April 7, 2009

Meeting of the Race Space and Law Reading Group at the Women's Resources Center

In attendance: Ken Salo, Ryan Griffis, Abby Harmon, Melissa Pognon, and Sharon Irish

Abby and Ryan reported on the conference, The City from Below. Abby started off talking about presentations by Picture the Homeless. This is a self-organized group based in NYC, founded in 1998. They work to do away with the shelter system and to fill vacant units. They did one on-the-ground data collection and found enough vacancies to theoretically house the 35,000 people filling the spots in shelters in NYC. NYC has a "right to shelter" law that means in fact that the shelter system is a $750 million industry. PHC has successfully joined the continuum of care groups in NYC so that they now have 33% of the votes, which really helps take charge of how services are delivered. Abby reported that the US Interagency Council on Homelessness has a ten-year plan to end chronic homelessness, which sounds good, but in fact limits options. There are three "official" levels of homelessness--episodic, transitional, chronic. The chronic label stigmatizes people by labeling them as having a personal disability--substance abuse and/or mental illness. "Permanent supportive housing," which also sounds good, assumes the person needs support, when really they need housing. This seems to be summed up by the statement: IT'S A HOUSING CRISIS, NOT A HOMELESS CRISIS! PHC also questions "whose quality of life?" in the legislation intended to enhance urban "quality of life." Abby also made the point that "low-income" categories also damage people by pigeon-holing them into boxes that cut out opportunities.

There were also presentations by Anarchitecture, Abandonment Issues, Max Rameau of Take Back the Land in Miami. The latter group limits their takeovers to municipally-owned property, although Umoja Village, a shantytown built in 2006 on public land in Liberty City, resulted in a lot of arrests and harassment. Abandonment Issues in Toronto has posted on their blog a policy brief outlining the city's need for the Use It or Lose It bylaw and issuing recommendations for how this bylaw would best be implemented. Other presentations mentioned include the Baltimore Algebra Project, a group of students in Baltimore who organized for better schools; Shiri Pasternak; Cheri Honkala of the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign (PPEHRC) and United Workers. These groups are all inspiring!

The Baltimore Algebra Project students held a die-in at the state capitol to stress the connection between lack of education and high mortality rates. They tried to make a citizen's arrest of the Maryland governor.  They started peer-to-peer tutoring in a network where they leveraged each others' strengths. The Baltimore United Workers all maintain working-class jobs and use storytelling as a way of making demands. These stories are spatial and lived, effective ways to get the powers-that-be involved in the stories these workers are making. For example, they created a Human Rights Zone at the Baltimore harbor. They developed a list of the Five Big Worst Employers. They always have a part of their events that is a surprise to catch power off-guard.

One useful distinction for me was "we are organized" vs the passive "being organized" by, say, a community organizer. No matter how much trust, there is a significant difference between self-organized groups and those working "with" an organizer. Organizers can provide tactical support and be allies.

A rich and challenging discussion!

ANNOUNCEMENTS: Abby noted that Louise Dunlap will be offering two workshops on April 20th related to her work on writing for social justice.

Undoing the Silence: Six Tools for Social Change Writing

By LOUISE DUNLAP

A Day of Workshops on Writing for Change Agents

April 20, 2009

Urban planning professionals and scholars try to make the world a better place.  We need to be persuasive in communicating with the public, politicians, and policy makers to make changes for sustainability, social justice, economic opportunities, and other progressive planning processes.

Louise has shared her methods for effective and persuasive writing in workshops and seminars at UC-Berkley, MIT, Tufts and many other planning schools, as well as nonprofits around the world.  Her Tools for Social Change Writing help practitioners and social justice-minded scholars make their voices heard in the challenging debates of our times.

Louise will do two formal workshops.

•      Writing in the Planning Bureaucracy 12-1:30 RM 19 TBH Planners can face difficulties when communicating in a bureaucratic structure: how to use the active voice and make clear/concise arguments that different audiences will respond to.

•      Responding to your writing questions 2:30 to 5:30 RM 19 TBH (some topics are grant writing, writing blocks, and writing organization) Please send questions to Betsy at esweet1@illinois.edu by April 6, 2009.

