So if we are to address the problems of our time—the problems of climate change, inequality, and social insecurity, among others—our first challenge is to expand our very definition of what “the economy” is. Is the market the only serious vehicle for wealth-creation and value, as investors and economists claim? Or are there other forms of value that need to be systematically and rigorously recognized?  

I argue that this is precisely the problem: economics cannot recognize other forms of value and state power has largely adopted neoliberal economic priorities. No wonder our sense of possibility are so constricted! 

As an antidote, I believe that we need to learn how the commons can help us re-imagine our mind-map of the economy. The point is not merely to add a few neglected values into the standard economic framework. It is to challenge some core premises of “the economy” as conventionally understood, by naming the many forms of nonmarket value that are essential to life.  

That’s what the commons does. It is a robust sector of nonmarket stewardship that honors different types of value – ecological, social, ethical, spiritual. More: it is a way to nourish and protect important forms of meaning and cultural identity, as seen in the collective stewardship of forests, fisheries, farmland, and water in many permutations around the world. The commons is at work in agroecology, permaculture, community land trusts, community supported agriculture, and relocalized food systems. The commons is seen in countless open source software projects, platform cooperatives, mutual aid networks, arts and culture projects, and alternative currencies.

The problem is that many actual commons are not seen as commons and therefore as wealth-creating. They exist outside of the market worldview, and so they aren’t considered so valuable or consequential. Mainstream economics, politics, law, and culture mostly ignores them, or worse, considers them a failed management regime, the “tragedy of the commons.”

The great challenge, then, is to learn how to see, name, and reclaim the commons as significant forces in life – a powerful social phenomenon that is not just at play in the Global South, but everywhere. Some of the most significant systems of commons-based value include:

• the care work performed by families, especially women;
• the eco-stewardship of Indigenous peoples, traditional communities, community land trusts, and CSA farms;
• socially committed cooperatives; 
• artistic and academic gift economies;
• alternative local and regional currencies; and
• online communities that revolves around shared software, wikis, scholarly research, scientific knowledge, datasets, and much else. 

What most distinguishes these general classes of commons from capitalist businesses and markets, is the social mutualism that animates them and the sharing of their wealth. Commons are living, relational systems for meeting personal needs and collective well-being that mostly function outside of markets and state power. The interpersonal, social dynamics of these commons are the forces that generate value: the care work within families, the affective commitments of forest-stewards, the sharing ethic of digital commoners, the social commitment of water protectors.

Standard economics tends to ignore these genres of wealth-creation because the value generated is not easily monetized or traded in markets. The value is created without money necessarily changing hands. The value is socially embedded and localized. It arises through the pooling of commitments.

As I describe in my book Think Like a Commoner, just released in a significantly revised Second Edition, commons arise as ordinary people decide for themselves how to identify and meet shared needs. It’s a way to manage common wealth in fair and inclusive ways. This is the process of commoning — the process by which people negotiate, devise, and enact situation-specific systems of provisioning and peer governance. Commoning is not just an economic process; it’s a process that summons forth our deeper, larger humanity, our intersubjective selves in an unfolding field of cooperation.

It helps to see commons as complex life-forms—living processes.  They aren’t like impersonal markets driven by money, rationality and material desire. They are social systems through which people come together to create effective ways of meeting needs and peer-governing themselves. If the neoclassical, capitalist mindset declares that provisioning (“the economy”) must be separate from governance (the state), commons blend these two. The social practices of provisioning, governance, rules-enforcement, and culture are all integrated into one system. 

The general aim of any commons is to mutualize the benefits of shared wealth. People often decide to become commoners because they realize that conventional business requires extractivist strategies: the exploitation workers and consumers, ecological destruction, unfair practices, social disruptions. Commoners realize that the notional Invisible Hand of the market won’t serve the common good. Nor will nation-states, thanks to their deep political alliances with investors and corporations. 

That’s where the commons steps in. Commoners are pioneering new social logics for provisioning and governance at the cellular level of society. They’re meeting their own needs while enhancing the social bonds and shared purpose that the common good requires.

A key virtue of this process is that we can choose and make themselves ourselves, right now. We don’t need to rely on legislatures or courts. The state may offer support to commons, and businesses may engage in limited forms of exchange with them. But outsider control or interference is resisted because commoners prize their social and political autonomy. They want the individual freedom to enter into community agreements, to assume responsibilities, and to reap the benefit of their hard work and cooperation.  

