“Sociologists who study organizations sometimes use the term ‘field’ to describe a set of organizations linked together as competitors and collaborators within a social space devoted to a particular type of action — such as a market for certain products, the pursuit of urban development, or the realm of electoral politics. Agreements struck among the organizations that compose a field set the bounds on what kinds of organizational and individual action are possible.” (Nicole Marwell, Bargaining for Brooklyn: Community Organizations in the Entrepreneurial City”)
Each time I attempt to explain WHEDco or attempt to sort it into a category, I find that I am immediately mistaken. It lives within the non-profit world, and within that is concentrated on place-based community development. And yet, it is an organization that creates and maintains affordable housing, educates women to set up home-based childcare services, supports and displays Bronx music, and works with local businesses and community stakeholders to spur economic development. My role has been almost entirely associated with the last initiative, although I find that in attempting to typify WHEDco I cannot discount its other roles to clarify my own. Along Southern Boulevard, WHEDco is working through commercial corridor revitalization with NYC Small Business Services, yet also has an affordable housing residence (with a rooftop farm, no less) and operates both a home-base childcare office and the Bronx Music Heritage Center Lab within the same space. Thus, in thinking about what would constitute the ‘field’ I am working in, I can easily pinpoint my role in community development and commercial corridor revitalization, but when I contextualize myself within the organization I am working with, it no longer becomes as clear.
Perhaps what is also nascent in Marwell’s characterization of a field as “a set of organizations linked together as competitors and collaborators within a social space devoted to a particular type of action” is that these organizations are linked not only by competition and collaboration, but also by mutually supporting networks that create a larger system of community support. Non-profit organizations, it seems, are constantly pulled in two diverging directions: the official and governmental authority of the city, its agencies, and larger organizations and corporations, and the grassroots association of community members and stakeholders that often come together to resist the larger powers in action. The field, then, becomes much larger: not only limited to organizations of similar size and scope, but beyond to institutions of power and the people they are meant to support. Because the goals from both sides of the spectrum so often deviate, it necessitates creating a careful balance of association and self-definition by said association.
In my work as WHEDco, I can see the formal connections with agencies like NYC Small Business Services, for which we are completing the CDNA, which also comes with grants sponsored by larger city initiatives and corporations like Citi Bank. NYC DOT sponsors our festivals as part of Summer Streets, and we invite DCP to every event so that they can further their “Neighborhood Study” of Southern Boulevard. However, this action is also complemented and counteracted by involvement with Banana Kelly, which is having a meeting tomorrow to discuss how to resist DCP’s initiatives in the area, and smaller community organizations like Mothers on the Move or the Bronx Defenders. There are other organizations that are similarly working on economic development and small business improvement around Southern Boulevard such as South Bronx Overall Economic Development Corporation and the Southern Boulevard BID, yet neither of these are quite the same in size or scope as WHEDco. The best comparative I can think of would be The Point CDC or Phipps Neighborhoods, although those are not an exact match either. What is important about all the organizations listed above is that they overlap, cross paths, or connect in some way with their work, and in that create the mutually supporting network that comprises a ‘field.’ Especially in place-based and localized community work, the definitions and associations of a ‘field’ may become only secondary in importance to specific initiatives and practices depending upon the specific initiative or project.
Very astute assessment of Marwell’s point and a credit to WHEDco’s diversification of its areas of community support and engagement. I think they are pretty unique in their interest in the arts and humanities as a core feature of their more social service and housing oriented work. I also think you would get a lot out of Marwell’s book because the organizations she analyzes (and for whom she determines a “field”) are not that different from WHEDco in a lot of ways. I see WHEDco as an advocate and mediator between different fields, but I also think there are other advocates and mediators out there in the Bronx. I also wonder how much WHEDco and its partners always agree — or perhaps they agree to disagree — about strategy. When you get to the “Right to the City” question, I think this may spark a slightly different way of thinking. Do you think that Harvey would count WHEDco as an organization aligned with his values?