 

Ken noted that I-Powered is organizing an event on Saturday April 25 for Earth Day. Also, the Central Illinois Social Forum will be held May 2 at the IMC, and has subgroups on Urban Inequalities, Food, Jobs, and Housing.

 

March 2, 2009

Meeting of the Race Space and Law Reading Group with I-Powered

In attendance: Ken Salo, Ryan Griffis, Sharon Irish (yes, just three of us)

Ken reported on his Saturday, Feb. 28, trip to East St. Louis with many other UI faculty and students, during which he hooked up with Will Patterson briefly. Ken’s class in Urban Planning is focusing on the Black Arts Movement in Community Revitalization, so they attended an event held at the school district on East St. Louis history that Eugene Redmond had organized. At that event, Sandra Pfeifer’s film-in-progress, “Against All Odds” was screened. See http://feedroomfilms.com/againstodds.html, which has a very brief clip and describes it as “an hour-long social issue documentary about the city of East St Louis, IL. This film recounts the sometimes gruesome historical events that led to the birth of America’s only ‘all Black city’, as well as taking an insiders look at the important grassroots community efforts that hold this unique city together today, showcasing many of the courageous citizens who work non-stop, in the worst of circumstances, to make their city a better place to live, despite the hopelessness that the outside world sees.”

Ken’s class also met with Ms. Lily Butler Dayton of the Wedgewood Neighborhood Organization, and discussed environmental problems such as dumping and flooding issues. The next planned UI trip to East St. Louis is April 3-4.

Ken also called attention to a community mapping site: http://www.hlplanning.com/dnn/champaign/CommunitybrMapping/tabid/737/Default.aspx

that he thought could be useful in local work. It is sponsored by the city of Champaign, but you have to register to use it. Ken’s networking continues in north Champaign as well, with connections to the North First Street business efforts. Ken is going to follow up with some of his Champaign contacts to see if there is interest in a walking tour with youth and us. We also talked about seeing “The Garden,” a documentary about the garden in South Central LA. http://www.blackvalleyfilms.com/

Ken recommended a book by Loic Wacquant, Urban Outcasts: A Comparative Sociology of Advanced Marginality (2007)

Ryan mentioned a new book by Paul Carter, Dark Writing: Geography, Performance, Design

Notes by Sharon Irish

 

February 11, 2009

Minutes of joint meeting of Race, Space and Law Reading Group with I-Powered

 

 

In attendance: Ryan Griffis, Eric Benson, Ann Bishop, Nama Budhathoki, Ken Salo, Will Patterson, John Jennings, Sharon Irish, Safiya Noble, Melissa Pognon, Nav Khanal, Imani Green

 

 

Action Items:

• Next meeting: Monday, March 2, 1-3pm, Room 131 Library and Info Science Building, 501 E. Daniel St, Champaign (first floor, east side): come when you are able
• Monday, March 9, 4:30, dinner with visitors from East St. Louis, location TBD (They will be here for the Public Engagement symposium, with a presentation 2-2:30 at the Illini Union)

The visitors from East St. Louis include Ms. Christina Fisher, of Community Concepts/Village Theatre; Mr. Don Holt, of Teen Tech Team; and two or three youth (Keena-Rhee Flie and Joseph Hines) who traveled to São Tomé, West Africa last summer with Paul Adams, Community Networking Director, GSLIS

• HASTAC Conference, Sunday April 19-Tuesday April 21, with a panel on Community Informatics on Tuesday (4/21) afternoon 2-3:15PM, with Will Patterson (DAAS), Ken Salo (DURP), Chip Bruce (GSLIS), Angel Nieves (Hamilton College, NY) and Lucy Haagen (Duke)

http://www.hastac.org/

• Create a large cross-listed course for critical mass and engagement (see below)

 

 

Introductions and interests: Melissa’s collecting stories from Urban League of Champaign County; John Jennings and Eric Benson started an ethics in graphic design course; Ann Bishop and Will Patterson serve on Civic Engagement task force; Ryan shared his discovery of an arts movement related to music and mediation of gang activities by jazz musician Allan “Dealth” Merry, who moved back to East St. Louis and started after-school program with music (funk/soul) that lasted for 15 years