At a time when the market/state system claims dominion over so much of the earth and everyday, imposing its own ideas of social order and value, the commons offers a refreshing alternative. They offer a space in which people can assert significant autonomy and self-determination. They need not rely on formal, legalistic terms dictated by bureaucracies or large corporations. People can innovate by their own lights, to meet their needs in their particular circumstances. They need not submit to the conventional capitalist modes of “development” and “progress,” which so often prove to be unfair, unsustainable, and anti-democratic.

A British money designer and commoner, Dil Green, once made an astute observation about the special role that commons play. He said: “Commons are ‘meso-scope’ social institutions. Not micro/individual or macro/collective, but meso. Right libertarians prioritize agency at the micro level. Statist lefties at the macro. But it’s in the middle where life takes place, where we all live. The missing middle is key. Build commons!”

This insight helps explain both why commons are so vital. They can build a new type of economy through new types of meso institutions. They help us get beyond the private / public binary (corporate/state order) that otherwise controls our sense of the possible. Commons open up new zones for action and creativity.

So let’s modify our mental maps about “the economy”!  We need to shed many of the roles ordained by capitalist economics – consumer, worker, business owner, investor – by creating spaces that let people develop their own solutions based on their own situated needs, knowledge, and wisdom. That’s what the commons does. It steps outside market/state orthodoxy to declare new terms of aspiration. It offers fresh, forward-looking archetypes for meeting people’s needs. It lets us develop new type of social practices for meeting needs, new forms of more democratic governance, and effective strategies for protecting shared wealth.

We can begin by making existing commons more culturally legible and known, and then work to consolidate and expand these commons. Going forward, we must develop new infrastructures to make commoning easier and more normal, and types of finance, legal hacks, and partnerships with the state. While this may seem an ambitious agenda, a robust Commonsverse already exists, poised to liberate us from a market/state system that otherwise limits the scope of possible change.

David Bollier is Director of the Reinventing the Commons Program at the Schumacher Center for a New Economics. He is the author of more than a dozen books on various aspects of the commons, including the just-published Second Edition of Think Like a Commoner: A Short Introduction to the Life of the Commons. He blogs at www.Bollier.org and hosts the monthly podcast Frontiers of Commoning. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts.

The post The Liberating Power of the Commonsverse appeared first on Shareable.

Personally, we were imagining a future of peer-to-peer resource sharing, community-based production, and cooperative ownership.

Meeting up after years, we laughed that our work had oddly contributed to the World Economic Forum publishing the line that became infamous as a globalist’s dystopian injunction: “You will own nothing and be happy.”

Although we laughed, it was with a sense of ‘doomer humour’. My friend’s tone had shifted from a decade ago. She felt disappointment and defeat. “All we did,” she told me, “was write a love letter to the next wave of monopolists.”

Her disillusionment was not unique. Many working in alternative economics—whether cooperatives, commons networks, or solidarity enterprises—feel similarly deflated.

Despite huge efforts to get governments around the world to adopt policies to promote the ‘Social and Solidarity Economy’, the tide has been in the opposite direction. Monopoly capitalism has grown stronger, tightening its grip through unrestrained mergers and acquisitions, extractive digital platforms, and ‘techbro’ political interference.

Now, the big tech companies don’t compete in a free market, as they own the markets and can operate similarly to feudal lords. It’s why the Greek economist Yanis Varoufakis labels this era ‘technofeudalism’.

It’s easy to feel like we failed. But that pain—of giving so much for so little change—is not a reflection of personal failure. It’s a sign of deeper structural shifts.

As I outlined in Breaking Together, these are not just difficult times—they are disintegrating systems. From obscene wealth concentration to mass precarity and the soaring cost of basic needs, the indicators are clear: the economic and political order we once tried to reform is already breaking down.

And the breakdown is accelerating.

Oxfam calculates that the world’s richest 1% now own more than 95% of humanity, while poverty is increasing in most parts of the world. In many countries, many households face impossible choices between rent, food, and energy bills.

Economist James Meadway concludes that inflation has become entrenched in the global system—not as a blip, but as a feature of a deeply imbalanced economy that faces the consequences of smashing against planetary boundaries. For a majority of the world’s population, the era of stability and progress has ended.

If those of us in the ‘alternative economics’ field keep trying to scale within this old system—as if it were still functional—we risk becoming demoralised, burnt out, or absorbed into the very structures we oppose.

Worse, the delay in acknowledging collapse means that we miss the chance to prepare for what’s coming next: not a utopia, but an era defined by decline, disruption, and disaster management. If we don’t act with new clarity and courage, our skills and models will be sidelined just when they’re most needed.

But here’s a different way to look at it: if the dominant systems are breaking, then the pressure to “compete” with them is over. We no longer need to validate ourselves by capitalist metrics of success.

Instead, we can position ourselves as the seeds of the next system, or more realistically, as the scaffolding of survival in a world of cascading crises.

