Roderick E. Jackson is a Black Chicagoan, photographer, and Ph.D. Student in the African American Studies Department at UC Berkeley. My research examines the value of Black, working-class men within the post-industrial labor market in the Calumet Region of Northwest Indiana through the intersection of race, class, gender, and geography. Focusing on Gary, my work investigates how Black working-class men thrive and build community within hyper-masculine spaces of socioeconomic marginalization in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008. Methodologically, I utilize oral history interviews and visual ethnographic practices that disrupt narrow representations of Black life in the Calumet Region. I am a music producer and co-founder of the Grammy-certified production duo Tensei whose music has been featured on the South Side on Max and The Blacklist on NBC. I am also the principal photographer for a multimedia project exploring the sociosonic, music, and visual textures of Black life in Chicagoland.