He passed around a Young Disciples-related CD by YODI enterprises, 324 Collinsville Ave ESL 62201

 

 

Discussions about:

• emerging gang situation in north Champaign with city looking for mediator betw youth and authorities: these youth are not from Chicago, but rather forming their own crews to protect their spaces: who are these youth? Has anyone talked to them about their views? What role could the University play?
• UI administrators don’t respect the roles/actions of community engagement in terms of tenure and promotion.
• Ken thinks the “hood” isn’t on the radar of a whole range of people at the established institutions because: Obama phenomenon; “service-learning” rather than targeted engagement with certain groups, like young disaffected black males; collapse and abandonment of social services by the state.
• Students play a critical part in I-Powered

 

 

Project Idea Revisits/Activities currently on table:

Ø      Mapping authentic engagement activities on campus, such as Sam Smith at Krannert Center re-presenting Africa to African American youth; also Center for African Studies outreach

Ø      Miles Davis project—25 students on last ESL trip who visited Miles Davis house; desire to involve other folks who worked with Miles; intersection of jazz and hiphop

Ø      U.R. [Urban Reality] Movement, part of Will’s class last semester—Jonathan Hamilton group from Dept of EdPolicyStudies won $2500 competition, launching an 8-week project at Douglass Center, with hiphop

Ø      Ken: tours of  north Champaign, Jazz Venue History Tour highlights the Bridgewater Family, Ms. B lives on Washington St. (near the toxic waste site); layers of space can be understood on several levels, and Ms. B. is a community leader; Neighborhood revitalization often missed the cool factor

Ø      Ann on East St. Louis and existing programs, Village Concepts Theatre, Urbana archivist Anke Voss (Will has worked with her) on Katherine Dunham Archives (KDA) in East St. Louis. In relation to KDA, some tensions exist on the part of community members who are rightfully concerned about people coming in from outside and taking valuable/meaningful materials

Ø      Student Senate to make a video; ShadowWood and north Champaign to “break” the bubble of UIUC

Ø      Chris Medrano (?) and parent support group at ShadowWood—meeting on Thurs. evening, Feb 12

 

 

iLabs: Created at UIUC, with the concept of shared inquiry across interest groups, now maintained by CITES. People who use it are the developers; drupal is used to power iLab—CITES server space is issue; discursive space vs portal for information; Ken would like to upload video; blog; Salo’s students will be doing audio interviews; John suggested a ning.

iLab is a cyberspace for all of us from different directions to see theoretical connections

Who’s not at this table? We will email particular folks and invite them to join the listserv, and also email the Planner’s Network people inviting them to join the listserv; vice versa for I-Powered folks who are not on the Planner’s Network listserv (contact Melissa Pognon.)

We ended the animated evening with a discussion of I-Powered as shaper of events on campus. Let’s build critical mass and spaces of hope by attempting to establish a large introductory course for undergrads that could be cross-listed across campus. Many faculty could contribute from their disciplinary angles, but the theme would be “doin’ good in the ‘hood.” We’d also like to create a matrix/map (iMap) of all the activities that occur in separate efforts now that could be strengthened by joining forces and visualizing our activities together. If we could launch a course by next fall with 500 students, linking them to Project 500, social justice, local advocacy efforts connected to global issues, we could have a network to wield influence on campus. Safiya made the point that at a public institution of higher education like UIUC, a crucial and legitimate research and teaching effort is to institutionalize access to resources for underrepresented students who should not have “to lift while they climb” (reach back to support many others while they try and get their educations.) I-Powered ideally would provide a safe space for students of color to connect and support each other in this historically white institution. We had some discussions as to how to tackle this course creation, from the 199 Mellon-funded Discovery course sections called “Art, Diversity and Humanities” (http://courses.illinois.edu/cis/2009/spring/schedule/FAA/199.html?skinId=2169) to adapting the model of the Global Studies Initiative http://www.globalstudies.uiuc.edu/ Words like indigenous, relevant, and dialogue were stressed.