Imagine cooperatives that aren’t just “alternatives,” but core providers of care, food, housing, and energy as state and market institutions fail. Picture mutual aid and commons initiatives not as fringe experiments, but as essential infrastructure for keeping communities afloat.

The history of the commons teaches us that this is not a naïve vision.

Michel Bauwens, founder of the P2P Foundation, has concluded that there is a “pulsation of the commons” where commons-based systems expand and contract in response to the rise and fall of dominant political-economic systems. He explains that these commons of land, and other resources, are often enclosed or co-opted by states and profit-seekers, only to re-emerge in new forms during subsequent crises. Therefore, Bauwens connects the current wave of commons-building efforts, such as open-source software, cooperative platforms, and community land trusts, to this larger pulsation.

Michel Bauwens’ historical analysis supports the view that there is no going back, but certainly a way forward—through shared capacities, collective stewardship, and distributed resilience.

That is the vision many in the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) already carry. What we need now is for more of us to speak it out loud, as currency innovation expert Stephen DeMeulenaere did in a previous article for Shareable.

If you work in the SSE, cooperative, or commons sectors, this is the time to speak clearly and publicly: we are not here to “fix” the current system. We are here to manage collapse with care and cooperation.

Share this framing with your networks, in your newsletters, and in your funding applications. Don’t pretend we’re building toward a global cooperative economy in 2050. Don’t maintain the illusion of working towards ‘sustainable development’.

Instead, explain that we’re helping people now, in the vacuum left by dysfunctional states and extractive corporations.

Convene conversations about what it means to operate as “disaster-responsive” economic actors. Map your community’s most vulnerable needs and match them with the resources your network can already provide—be it food, childcare, housing, or repair.

Strengthen regional alliances between SSE actors and push funders to drop their fixation on scale, and instead invest in redundancy, local relevance, and deep trust.

To do so could help advocates such as RIPESS persuade the international aid and development sectors to allocate more funds towards SSE and the commons. It could even help professionals in organisations like the World Bank and UNDP recognise a new role for themselves in helping soften the collapse.

Let’s also be honest with ourselves: this is emotionally tricky. But we can help each other move through the grief of a failed societal dream, into the resolve of people who are needed in the ruins.

This isn’t a fringe project anymore. It’s frontline work.

It is for this reason that I am engaging once again with people who truly believe in a ‘sharing economy’ rather than the exploitative and monopolistic tyranny that cloaked itself in our hopeful visions. It is why I will be speaking at the Festival of Commoning and joining the Reviving the Commons series, both in the UK in September.

Kaliya, my friend from our YGL days, has also found new energy—not by pretending things will get better soon, but by shifting her expectations. She is convening ‘unconferences’ to network together regenerative initiatives to co-create a thriving future in the San Francisco Bay Delta Bioregion. She leveraged my visit to the region to convene their first unconference, with a second occurring in May 2025, and more to come as part of this new initiative. She is also helping local community groups and ‘neighborsheds’ to deploy the open-source technologies and insights she developed over the previous 20 years.

She is still sad about how things are turning out, but is not hopeless. She feels part of something real that uses her skills and is rooted in where she lives.

For both of us, we have avoided cynicism – not because the world is improving, but because we’re seeking to make a concrete contribution where we can.

To those who feel disheartened: your disappointment is justified, but it’s also a clue.

The system didn’t bend to reform because it’s already broken. But that means your work—your network, your cooperative, your project—is more vital than ever. The collapse is here. So is our role in softening it. And if we act together now, we might not only soften the collapse, but start to shape what is to come.

—

Professor Jem Bendell is author of “Breaking Together: a freedom-loving response to collapse” and writes regularly at jembendell.com

The post Systems are breaking—And that’s our opportunity appeared first on Shareable.

Party kits are most commonly used for children’s birthday parties, with plastic tableware being the most popular choice as it is durable, lightweight, affordable, and suitable for young children. However, party kits have also been used for baby showers, workplace BBQs, community group meetings, and even gallery openings. 

How Party Kits Fit into a Library of Things

The party kit concept aligns closely with the principles of lending libraries, and many have already successfully added party kits to their inventories. There are two main models for incorporating party kits:

1. Pre-packed party kits: These are boxes of tableware lent out as single items. This setup is common in locker-based sharing libraries or libraries where tableware is not the main focus, such as public libraries, toy libraries, and nappy libraries. It simplifies administration by reducing the effort required to prepare each rental, though borrowers may end up taking more items than they need. Here is an example of Share Bristol’s party kit listing: https://things.sharebristol.org.uk/product/2314 

2. Customisable party kits: In this model, users build their own party kits by selecting items from the library’s inventory of tableware, decorations, and other party essentials. A basic party kit, such as a set of plates and cups, may still be offered as a pre-packed option, with the flexibility for borrowers to add other items as needed.  

