.