 

 

Respectfully submitted, Sharon Irish

 

 

 

December 17, 2008

Sharon Irish's conversation with Sam Smith, and resulting thoughts:

SHOUT OUT: CELEBRATING AN AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE CORRIDOR IN ILLINOIS East St. Louis to Champaign, and Beyond

 

Artists from/in East St. Louis

Josephine Baker

Miles Davis, b. Alton, IL, raised East St. Louis

Katherine Dunham

Warrington and Reginald Hudlin, brothers from East St. Louis, Black Filmmakers

Foundation, founded 1978

Edna Patterson-Petty http://fabricswork.com/

Eugene Redmond, East St. Louis, Redmond Writers Club; Drum Voices

Barbara Ann Teer (1937-2008), born East St. Louis, UIUC grad in dance, 1957, founded

National Black Theatre of Harlem, 1968

Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock), met Ike Turner at Club Manhattan in ESL, 1956

 

 

Themes: integrating technology and performance (Tom Korder); archiving documents, mapping and oral histories for community memories (Jazz Threads, Reggie Petty documents and interviews, Dunham archives, National Black Theatre); excellence of artistic expression (Edna Patterson-Petty, also writers’ workshops); migration and connection (tie in with Angela Rivers’ mural, Marcano mural)

 

Possible partners: Will Patterson (BNAACC); Ken Salo; Ann Bishop; Krannert Center; Valeri Werpetinski; Academy of Entrepreneurial Leadership; Vice Chancellor for Public Engagement; Christina Fisher and Community Concepts/Village Theatre in East St. Louis; Teen Tech Team in East St. Louis; Hermon Betts of Citizen Advocate Media Co. (www.citizenadvocate.us) in East St. Louis; IMC, Urbana; Prairienet; SIU in Edwardsville http://www.siue.edu/

 

Eventual goal: off-campus arts center in C-U for healing (possible model: Attitudinal Healing Connection of Oakland http://www.ahc-oakland.org/)

 

December 16, 2008

A conversation among Ken Salo, Ryan Griffis, Sharon Irish after Ken's last trip to East St. Louis: sketchy notes

[POETRY, PROFITS and POLLUTION:]

CULTURAL RESOURCES IN East St. Louis: public art, gardens, oral histories, and exhibitions

Workshop cartograms

Neighborhood scale information: food insecurity (mention of articles in News-Gazette and NYT about food banks and fresh veggies)

COMMUNITY CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN EAST ST. LOUIS

Funding from NEH Division of Public Programs among BNAACC/IPowered, CII, KCPA, Art and Design, and DURP (3 colleges, 5 units)

Reggie Petty, archives and oral history

Oral histories about spatial practices (range of older residents, especially, with connections across decades to ID “turns”)

Connect with ESLARP

Library discards

Miles Davis House: jazz and urban planning

Jazz Threads

I Powered and communities of inquiry

ESL urban history

Artists, social historians, designers get together and produce something, ala Dolores Hayden's Power of Place in the 1980s

Ryan’s class in spring: 14 people—toxic tourism, disaster tourism; Ken’s class in spring: IPowered kids (public parks and police, community food gardens, polluted spaces) plus work weekends in ESL

Window of five years or so: to marshal resources of history beyond abandoned material spaces

Center for Urban Pedagogy—with youth, alternative bodies of knowledge; research with aesthetic dimension—posters, videos, NY-specific waste stream, water, policy

Ken link to DTEC—alternative knowledge not self-evident

Ryan reminded us of some reenacting projects—AntFarm’s reenactment of JFK’s assassination; Jeremy Deller’s Battle of Orgreave, labor battle of 80s--documentary; Haymarket reenactment

Chicago/Calumet Underground Railroad Effort (South Chicago initiative)

Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (Los Angeles)

Food Desert Discussion with Daniel Block of Chicago State Univ.

Proyecto CAFE (Community Action on Food Environments) (Los Angeles)

Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (Boston)

Growing Power (Milwaukee + Chicago)

Another model: Greg Sholette and REPOhistory: signage projects of history, with permits

Spectres of Liberty, Troy NY

Chicago AREA project: distributed mapping to citizens

Where did project 500 materialize in space?

Kwanzaa

Las Posadas

Line from ESL, to CU to Chicago in terms of jazz

 

 

 

December 4, 2008

This is a version of an article Sharon Irish wrote for the Community Informatics Initiative website, reporting on the meeting we had as a reading group with Will Patterson's class.