Regardless of the model, all lending libraries offering party kits require that items are washed before being returned. Clear guidance should be provided on which items are dishwasher safe (most plastic tableware can be washed on an Eco cycle at lower temperatures) and the importance of ensuring everything is thoroughly dried before repacking and returning.

Benefits of Offering Party Kits 

Lending libraries that include kits report numerous benefits for both the library and its members:

Benefits for Borrowers

• Access to a broader inventory, including items like gazebos, bunting, party games, tables, chairs, tablecloths, jugs, and cool boxes. This reduces the need for one-time purchases that can often go unused after the event. 

• Affordability: For libraries with annual memberships, borrowing a party kit is often comparable with buying disposable supplies, with the added benefit that with each hire members are getting even more value for money. 

Benefits for Libraries

• Increased membership: Party kits attract new members, especially families. Anna Perry from Share Bristol said, “The party kits at Share Bristol definitely help us attract new members. Sometimes people find us through the Party Kit Network and join our Library of Things service to borrow one. Other times, people see the party kits as part of our inventory, which is enough to convince them to become members.”

• Inclusivity: Libraries can make party kits accessible to everyone. Lindsey Campbell from Linlithgow Tool Library explained, “We offer a pay-what-you-can system, so we don’t exclude anyone financially.”

• Broader reach: By nature, parties reach a lot of people, an opportunity to increase awareness of the library’s offerings and encourage more people to engage with local sharing.  

Community Impact

• Positive feedback: Borrowers consistently praise the ease of use and reduced waste. Helena Jackson from Stork and the Bees, a sling and nappy library with a party kit, noted: “People who have hired the kits have loved it. They’ve shared how easy it was to use, what a great idea it is, and how it means less waste. Plus, they didn’t have to buy or store reusable items themselves.”

• Visible impact: Borrowers notice the environmental benefits firsthand as they tidy up—there are significantly fewer bin bags of waste! Sharing these stories can inspire others in the community to embrace the switch to reusables and borrowing.

• Health & wellbeing: Borrowing and celebrating foster positive social connections, which are essential for mental health and wellbeing. Karen Elsbury, founder of the Elwood Kitchen Library, explains: “Our kitchen library is all about bringing people together through a love of food. By providing members of our community with access to kitchen items and party packs we enable them to entertain family and friends, celebrate together, and get creative in the kitchen.”

Free Download: “The Library of Things Toolkit”

Getting Started

If your library already includes reusable tableware in its inventory, you can join the Party Kit Network today! Joining is FREE and allows more people in your community to discover your library. Visit partykitnetwork.org/join to sign up.

If your library doesn’t yet have suitable tableware, consider these steps to get started:

1. Gauge Community Interest: Run a survey among your existing members to assess interest in a party kit. This can also be an opportunity to engage the wider community for their input, increasing awareness of your library’s services. 

2. Assess Local Needs: Before purchasing tableware, think about the types of events your members are likely to host. For example, for children’s parties typically 20-30 place settings are needed with durable, lightweight plastic tableware being a practical choice. For adult events such as BBQs, plastic tumblers are often preferred to glass for outdoor gathering due to their lighter weight and safety.

3. Source Tableware: There are several ways to acquire tableware:  

   • Community donations: Reach out to your local community to source reusable items.  

   • Preloved party kits: Purchase second-hand kits to reduce costs  

   • New tableware: Some libraries choose to buy new items, especially if they want to offer matching sets. Aesthetics can be important for members transitioning from themed single-use tableware to reusables.  

   Funding may be available from local authorities through waste prevention or small community grants, which can help cover the cost of purchasing reusable tableware.

4. Plan Hire Logistics:  

   • Hire periods: Many party kits are offered for a three-day hire giving people time to collect, party, wash and return, with most bookings occurring over the weekend. Your opening hours will likely dictate the duration of a hire.

   • Storage: Using rigid plastic storage containers is the easiest way to keep tableware clean and organised. A party kit for 30 can fit into a 48 litre box meaning it doesn’t take up too much space. Choose a size that balances capacity and ease of transport—splitting items into multiple boxes if needed to avoid heavy lifting. 

5. Reduce Losses: Include an equipment list with each party kit to help borrowers keep track of items and return everything they borrowed. Labelling items like jugs can also minimise the risk of them being left behind at party venues, while doubling as advertising for your kit. 

