The field

In the context of Nicole Marwell’s explanation of the term “field,” the Loisaida is a small non-profit community organization that collaborates with other community organizations in what could be considered broadly a pursuit of urban development. Loisaida has a broad field that works with a lot of different facets of community development. Their mission, which I often hear echoed in the language of Libertad the director, is to address serious economic and social disenfranchisement of poor and low-income Latino residents. They go on to talk about the types of services that they offer. In practice, I have found that this mission has meant engaging the community in training workshops, youth programs and cultural events that highlight the community, which is essentailly how the center’s goals are described. The history of needing to fight for housing and a right to the city has led to a great deal of organizing in many different ways. The Loisida Center isn’t exactly in the field of housing and community housing organizations, but they are very focused on placemaking and advocating/collaborating with housing organizations. They are connected to many of the other organizations in the community and this is partly how their model is structured. Collaboration with other organizations is crucial, which is why their “field” can extend in a lot of directions. This also isn’t necessarily restricted to the nonprofit sector, since many local businesses have a stake in the community and want to be a part of it, so they will often sponsor events and provide funding for larger campaigns. Recently there were talks of receiving funding from one of the large telecommunication providers in the area. In the past ConEd has also sponsored larger events. Whether these are technically stakeholders or field organizations might be a fine line, but there seems to be a lot of overlap in these definitions. By Marwell’s definition, ConEd and Loisaida could be seen as collaborators in the pursuit of urban development even though they are organizations structured very differently.