 

Dr. Will Patterson, associate director of the Bruce D.Nesbitt African American Cultural Center <http://www.odos.uiuc.edu/aacp/director.html> and assistant professor in the Department of African American Studies has been teaching a course this semester called Hip Hop and Social Entrepreneurship. This course has been partly supported by the Academy of Entrepreneurial Leadership, where Dr. Patterson is a Faculty Fellow this year. http://www.business.illinois.edu/ael/facultyfellows.html#William_Patterson The course has a couple of outstanding and unusual components: first, “five local small business owners or entrepreneurs with business located in or serving marginalized communities receive[d] a tuition waiver and book voucher to participate in the course.”

Second, “students [will] submit final projects in a competition to receive a $2500 stipend to implement their Hip Hop-based social entrepreneurial idea into a viable program that meets a need of a marginalized community or population.” GSLIS professor and Community Informatics Initiative co-director Ann Bishop will serve as one of the judges in this competition.

 

 

Some of the students in the course took a trip to East St. Louis in November that coincided with the last outreach weekend of the term, sponsored by the East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP) http://www.eslarp.uiuc.edu/. This trip was co-organized with Professor Ken Salo of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and urban planning students who are reflecting on issues of “outreach,” “service learning,” and the legacy of ESLARP. Two vans transported Drs. Patterson and Salo, their students, and members of the Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice to East St. Louis, where they garnered immediate attention as a critical mass of African American students in blue and orange hooded sweatshirts that were emblazoned with “I-Power” on the front, and “Doing Good in the ‘Hood” on the back. Dr. Patterson stressed that University of Illinois students of color are “I-Powered,” meaning they are in an important position to connect with youth in East St. Louis and interest them in education and civic leadership.

 

 

The visit to East St. Louis included conversations with Reginald Petty, an historian and storyteller of East St. Louis; a Centreville planner, who stressed that he needed hazardous materials certification to work in the polluted environment there; the Concerned Citizens of Precinct 12; and the South End New Development Organization (SENDO). An impromptu visit to the former home of jazz musician Miles Davis was a highlight. Participants on the trip were inspired by the opportunities to introduce hip hop into the landscape, through improvisation and rhythm, celebrating the community. Students were also shocked that a city the size of East St. Louis (about 30,000) had no hospital.

 

 

The post-trip discussion at the African American Cultural Center included fish, chicken and macaroni and cheese from the Sea Boat, as well as conviviality with about thirty students from across campus and members of the Race, Space and Law Reading Group, sponsored by the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities http://www.iprh.uiuc.edu/  The next step will be to create a wiki with those in attendance so that conversations can continue virtually and  I-Power can grow in numbers and influence. Efforts are being made to host the wiki through Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, which would provide a natural link from their Jazz Threads archive to further work in East St. Louis on the Miles Davis house.

 

November 18, 2008

These notes were written as we talked--

Discussion of Citizens for Peace with Justice trip to East St. Louis with Dr. Will Patterson's class on November 15. Amber (Cahokia) and Brian (CUCPJ) and Donald (DURP) with Ken, Sharon, and Ryan. Amber did a study abroad with Ken to Capetown. Food and reflections with Will's class on a Thursday in December...the 4th? Location? Bruce Nesbitt House? Will Patterson's class made a video that we can see. Rachel from Un'y went as well. See email itinerary plus detour to Miles Davis house. Ideas: mapping spaces related to artistic contributions. ESLARP being remade in new ways.

