In the excerpt that we read for this week, “Who Deserves Housing?: The Battle for East Thirteenth Street,” author Amy Starecheski examines the case that was made by those living in the squats at East Thirteenth Street to claim ownership of their property through adverse possession; more specifically, Starecheski draws upon oral histories and archival records to explore the dimensions of how organizers created “the narrative of possession and continuous occupancy required by the courts,” how squatters articulated “property claims in court with stories of its practice in everyday life,” and “how the kinds of relatedness portrayed in the tacking narrative produced for the judge exacerbated and created social conflicts in the community of squatters” (Starecheski 99). Starecheski uses this to ultimately examine the broader relationship between the “state and its citizens,” “the nature of public property,” as well as “who decides who deserves housing” (Starecheski 95).
This was perhaps one of my first official introductions to studying oral history, and I found it quite compelling how Starecheski mentioned having to combine all of these stories together to get a fuller picture of what was happening (especially capturing conflict within the community of squatters). I feel that Starecheski’s work just reinforces how valuable of an approach this is in community-oriented research. Although it was on a much smaller scale, I am thinking back to the research I was doing on the East Side Coastal Resiliency project too and how every single person basically had such a different version of what was going on and what was the appropriate next step. I feel like the work of taking these individual strands and weaving them together is crucial in making informed community decisions and as people whose research/activism can have real life impacts, it is our obligation to try to get the fullest sense of what is going on and the most context possible to make sure we really know what we are advocating for.
In addition to Starecheski’s approach, I felt that the content of the work was relevant as well. I think something that particularly stuck with me was Starecheski’s emphasis on the importance of narrative in the organizers’ crafting of their case. The organizers could not simply present a list of names to the courts but needed to connect everything in a way that demonstrated continuity and intention behind their actions. This point actually provoked me to think of the various ways I may find myself articulating environmental narratives in my own work this summer, particularly in relation to an initiative such as ALIGN’s involvement in the 80/50 campaign and their focus on the reduction of emissions from buildings. While work related to meeting emissions targets may involve many numbers and figures, rather than just putting these statistics forth, I think it is important to consider how to convert this into a narrative that appeals to a wider audience, particularly those who may not prioritize climate change or the reduction of emissions. For instance, ALIGN is already engaged in the work of framing the reduction of building emissions as an opportunity for establishing new jobs and better quality of life, and I am thinking of ways that I could see myself contributing to this effort. Conversely, I also try to consider how this kind of initiative may be able to mobilize those from the more mainstream environmental movement to advocate for social justice and equitable jobs as well, which may typically not be at the top of the agenda.
Additionally, I thought it was interesting how there were very strong moral dimensions to the arguments that the organizers made and the stories they told, as they often tried to depict themselves as productive, responsible citizens in order to justify their right to the property. It prompted me to revisit the ideas in Harvey’s “Right to the City” as well as Ananya Roy’s lecture, and more particularly her description of “property as personhood.” Connecting all of these arguments, I am just thinking of how one’s personhood is connected to property, and how, as Harvey mentions, the right to a place also has more to do with the right of shaping and reshaping ourselves. However, as I emphasized before, the East Thirteenth Street organizers’ approaches demonstrate how morality and the rights to claim property (and thus to claim themselves) are tied up with the notion of productivity, and I suppose this just all has me thinking of the larger idea of what urban citizenship, rights, inclusion, and autonomy could look like in a world where deservingness is not based so heavily upon productivity or the ideas of capitalism at large.
I love this post, Alina! You’ve done such a great job of full considering what oral history and the documentation of community storytelling do as research methods that other methods might not be able to do. One of those things is capturing the ways in which our life stories, or the ways we narrate our identities and belief systems, helps explain how we make political decisions that may seem removed from our sense of self. As we said in class, oral history is great at capturing contradictions and that can actually be helpful, rather than a condemnation of the methods “inability” to get at “objective truth.” One of the best organizing tools is the ability to listen. I think if you can listen to how people tell their life histories, they will often share the nugget of information/belief that you need to change their minds. And I like your linkages to Roy and Harvey re: property as citizenship or personhood. Would you be shocked to know (probably not) that some of the squatters who won their buildings in the end of the chapter re-sold their apartments for extravagant prices?