Disrupting the order of things: Public housing tenant organizing for material, political and epistemological justice

Thurber, Amie; Fraser, Jim

doi:10.1016/j.cities.2015.10.006

Cited by 20 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…provides an innovative opportunity to study a structured intervention process for developing public housing tenants’ collective empowerment in multiple settings, also contributing to a theoretical framework of contextual factors that facilitate or impede such an intervention process. As public housing authorities are generally relatively unfamiliar with tenant empowerment practices, they tend to form a highly hierarchical structure within which tenants have little real control over the choice of their dwelling and many aspects of their residential environment [ 96 ]. Thus, tenants are often captive of a stigmatized residential environment, bound by numerous rules (which they have not contributed to formulating), and denied direct contact with landlords and decision-makers.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An intervention strategy for improving residential environment and positive mental health among public housing tenants: rationale, design and methods of Flash on my neighborhood!

et al. 2017

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BackgroundIn Canada, public housing programs are an important part of governmental strategies to fight poverty and public exclusion. The Flash on my neighborhood! project is a four-year multiphase community-based participatory action research strategy currently implemented in six public housing developments (n = 1009 households) across the province of Québec, Canada. The goal is to reduce the mental health disparities faced by these public housing tenants compared to the general population, while identifying which environmental and policy changes are needed to turn public housing settings into healthier environments.MethodsThe protocol involves three successive, interconnected phases: 1) Strengths and needs assessment, including community outreach and recruitment of tenants to collaborate as peer researchers, an exploratory qualitative component (photovoice), a systematic neighborhood observation, and a household survey; 2) Action plan development, including a community forum and interactive capacity-building and discussion sessions; 3) Action plan implementation and monitoring. The entire intervention is evaluated using a mixed-method design, framed within a multiple case study perspective. Throughout the project and particularly in the evaluation phase, data will be collected to record a) contextual factors (tenants’ previous experience of participation, history of public housing development, etc.); b) activities that took place and elements from the action plan that were implemented; and c) short- and medium-term outcomes (objective and perceived improvements in the quality of the residential setting, both physically and in terms of mental health and social capital).DiscussionThe study will provide unprecedented evidence-based information on the key ingredients of a collective intervention process associated with the increased collective empowerment and positive mental health of public housing tenants.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An intervention strategy for improving residential environment and positive mental health among public housing tenants: rationale, design and methods of Flash on my neighborhood!

et al. 2017

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“…As argued by Butler and Athanasiou (2013: 2), in dispossession persons are ‘disowned and abjected by normative and normalizing powers that define cultural intelligibility and that regulate the distribution of vulnerability’. Situated research against housing dispossession thus necessarily needs to engage with and counter epistemic violence, which many have argued is a fundamental component of the systemic violence inherent to large‐scale renovation of social housing (Thurber and Fraser, 2016; Baeten et al ., 2017). On the Heygate, as on many other council estates across the UK, the cultural intelligibility of the lives of residents has long been affected by the territorial stigmatization (Hancock and Mooney, 2013) that has accompanied a policy of residualization (Cole and Furbey, 1994).…”

Section: Situated Research Against Epistemic Violence and ‘Agnotology’mentioning

confidence: 99%

Painted Bullet Holes and Broken Promises: Understanding and Challenging Municipal Dispossession in London's Public Housing ‘Decanting’

Ferreri¹

2020

Int J Urban Regional Res

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InTernATIonAl JournAl of urbAn And regIonAl reseArch publIshed by John WIley & sons lTd on behAlf of urbAn reseArch publIcATIons lImITed This article has taken many years to write as I've reflected on a time of intense activism and research, in part as a co-investigator on the Antipode Activist-Scholar Award 2012 Challenging 'the New Urban Renewal', with Loretta Lees, the London Tenants Federation and Just Space. I am much indebted to all. I am also truly grateful to all those who have accompanied me from the first to final drafts. Special thanks go to

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“…This included correcting MDHA's erroneous reporting and presenting new data at MDHA board meetings, in letters to the editor, and through numerous public speaking events throughout the city. In addition, organizers used findings to build partnerships with trade unions, city-wide organizing networks, and with residents of other public housing projects facing redevelopment (for a fuller discussion of Cayce United outcomes, see Thurber & Fraser, 2016). These groups hope to collaboratively develop a Community Benefits Agreement, a binding agreement designed to create targeted job training and employment opportunities for residents of all public housing projects when redevelopments take place.…”

Section: From Violence To Restorative Actionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resident experts: The potential of critical Participatory Action Research to inform public housing research and practice

Thurber

Collins

Greer³

et al. 2018

Action Research

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Policies affecting those living in poverty are often created without the direct and meaningful participation of the people meant to be served. This has been especially the case with public housing. To contextualize the need for alternative approaches to inquiry, we begin by examining the history of public housing through the lens of oppression and present critical Participatory Action Research as an alternative approach to research and policy-making. We provide a case study of a critical Participatory Action Research project sited in a public housing project slated for redevelopment. We conclude that engaging “resident experts” in the research process heightened the validity and credibility of the findings, amplified residents' self-determination, and provided greater congruence between the researchers' social justice values and our research methods.

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Disrupting the order of things: Public housing tenant organizing for material, political and epistemological justice

Cited by 20 publications

References 11 publications

An intervention strategy for improving residential environment and positive mental health among public housing tenants: rationale, design and methods of Flash on my neighborhood!

An intervention strategy for improving residential environment and positive mental health among public housing tenants: rationale, design and methods of Flash on my neighborhood!

Painted Bullet Holes and Broken Promises: Understanding and Challenging Municipal Dispossession in London's Public Housing ‘Decanting’

Resident experts: The potential of critical Participatory Action Research to inform public housing research and practice

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