Suchergebnisse

Protests struggle to gain traction in societies that are either too open (undermining the need for protest) or too closed (suppressing the possibility of protest). In the United States, there has been a sharp counter-movement responding to the election of President Donald Trump and conservative shift in ideology toward nativism. Given this shift and movement, an inquiry into the possibility of protest is both timely and critical. This ethnographic study of Camden, New Jersey, examines the ways local activists respond to oppression, finding that they use Alinsky-style community organizing that focuses on discrete, local actions and avoid direct confrontation with oppressive forces. These strategies differ from activists in adjacent communities joining in wide-scale, partisan resistance to nativism and President Donald Trump. The Camden strategy appears to be a learned response to failures in opposing wide-scale oppression and fear of loss of access and opportunity. In the face of such continued oppression, Camden activists target pragmatic urban issues to protest in the hopes of gaining small victories. Such a finding indicates that oppression may reify by making systemic changes seem unlikely or even impossible, causing activists in oppressed communities to make the strategic decision to avoid challenging oppression directly by focusing on pragmatic protest.

The study of relationships within networks has traditionally focused on concepts such as cooperation, collaboration and other forms of partnership (Brown & Keast 2003). The assumption has been that actors in a network have shared vision and are working together. This study tests that idea by using mixed methods and ethnography to examine 15 neighborhood associations in post-Katrina New Orleans, and 71 of their relationships within policy networks. Contrary to our typical understanding of networks, neighborhood associations engage not just in partnership, but also in power struggles. When excluded from policy networks, neighborhood associations use creative coercion to ensure their voice is heard. Facing a power deficit, these associations look for informal levers to assert themselves into policy negotiation. The result is creative and coercive measures, such as co-opting elections, bribery, blackmail and what one neighborhood activist calls 'guerrilla warfare.' These conflicts force a reconsideration of networks. Networks are not solely homes of collaborative action; they are also the location of sharp power struggles over priorities.

"The steep rise in neighborhood associations in post-Katrina New Orleans is commonly presented in starkly positive or negative terms - either romanticized narratives of community influence or dismissals of false consciousness and powerlessness to elite interests. In A Neighborhood Politics of Last Resort Stephen Danley offers a messier and ultimately more complete picture of these groups as simultaneously crucial but tenuous social actors. Through a comparative case study based on extensive fieldwork in post-Katrina New Orleans, Danley follows activists in their efforts to rebuild their communities, while also examining the dark underbelly of NIMBYism ("not in my backyard"), characterized by racism and classism. He elucidates how neighborhood activists were tremendously inspired in their defense of their communities, at times outwitting developers or other perceived threats to neighborhood life, but they could be equally creative in discriminating against potential neighbors and fighting to keep others out of their communities. Considering the plight of grassroots activism in the context of national and global urban challenges, A Neighborhood Politics of Last Resort immerses the reader in the daily minutiae of post-Katrina life to reveal how multiple groups responded to the same crisis with inconsistent and often ad-hoc approaches, visions, and results."--Provided by publisher

Nonprofits in cities often exist in segregated contexts in which leadership in high-capacity nonprofits reflects the whiteness of surrounding suburbs while leadership in grassroots nonprofits reflects the makeup of residency (low-income people of color). We build upon a small but burgeoning literature that uses critical race theory to better understand whiteness and segregation in the nonprofit sector. Using ethnographic data in Camden, New Jersey (NJ), we identify three key emergent findings on the impact of a segregated nonprofit sector: (a) the sector's segregation reflects regional, residential segregation; (b) White, suburban overrepresentation in high-capacity nonprofits leads to a defense of White, suburban interests; and (c) these dynamics contribute to economic segregation within the sector. In our conclusion, we lay out a wider theoretical discussion of how these factors are interrelated.

In some of Camden, NJ's most underdeveloped neighborhoods, new investment is perceived as a catch-22. Such investment is badly needed, but residents fear gentrification and the creation of white spaces. Our study examines that puzzle, that residents protest badly needed investment, using ethnographic and interview data from residents and Camden, NJ, as a case study for examining community understanding of gentrification. In doing so, we draw upon gentrification literature that focuses on displacement pressure and exclusionary displacement, but argue that the Camden case points towards a different dimension of gentrification. Our findings show how (1) exclusion and "unwelcomeness" created by the development of white spaces is conceptualized by residents as being distinct from the impact such exclusion has on future displacement and (2) that residents internalize that exclusion from white spaces, dampening their support and increasing their resistance for new development. Our findings represent a contribution to the discussion on displacement pressure, which focuses primarily on exclusion through financial and economic pressure on residents, and shows that racialized exclusion is, itself, a fundamental element of residential fear of gentrification. We point to an opportunity to address fears of gentrification not only through economic means but also by focusing on issues of access and exclusion in urban space as a direct response to such residential fears.

Increasingly partisan perceptions of neoliberal education reforms and resistance to such reforms from communities they negatively impact have created challenges for some neoliberal reformers. This article uses a case study of the state takeover and dramatic reshaping of the Camden, New Jersey school district to examine how some reformers have responded to those challenges. We find that Camden's state-appointed superintendents used multiple messaging and framing techniques to diffuse community resistance to unpopular policies. We refer to these techniques collectively as window dressing because they are intended to create a perception of movement away from neoliberalism without actually changing neoliberal policies. These strategies are intended to move public opinion and discourage resistance without having to fundamentally address critiques of neoliberal reform. We posit that neoliberal reformers are likely to expand their use of window dressing techniques in response to a growing rejection of neoliberal education policies, particularly by Democrats and progressives.