6. Collaborate Locally: I always recommend people check the Party Kit Network map to see if there are existing kits in the area. Most communities can support more than one kit, and connecting with other members allows you to collaborate. For example, you can refer enquiries to another provider if your kit is already booked. 

Case Study

Palo Alto’s Zero Waste Party Packs are reducing event waste

Getting More Support to Set Up a Party Kit

The Party Kit Network is committed to helping lending libraries include party kits, increasing accessibility and strengthening the sharing economy.

Here are some resources to guide you through the process:

• Comprehensive Guide: Download our detailed guide to running a party kit at https://www.partykitnetwork.org/start 

• Facebook Group: Join our active community on Facebook, where members share advice and ideas: https://www.facebook.com/groups/partykitnetwork 

• Online Meet-ups: Attend our regular online sessions to ask questions and get tailored support: https://partykitnetwork.eventbrite.com 

• Tableware Materials: For more information on tableware materials, please see our guide to reusable tableware: https://www.partykitnetwork.org/post/which-type-of-reusable-tableware-is-the-greenest   

Or please drop me an email with any questions or concerns, or to be connected with another library already successfully running a party kit – hello@partykitnetwork.org 

Conclusion

Party kits are a perfect fit for lending libraries. Libraries have seen their members utilise party kits when added to the inventory, and even join a library because a party kit was offered. It has been straightforward for libraries to set up a party kit, requiring minimal storage and experiencing low rates of loss.

By offering party kits, libraries empower their communities to celebrate more sustainably, reducing waste and promoting reuse. This not only strengthens connections within the community but also supports a thriving sharing economy, where resources are used efficiently and inclusively.

Adding a party kit is a small step with a big impact—encouraging more sustainable celebrations and reinforcing the vital role of sharing libraries in creating a better future.

This article was originally published by the Party Pack Network.

The post How (and why) to add a Party Kit to your Library of Things appeared first on Shareable.

Megan Saltzman presented her new book–Public Everyday Space: Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Barcelona–which explores how everyday practices in public space (sitting, playing, walking, etc.) challenge the increase of top-down control in the global city. Public Everyday Space focuses on post-Olympic Barcelona—a time of unprecedented levels of gentrification, branding, mass tourism, and immigration. Drawing from examples observed in public spaces (streets, plazas, sidewalks, and empty lots), as well as in cultural representation (film, photography, literature), this book exposes the quiet agency of those excluded from urban decision-making but who nonetheless find ways to carve out spatial autonomy for themselves. Absent from the map or postcard, the quicksilver spatial phenomena documented in this book can make us rethink our definitions of culture, politics, inclusion, legality, architecture, urban planning, and public space.

About the speaker

Megan Saltzman (PhD, University of Michigan) is a teaching professor at Mount Holyoke College in the department of Spanish, Latin American, and Latinx Studies, where she also contributes to the Five Colleges of Massachusetts Architectural Studies Program. Her research focuses on contemporary urban culture of Spanish cities with a transnational and ethnographic approach. Her 2024 book, Public Everyday Space: Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Barcelona combines literary and visual arts with fieldwork to expose how everyday practices in public space (sitting, playing, street selling) not only challenge the city’s policed image but also serve to carve out autonomy from below. Megan has published on urban cultural themes in Spain related to gentrification, spatial in/exclusion, immigration, nostalgia, recycling, urban furniture design, grassroots cultural centers and “artivism.” Most recently Megan has been teaching courses that revolve around three themes: (1) urban studies, (2) material and non-human culture, and (3) ethnically hybrid identities. Besides teaching at Mount Holyoke, Megan has enjoyed teaching at a variety of colleges, including the University of Otago (New Zealand), Grinnell College, the University of Michigan, Amherst College, West Chester University, and this coming fall at Sophia University in Tokyo.

Video of Public Everyday Space: Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Barcelona with Megan Saltzman

Transcript of Public Everyday Space: Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Barcelona with Megan Saltzman

0:00:08.8 Tom Llewellyn: Welcome to another episode of Cities@Tufts Lectures, where we explore the impact of urban planning on our communities and the opportunities designed for greater equity and justice. This season is brought to you by Shareable and the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University, with support from the Barr Foundation. In addition to this podcast, the video, transcript, and graphic recordings are available on our website, shareable.net. Just click the link in the show notes. And now, here’s the host of Cities@Tufts, Professor Julian Agyeman.