Community center full of ESLARP students. Amber thought scattered across classes and from different backgrounds. Common readings and meetings would help. Amber from Cahokia reported that she is from the area and has experiences that others don't see. Aaron Ammons and Ken thought taking African American folks to ESL from Champaign could be eye-opening...orientation with Stacy and Sang and Abby about ESL environmental justice tour. No participation from residents in north Champaign in part due to generational gaps and employment groups. CUCPJ focuses more on community revitalization through problem solving, rather than taking over model. So connected with Will Patterson and he was enthusiastic...but his class meets tonight. Students were able to make connection between environmental degradation and social disempowerment. Environmental justice and conditions were a way to frame the social issues. Aaron spoke to the role of arts and that resonated with Will's mantra. Aaron the "hood" is in the "head." Changing the way we think about these projects. Mental decolonization. Brian suggests that strong black men, like Dr. P and Aaron, inspires the students. i-Power signs on vans! Styling the UI van, students with orange and blue hoodies, hip hop logo, calls attention to their presence. Social entrepreneurial presence...enlisting black students in working with black communities. Don states that the project becomes a subject: ritual of volunteerism. General public in ESL not engaged in outsiders' work. Went on an FAA 199 trip, and continuity missing from class to class. Develop an expertise and a distance that blinds folks to the on the ground experience. "Urban safari" on charter bus is degrading for all parties. Students on a bus "touring" the city. Met with Reginald Petty in ESL, Rodney Lewis in planner in Centreville (Lanson Chemical Co.), and some other polluted sites...in Sauget (formerly Monsanto) and Alorton (aluminium site). Students brought video out when people were talking, rather than outside. Amber suggests bringing more young people from East St. Louis to connect with UIUC students. ESL as an agglomeration of company towns, and deepen with oral histories. Remap ESL through memories and cultural histories. Miles Davis house found via Billie Turner. Little cardboard sign perched in front yard, with picture of trumpet, on Miles Davis Drive. Ken Salo got three volumes of Mr. Petty's volumes. Mr. Petty is an "alternate library" and musuem.

Vicki Eddings knows of a student of Vernon Burton's who collected stories but then disappeared. Environmental remediation as a method of community revitalization not proven to help: still poor and black. Reclaiming the Environmental Debate: The Politics of Health in  Toxic Culture, ed. Richard Hofrichter (relevant chapter on brownfields). If brownfield remediation cannot be done in ESL, it is the poster child of brownfields--so linked to corporate power and abuse.

Very powerful poor people's movement in environmental justice, not about cleaning up pollution, rather about empowerment. Action research was a social justice critique of uneven development.

Crisis of Urban League collapse offers a chance to think through some of the problems of political and economic processes: First Street, Seaboat gone, NAACP defunct

Aaron Ammons keeps returning to the idea of gardening; ala Growing Power both for education and provision for food deserts; Center for Urban Pedagogy does projects around specific issues: puppet shows around housing crisis

 

Environmental Justice Summit: CHICAGO--Hazel Johnson and Altgeld Garden, People for Community Recovery; CHAMPAIGN--CUCPJ; ESL

Ken's group met with Donald Ridenour, who is now a consultant--they have the PR and EPA in their scheme and Ken wants to broaden the frame because environmental justice has been obscured; needs resistance of art to shift its focus

Blind spot is that they are now functional within the frame, NGOs set themselves up for mediators within groups, gets grants.

POETRY, PROFITS and POLLUTION: Speak Cafe into the community, for example

Ken--Ruby Mendenhall and her partner;

Brian--Fred Hampton, Jr., community organizer;

Terry Townsend, entrepreneurial model

Central Avenue project in LA, entrepreneurial too; black economic empowerment of Malcolm relates to Urban League

SAJE--Strategic Actions for a Just Economy around the Staples Center in the 90s and still around

 

Some links to some of the projects (and related ones not directly mentioned) during the discussion:

East St. Louis Action Research Project (at UIUC)

Chicago/Calumet Underground Railroad Effort (South Chicago initiative)

Strategic Actions for a Just Economy (Los Angeles)

Food Desert Discussion with Daniel Block of Chicago State Univ.

Proyecto CAFE (Community Action on Food Environments) (Los Angeles)

Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative (Boston)

Growing Power (Milwaukee + Chicago)

East St. Louis, an Environmental Justice Case Study

 

November 13, 2008

with Ken Salo and David MacDonald, visiting to talk about "Spatial Inequality, Racism and Environmental Justice  Movements in the Global South" in transnational seminar

David has authored a number of books, including Environmental Justice in South Africa; Electric Capitalism; World City. He began by talking about the distinction between direct/intentional racism and indirect/unintentional racism. In South Africa, environmentalism was linked to white, racist practices because, for example, the Kruger National Park (a huge reserve) was created by forcibly removing people from their homelands. Once the connection was made between racism and environmental practices, environmentalism in South Africa caught on, because people saw how racism inflected the relationship to the environment, a poor people's movement. Some policies while not directly racist, have the same effect.

