City of Segregation: the role of community struggle in the material and ideological formation of Los Angeles
When:
—
Venue:
Online
This talk will tell the story of ongoing struggle over space and housing in central Los Angeles and how struggle has both shaped its physical form and driven ongoing efforts to drive to create and maintain privileged white space that has shaped the wider movements of capital and driven privatisation. To do so it explores the civil rights struggle to integrate LA’s suburbs in the 1960s and more recent organizing work taking place in Skid Row, examining continuity and change in these civil rights and community movements fighting for justice within the city.
As the recent election made so obvious, the material and ideological impacts of this struggle continue to shape US identity and politics today. Tracing these connections opens up wider discussions of how violent understandings of ‘us’ and ‘them’ are constructed across time and in space, a phenomenon visible in the rise of the right across the world, and an examination of what ‘all power to the people’ might look like to ensure a policy and praxis resulting in social justice.
The talk is based upon Andrea's recent book, City of Segregation: 100 Years of Struggle for Housing in Los Angeles (Verso, 2018)
Contact name:
Paul Watt