0:00:41.4 Julian Agyeman: Welcome to our final Cities@Tufts virtual colloquium this semester. I’m Professor Julian Agyeman, and together with my research assistants, Amelia Morton and Grant Perry, and our partners Shareable and the Barr Foundation, we organize Cities@Tufts as a cross-disciplinary academic initiative which recognizes Tufts University as a leader in urban studies, urban planning, and sustainability issues. We’d like to acknowledge that Tufts University’s Medford campus is located on colonized Wampanoag and Massachusetts traditional territory. Today, we’re delighted to host Dr. Megan Saltzman. Megan teaches at Mount Holyoke College. Her research combines literary and visual arts with ethnographic fieldwork to expose how everyday public practices, carve out autonomy and resistance from below. Megan has published on urban culture in Spain related to gentrification, spatial inclusion and exclusion, immigration, waste, urban furniture, grassroots cultural center, and artivism. These themes come together in Megan’s most recent publication, her book Public Everyday Space: The Cultural Politics in Neoliberal Barcelona. And that is the name of her talk today. Megan, a Zoom-tastic welcome to Cities@Tufts.

0:02:04.5 Megan Saltzman: Okay, thank you very much, Julian. Thank you for the invitation and also thank you, Tom, for all the tech assistance. And also I want to thank Mount Holyoke College in general for the support in the process of writing and finishing this book project. Okay. Well, I’ll start by saying that free, accessible, open public space is not what it appears to be. In fact, it’s often, especially in the city, the opposite of what it appears to be. Nevertheless, we read the city as a truthful or objective text absorbing knowledge, ideas, norms, and feelings from our public surroundings. Today’s public spaces are designed in a way that very carefully regulates what we can see, what we can do, and what we can know in it. For example, its design prioritizes a limited number of activities such as facilitating formal work or consumption, buying stuff, and also transit, moving individuals, human individuals, quickly from point A to point B. And so today’s public space is designed in such a way to make us think, again, that it’s free, open, and accessible to all. Urban anthropologist Manuel Delgado points out two cities that are coexisting. We have the planned and conceptualized city on a powerful scale, like architectural plans, institutional policies, these top-down initiatives, and imposed normative use of public space.

0:03:43.2 Megan Saltzman: And then we also have what he calls the ciudad practicada. It’s how it’s actually used in daily life, on the ground, everyday practices. It’s something that’s not totally controllable or predictable or quantifiable. It’s mobile, fluid, and it often ignores barriers or lines. So one of the goals of my book is to expose what’s being intentionally limited from view, what the ciudad concebida is limiting from our view and from our possibilities, as well as expose the potential of public space, of the ciudad practicada, that everyday city buzz in the background that circumvents being controlled and quantified. So my book’s main focus is on the small everyday practices that resist the neoliberalization of the city. And for those of you who may be new to these concepts, I understand that this might be very condensed or packed. So let me unpack these concepts, starting with the neoliberalization of Barcelona. By that, I’m referring to the rapid and destructive changes that were undemocratically imposed in the last four decades in Spain and in most Spanish cities to create and maintain this ciudad concebida. And this, in Barcelona especially, dramatically rebuilt central areas of the city, making it unrecognizable for many and economically exclusive for the majority of locals.

0:05:20.4 Megan Saltzman: So what specifically contributed to the neoliberalization of Barcelona? Well, there’s the privatization of public space of the last couple of decades. And I wanted to point out, ’cause I imagine a lot of you are tuning in from Boston, I think these characteristics of neoliberalism that I’m about to name will definitely resonate with those in Boston and in many global cities and major US Cities. But I want to point out that in the case of Spain and Spanish cities, a lot of these neoliberal characteristics or aspects and initiatives are still not normalized. It’s still relatively new. Things that started to happen in the 1990s, for example. So a step behind the neoliberalization of public space, I would say, in the United States and in US Cities. So yeah, the privatization of public space and also the construction of a tourist image of the city, a very narrow, profitable visual definition of the city, equating the city to a brand, the city branding. And in the case of Barcelona, city branding is very strong. You can just stick the word Barcelona into Google Images and you’ll see a billion pictures of Gaudi architecture and the Sagrada Familia, a very monumental architectural definition of the city.

0:06:47.6 Megan Saltzman: And I wanted to show here, since I’m coming more from cultural studies, from arts and film and literature, that culture, the arts, the humanities, which often are underfunded and defunded and not paid much attention to, were actually an important component of these changes in Barcelona, the neoliberalization of the city, the gentrification going on in the city. And here we have an example of the Woody Allen film Vicky Christina Barcelona, one of many films that helped disseminate this global architectural image of the city. And Woody Allen was paid several, one and a half million euros in public funding to showcase Barcelona’s architecture in public spaces. And also I include this image of the Olympics because most of these initial transformations started in preparation for the 1992 Olympics. And again, in the background, you can see this monumental view of the monument. Yeah, the arts are part of this neoliberalization of the city. And also another important aspect has been the creation and maintenance of a wide control apparatus to protect the tourist industry, to protect this new global economy. And part of this control apparatus has been an increase in surveillance, all types of surveillance, more video cameras in public space, more police presence, security guards.