 

The progressive South African constitution (ratified in 1994) includes a right to clean air, for example. Ken Salo argues that "rights" is a neoliberal strategy. Universal rights brings in blind spots to social difference; individual rights dates to French Revolution/US Constitution, and undermines the social movement thrust. A legalistic trap. The World Bank now supports the "right to water," for example, but argues the best way to achieve that is through the private sector, which is better able to "deliver" water. Flipside of right is "obligation." Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu said people had a right to water but an "obligation" to pay for it. This is a liberal democratic discourse.

Article on the rights discourse and water in Antipode, 2007, Karen Bakker (UBC)The "Commons" Versus the "Commodity": Alter-globalization, Anti-privatization and the Human Right to Water in the Global South (p 430-455) Published Online: Jul 13 2007

 

Neoliberalism is a dynamic concept, but MacDonald started with a "static" admittedly simplistic idea. Back to 19th C., when global capitalism emerged, folks realized that liberalizing economies was in their economic interest. Grew dramatically to free trade, deregulated, private sector mentality that became dominant. Crashed in 1870s and 1930s, so state became involved in managing the cycles. Not an attempt to regulated the market (Keynesian); shift back in 1970s to NEO-liberalism: deregulation, inflation control, cost recovery, privatization, but all shifting. Clinton and Blair era fostered more public/private partnerships.

 

October 16, 2008

with Ryan Griffis, Sharon Irish and Ken Salo

We had a rich and varied discussion today focused on the ways in which we’d like to focus our energies.

Ken and Sharon attended Natalie Jeremijenko’s talk in which she mentioned a “crisis of agency.” We are stymied by the divisions and factions in our town. Ken wondered:

“Could environmental justice be a mechanism for uniting a fragmented community?”

Ken called attention to the upcoming Walkathon for BT Washington School (BTW), probably Friday, Nov 14. This will be elementary kids walking down Wright Street to the campus, and being greeted along Nevada St. by college students. Ken stressed the significance of walking across University Avenue, and reaching the Cultural Houses. He thought perhaps various community leaders could encourage children along way: Suggs, Bridgewater, Patterson and represent their journeys in crossing University Ave.

Groups interested in helping to welcome the BTW kids include: KCPA, Cultural Houses, Spanish classes, SOAR (Student Opportunities for After-school Resources).

Ken also suggested that youth performances would be another way to get at/activate critiques. Apparently the Bruce Nesbitt African American Cultural House has an arts program: currently producing plays on social issues (such as “Ballot and the Bullet”).

Event with drama and youth art works: Brian Chesley case with spatial connotations (chalkline)

Ken noted that an abandoned garden near BTW is a possible site of activity, but that the difficulty is the networking with the neighbors.

He asked, “How do we recover stories of experience that have some aspect of opposition?” He has found that those who have some of the most compelling stories may be too compromised to go public; hard to mobilize these folks with fractious situations among landlords, Ameren, tenants: it is a non-communicative community

People work night jobs and don’t interact: spatially contiguous, socially distant; highly mobile, so spatially not coherent; town and gown

Transient Center for Women in Transition

Ken had hoped for people’s truth commissions: Ministerial Alliance is not going to do this

Ryan mentioned an early toxic tour with Sean Williams and Linda Turnbull, who reported that Champaign-Urbana Days was taken over;  park district and park are key (under Gina Jackson’s control) and cops relate to her; park district is another level of government

What does boundedness matter?

Toxic blob also mobile—

We discussed the cultural politics of neighborhood and connections to history in Paseo Boricua/East St. Louis (ESL)/north Champaign: environmental justice as memory; racism as part of history that doesn’t get represented: tours could help as public markers, memory walks, trail of tears of injustices:

ESL: stories of Miles Davis, Katherine Dunham; Christina Fisher’s husband, Eddie, was a blues guitarist: now she continues the Village Theatre as community

Project 500 35th anniversary missed by the three of us! (Why was this under the radar?)

