Contesting Displacement: Dispossession/Extraction/Gentrification

 

 

CONTESTING DISPLACEMENT: DISPOSSESSION / EXTRACTION / GENTRIFICATION

Friday April 13, 2018

Center for Emerging Worlds

University of California, Santa Cruz

Humanities 1, Room 210

Contemporary capitalism and settler colonialism displace populations and dispossess them of their of lands, leading to interconnected struggles for justice. This daylong symposium brings together artists, activists, and scholars working on: water justice in Navaho Country; gentrification and anti-eviction justice in California; and resource extraction and land reclamation across the U.S. Southwest. The symposium featured panels, lunch, and a walk-and-talk, all part of our collaborative approach to contesting displacement.

 

Featuring:

Ariel Appel, Anti-Eviction Mapping Project

Jihan Gearon, Black Mesa Water Coalition

Dylan Miner, artist and associate professor, Michigan State University

Tony Roshan Samara, Urban Habitat

 

Co-sponsored by:

Division of Social Sciences | Division of Humanities | Office of Sustainability | Craig Haney, UC Presidential Chair Fund | Porter College | Headley Chair Funds, Rachel Carson College | Oakes College | Kresge College | Colleges Nine and Ten | Merrill College | The Center for Creative Ecologies | Departments of Sociology, Anthropology, History, Politics, Environmental Studies, Art, Latin American and Latino Studies, and Literature

 

   

Presenters

 

Graffiti map of San Francisco marked with evictions, surrounded by the faces of the displaced

Ariel Appel is a member of the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project (AEMP); her main contribution to the project is video-production and community organizing. AEMP documents the dispossession of San Francisco Bay Area residents through gentrification, and the movements of resistance rising up against it, using maps, oral history interviews, murals, films, and community events.

 

Photo of Jihan Gearon 

Jihan Gearon is the Executive Director of the Black Mesa Water Coalition. BMWC advocates and organizes for environmental and climate justice, just transition, and a restorative economy in and around the Navajo Nation.

 

Photo of Dylan Miner 

Dylan AT Miner is a Wiisaakodewinini (Métis) artist, activist, and scholar. He is currently Director of American Indian and Indigenous Studies and Associate Professor in the Residential College in the Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University. He is also adjunct curator of Indigenous art at the MSU Museum and a founding member of the Justseeds artists collective.

 

Photo of Tony Samara 

Tony Roshan Samara is the program director of Land Use and Housing at Urban Habitat. He has conducted extensive research focused on the politics of development and the marginalization of low-income communities, with an emphasis on housing, gentrification, and displacement. Before joining Urban Habitat he was an associate professor of sociology at George Mason University.


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