0:08:16.9 Megan Saltzman: And also, for example, in 2006, the city hall, city council came out with a very long document, something like 80 or 90 pages of civic rules of how people need to behave in public space. And this is a city that was not used to having so many rules in public space. But to give you an example of some things that were suddenly in 2006 illegal, unless some kind of previous permission was granted, for example, no sleeping in public space, no drinking alcohol in public space, no begging, no distributing food, no peddling, no throwing up, no painting, no skating, no sex work, no hanging objects, objects from balconies, no hanging posters or banners in the plazas or streets, no taking anything out of the trash, no playing music. And the list goes on and on. And again, perhaps from a US point of view, this could for many seem normalized. But in the case of Spain and a long history, which I think is true in many Mediterranean cities, of a certain informality and organicness in the public spaces, even in times of dictatorship, this was really a shock. And the book is looking at the pushback against this kind of regulation of behavior and appearance of public space.

0:09:50.1 Megan Saltzman: So here I can show you, for example, this is just ironic that in the Plaza de George Orwell, you can see a sign that there’s a video camera there. And here’s some photos that I took of also the implementation of anti-social urban furniture in the public space to, again, control and nudge and mold what we do and who can be, who can rest, who cannot rest. And this idea of moving along public space merely for transit, merely for work and consumption. Okay. This one… This was a particularly interesting type of construction where it was like an inverted slide. So if you tried to sit on this, you would just plop off. Okay. So yeah, another part of the neoliberal was the anti-social urban furniture, which we’re seeing popping up all over cities. Following what urbanist Don Mitchell calls the landscapes of pleasure, these controls have ended up eliminating, displacing, or pushing to the periphery everything that does not fit the tourist image, which means everything that’s not profitable or for maintaining the ciudad concebida. So what has been pushed out of view or destroyed?

0:11:18.9 Megan Saltzman: Well, hundreds of historical working-class buildings, many of them from the 18th and 19th Centuries, and with those buildings, much of their history also disappears. Small businesses, the communities. In many of these Mediterranean cities, we’re talking about very dense space, long-term communities. These central downtown communities have been fragmented. Also, they have tried to push poverty or anything that could be associated with poverty out of view. Spontaneity has for the most part decreased. A lot of the benches, in terms of urban furniture benches, especially the traditional long bench, has decreased in central areas. Informal markets and informal economies, which have a long history in Barcelona, have been cracked down on. And places that look dirty or smell bad have also been eliminated or pushed out of view. And I have… I found this like little zine that illustrates an idea. In doing a lot of the interviews for this project, when I spoke with elderly people specifically, they often spoke of a sense of disorientation resulting from these changes, of not knowing where they were within their own neighborhood because the buildings had transformed so quickly. And so in this zine in Spanish, I have it here down in English. It says, the neighborhood has suffered from gentrification and Mrs. Amalia, after living there for 42 years, has to move because she can’t afford the rent.

0:13:06.4 Megan Saltzman: Can you help her find the exit to the periphery? So this is one of many examples of the cultural responses that I have in my book related to these changes. And also I know some of you all are studying about sustainability in contemporary cities. There’s the whole ecological factor to consider. Barcelona is a small city, compact historical city, and they’re receiving 16 million tourists a year. So it doesn’t have the infrastructure to sustainably welcome or deal with this level of tourism and the amount of water and waste and air pollution that it creates. And also just in these last couple of weeks, there’s been massive protests in Barcelona because all of these processes, the gentrification processes, have skyrocketed the rent and the price renting a home or buying a home, especially in terms of Airbnb and tourist apartments. Going back to this goal, small everyday practices that resist the neoliberalization of the city. So small everyday practices, what I’m referring to with this is a type of small resistance that receives little attention and often goes unnoticed.

0:14:28.9 Megan Saltzman: When we think about political resistance, for example, we tend to think of larger phenomena like protests or social movements or activists, I mean, in terms of people, activists or well-known intellectuals or certain politicians. And that’s good. That’s important. In Barcelona’s case, those types of forms of resistance have already been well documented with books and analytical studies. And so I didn’t feel that I had too much to offer along those lines. So I wanted to focus on a less discussed type of resistance and agency, this type that we can find in everyday practices. And this type of small resistance emerges from lesser known spaces in the city, the everyday spaces like streets, plazas, street corners or abandoned lots. And I found that many of the examples of this type of small resistance are non-confrontational, they’re non-violent, they at times can be joyful or leisurely, they’re often anonymous and very accessible, something that anybody can do. And also I noticed that this type of resistance in Barcelona, we could call it, so to say, weak or weaker because it’s temporary and it’s not loud or eye-catching, it’s quite fragile. But nonetheless, it does challenge and provide nuance to the dominant destructive tourist image and objectives of today’s urbanism in Barcelona because it exposes a difference.