Abandoned sites in South Africa had so much social resistance that the apartheid govt  couldn’t rebuild after relocating people, so while they are abandoned, they have memories

Ryan on Jacksonville, FL—incinerator sites “found” in the 1990s, though the city operated these since 1890s: located in black communities by mayoral mandate; schools built on top of these ash dump sites, and parks

Jacksonville is a bigger area than C-U, public meetings with city about these sites with the EPA

Ryan just returned from Syracuse University conference on Public Memory;

Ryan reminded us of some reenacting projects—AntFarm’s reenactment of JFK’s assassination; Jeremy Deller’s Battle of Orgreave, labor battle of 80s--documentary; Haymarket reenactment

Another model: Greg Sholette and REPOhistory: signage projects of history, with permits

We pondered how a problem-solving approach sometimes avoids deeper structural issues, and no further movement happens:

Gina Jackson (along with powerful community of elders…who are basically the property owners) and City Council shut the Fifth and Hill/CUCPJ project down. This toxic focus shouldn’t get in the way of economic development; plus techno approach of CCHCC

Even worse, the City of Champaign’s underground storage tanks (LUST=Leaky Underground Storage Tanks) site by RR now for sale: Paul Adams said a similar thing happened with the former Seaboat site and LUST

With North Champaign disaffected youth, perhaps a project exploring relationships between police and kids. Jeremijenko’s robotic feral dogs had kids in the parks Sharon talked a bit about Suzanne Lacy’s work in Oakland with teens and cops

Ken reported on a Cookout for students at La Casa, with police Oct 17: how does this change the dynamics (eg, cops give stickers at open houses to kids); Patrick Thompson and Martel Miller know cops by name

Ryan remembered testimony from a hearing on police/community relations from 1968 on the near west side Chicago, and how the issues and descriptions sound the same today

Action points:

• find out more about Nesbitt performances;
• tell our own stories about re: police;
• social mapping with various threads from Ken’s class: art, community gardens, music (Jazz threads, Crystal Green), police abuse, Will Patterson’s Our Journeys, toxic sites, housing (substandard, abandoned, history—of who had to live where)
• attend lunch discussion with Jorge Chapa and Ken Salo and Aaron Ammons about Fifth and Hill site on October 23 at Center on Demcracy
• Sharon is going to an Animating Democracy workshop on Ocotber 27-28, sponsored by 40 North
• join the walkathon with BTW kids

   

 

 

September 18, 2008

Don Mitchell, geographer from Syracuse University, spoke at UIUC on his latest research: "Battle/Fields: Braceros, Agribusiness, and the Violent Transformation of the California Agricultural Landscape." The period under consideration was December 1942-March 1943, when a war emergency was declared that allowed "guest workers"/braceros to enter the US from Mexico. California has been the leading agricultural state since WWII and these years were decisive. The Federal Services Administration (FSA) ran the program initially. Mitchell's points included that the "physical" platform of the land is a historical phenomenon (it was stolen, for example); the land is a conduit for the circulation of capital; capital is always at risk due to obsolescence; and that capital is variable (during harvests, for example.)Landscape reproduces itself through labor. Carey McWilliams (despised by growers, and called the No. 1 Pest) was Director of Housing and Immigration in California in charge of inspection of conditions and regulatory issues. In 1939 he wrote a remarkable book called Factories in the Field about industrial agriculture. Phrases that Mitchell used included: path dependency, modal suffering, and structural violence. His research has indicated that the landscape did not shift, but rather remained the same, along with the violence. Geographical landscape is an inertial force. Sharon added the books he mentioned to the bibliography. These notes are cryptic!

 

September 11, 2008

We met in Art and Design at 4pm: Melissa MacDonald (MA in education), Kora (UT Austin anthro PhD student), Ihsan (DURP PhD student), Ken Salo, Ryan Griffis, Bonnie Fortune (MFA student), Merle Bowen and Sharon Irish

Merle Bowen spoke about quilombo in Brazil. Ken Salo talked about toxicity as a characteristic of relationships. We generated ideas about future readings and directions. Our first reading was by Eileen Moreton-Robinson on the Yorta-Yorta decision. Sharon will try and summarize at a later time.

 

August 2008

Web of Ideas for RSL.doc

This Word document was drafted by Sharon Irish after a conversation with Ken Salo.