Contesting the right to the city under scarcity: the case of Micronesians in Hawaiʻi’s public housing

Rita, Nathalie; Darrah–Okike, Jennifer; Engel, Rachel; Garboden, Philip M. E.

doi:10.1080/08882746.2020.1765667

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Due to the United States’ strategic interest in the Micronesian region of Oceania, including the testing of atomic weapons, citizens from nations covered under COFA treaties are allowed to indefinitely live and work in the United States as noncitizens. Due in part to its relative proximity to COFA nations, Hawai‘i is by far the largest recipient of such migrants, who are deeply stigmatized across a number of contexts in the state (Peters et al 2018; Rita et al 2020)…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A vast literature has focused on public housing in the East and Rust Belt (Bloom 2014;Popkin 2016;Vale 2013;Venkatesh 2009) and, to a lesser extent, the South (Drake Rodriguez 2021; Ruel et al 2013;Tester et al 2011) and the West (Parson 2005). However, almost none has focused on multiethnic, settler-colonial contexts such as Hawai'i (for exception, see Rita et al 2020). To resolve this dilemma, we utilized a k-means clustering approach to identify three clusters of similar properties based on the following characteristics: location, tract poverty rate, unit size, percent elderly, year first occupied, and percent of migrants associated with the Compact of Free Association (COFA), a federal policy that allows migrants from three Pacific nations to freely travel and work within the United States.…”

Section: Site and Respondent Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to the United States' strategic interest in the Micronesian region of Oceania, including the testing of atomic weapons, citizens from nations covered under COFA treaties are allowed to indefinitely live and work in the United States as noncitizens. Due in part to its relative proximity to COFA nations, Hawai'i is by far the largest recipient of such migrants, who are deeply stigmatized across a number of contexts in the state (Peters et al 2018;Rita et al 2020) We hypothesize that the claim from some of our respondents that migrants overwhelmingly benefit from the legibility requirement may rest on the fact that other households-even the very poor-have significant interpersonal social capital in the form of multigenerational family networks or other local ties. Due to the recency of their migration, many COFA migrants may lack such networks and, thus, appear more likely to have ties to institutions who are better equipped to make their needs legible.…”

Section: Consequences Of Waitlist Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

“You Have to Prove that You’re Homeless”: Vulnerability and Gatekeeping in Public Housing Prioritization Policies

2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Building on theories of symbolic boundaries, this article explores the role of the state as gatekeeper to social programs, such as public housing. Using interviews with 75 randomly sampled households living in public housing in Honolulu County, we link contemporary research on gatekeeping with decades of work on how housing policy drives residential outcomes for marginalized groups. In particular, we consider the largely unexamined case of “local preferences,” which fast-track certain individuals into social programs based on locally established criteria. Our data suggest that these prioritization categories have evolved over time and are now largely focused on providing housing to those experiencing homelessness and victims of domestic violence. Ultimately, this apparently mundane bureaucratic process mediates relationships between social service agencies, individual needs, and overwhelming housing demand, all collaborating to construct symbolic boundaries across which deservingness is defined and adjudicated. We find that waitlist prioritization criteria cannot be reduced to a basic assessment of need as it necessarily instigates issues of definition (e.g., what is homelessness?) and legibility (e.g., how does one prove homelessness?). These collateral issues amplify the importance of institutional social capital and, in some cases, generate conflict between and within eligible communities.

show abstract

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Site and Respondent Selectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Consequences Of Waitlist Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

“You Have to Prove that You’re Homeless”: Vulnerability and Gatekeeping in Public Housing Prioritization Policies

2022

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Okamura (2018 also disappears the exceptional position of Native Hawaiians, whose status as Indigenous people is not distinguished from, but blended into, an umbrella category of "local" (Rohrer 2016;Trask 2000). 1 Lastly, the experiences of more recent migrants, such as Pacific Islanders from Micronesia, who face severe bias and discrimination in Hawai'i (Peter, Tanaka, and Yamashiro 2018;Rita et al 2020), also elude ethnic models of stratification.…”

Section: Ethnicity Race and Migration In The Context Of Hawai'imentioning

confidence: 99%

“I have an accent, so people know I’m not from here”: a racial and ethnic analysis of international STEM faculty in Hawai‘i

Rita

Karides

2021

Ethnic and Racial Studies

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Immigration policies in the Global North often prioritize migrants based on professional qualifications, leading to a reliance on the labour of "highlyskilled migrants" (HSM), especially in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). Yet, the workplace experiences of HSM have been understudied, including in higher education. Based on 50 interviews with STEM faculty in Hawai'i, we identified that HSM faculty held distinct ways of negotiating employment circumstances that were categorically different than Hawai'i or U.S.-born faculty. While some HSM expressed feelings of inclusion in their multi-ethnic workplace, others shared stories of bias and discrimination. To untangle this divergence, we conceptualize the professional workplace in Hawai'i as one shaped by histories of occupation and migration. Using "ethnic embodiment" (Retsikas) and Hill-Collins' "outsider within", our analysis contributes to scholarship on the career pathways of HSM, as we consider how histories of place can influence perceptions of ethnic and racial belongingness.

show abstract

“…In seeking to improve engagement practices for groups that may not be inclined to participate, they learned that such groups were selective in how and where they engage; building community trust, and using alternative space for engagement beyond their neighborhood with assistance from organizations that support them, is therefore essential (Lee 2019, 273). In this case, the lack of participation by Micronesians, for instance, could be related to the discrimination they face in Hawai‘i, our inability to connect with their community leaders or organizations that support them such as We Are Oceania, or to the fact that TOD may not be a priority given their more immediate needs such as shelter and services (see, for instance, Hawaii Advisory Committee 2019; Rita et al forthcoming). Moreover, despite the intention of hosting a “talk story” to facilitate honest, reflective conversations, the activities tended to be instruction-laden, which could have deterred outcomes.…”

Section: Reflection-on-action To Reflection-in-actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Future Planning Practitioners and the “Waipahu Talk Story”: Learning from and Reflecting on Participation

Das

Tadj

Cloudwatcher

et al. 2020

Journal of Planning Education and Research

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Fifty years ago, Sherry Arnstein presented “a ladder of citizen participation,” highlighting the relevance of citizen participation for the social imperatives of her time. Today, there is widespread emphasis on public participation in planning practice. Planning education stresses its importance in addressing the principles of social justice. This prompted us to explore how graduate students on the threshold of becoming planning practitioners designed public engagement tools, and facilitated participation to examine proposed transit-oriented development plans. Our paper analyzes the nature of their engagement and reflection, spotlighting the potential and pitfalls of doing public participation. We find that enabling critical pedagogical approaches to engender collaborative and reflective practice benefits students, educators, and the profession in distinct ways.

show abstract

Contesting the right to the city under scarcity: the case of Micronesians in Hawaiʻi’s public housing

Cited by 5 publications

References 47 publications

“You Have to Prove that You’re Homeless”: Vulnerability and Gatekeeping in Public Housing Prioritization Policies

“You Have to Prove that You’re Homeless”: Vulnerability and Gatekeeping in Public Housing Prioritization Policies

“I have an accent, so people know I’m not from here”: a racial and ethnic analysis of international STEM faculty in Hawai‘i

Future Planning Practitioners and the “Waipahu Talk Story”: Learning from and Reflecting on Participation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About