0:16:15.6 Megan Saltzman: And so in doing the research for this book, I think the closest theoretical description that I could find was Deleuze and Guattari’s metaphor of the rhizome. I’m not sure if some of you are familiar with that, but to sum it up, a rhizome may be broken, shattered at a given spot, but it will start up again on one of its old lines or on a new line or on new lines. And these lines always tie back to one another. So this idea of this small resistance that’s temporary, it’s flexible, it’s regenerational, mobile, elusive, like a worm or an octopus, if it gets squashed or eliminated, it can return or it can regrow its parts. So the practices can return if they’re pushed to the periphery. They can return maybe in a different place or at a different time, but they’re able to continue. And so I found that a focus on everyday practices opens up a whole other level of coexisting realities in the city, a place where we can still find some spontaneity, creativity, community, and democratic practices. We can find people carving out space and autonomy for themselves in difficult circumstances where they might not be able to have a voice or have communication with politics with the capital P, institutional level of politics.

0:17:45.5 Megan Saltzman: And also that these everyday practices allow us to see the flexibility and the potential of our urban materials beyond just a singular conventional use of, for example, a bench or a curb. So with the remaining minutes, I will quickly summarize the rest of the chapters, which again, all focus on different types of small everyday rhizomatic practices that go against the grain of what philosopher Jacques Eancière calls the order of things, the order… The normal order of things in the city. Okay, so the next chapter and also the book cover image is this one here, which is actually two superimposed photos on top of each other, one that I took and another a friend took one year later. One day I was just wandering around the central area, the neighborhood called the Raval, and I noticed a group of men, what I assumed to be men, playing volleyball within an abandoned lot. And I was curious as to how they got in there because it was completely fenced off and there’s also these cement blocks around the abandoned lot. And I found this hole, I don’t know, about like 12 inches by 12 inches.

0:19:13.7 Megan Saltzman: And so I thought, ah, okay, so they must have put their bodies through this hole and the volleyball net, the ball through this hole. And I had been reading a lot about Michel de Certeau and his book, The Practice of Everyday Life, and his idea about spatial tactics and how we can repurpose things, in this case, repurposing urban materials and giving them a different function, some unplanned function. And so I decided that many of these practices, small practices of resistance that I was seeing in Barcelona fit under this category of spatial tactics, of repurposing one’s urban material surroundings, having to re-adapt to the destruction in one’s neighborhood and the privatization and the hyper-regulation of one’s urban surroundings. So I found a lot of examples like this. I remember, for example, with the economic crisis of 2007, 2008, it hit Spain very hard. Unemployment, for example, for youth was… For younger people, was over 50%. And there was much more poverty in the city. And with that poverty, I started to see more and more spatial tactics like those ATM bank rooms where you have to swipe a card to get in.

0:20:37.1 Megan Saltzman: I noticed at night that people would go into these ATM rooms and convert them into bedrooms for sleeping at night. Or another example was in Spanish cities, you have these very large trash dumps that are on the sidewalk. And I noticed that next to these big trash dumps, people would carefully leave piles of things that other people might want to use or have or recycle. What else? Also with the elimination of benches, I saw people using all sorts of things in the city, material things in the city to create places to sit. As you can see here, these people have turned a big plant pot into a sitting place, as well as here, this kind of shop ledges turned into benches. Or this example here, it was a person who had created some kind of exercise equipment out of what? Out of these poles to stop cars from coming onto the sidewalk. Okay. And also in this chapter, I focused on a film, which I highly recommend. It’s called En Construcción. And in this film, we can see a wide variety of spatial tactics and not only from human beings, but also in animals and how they all try to adapt to these rapid material changes in the city.

0:22:10.3 Megan Saltzman: Okay. And then the next chapter is about collectives or groups and self-managed spaces that emerged after this economic crisis, the recession. It takes a look at groups that have taken it into their own hands to create their own public spaces independently and the impact that these have had locally and abroad. So these were the ones… What I saw was a boom in around 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013. There was a boom of these self-managed, in Spanish, the word is easier, it’s autogestionado, which is a common word for some… It’s a bit like DIY, do it yourself. If the government is not going to pay attention to our needs, then we are gonna act on our own needs and create our own public spaces. So there was a boom of these spaces popping up all over the city in abandoned, again, abandoned lots or plots of land. Like you see here, this is… It’s hard to find words for these type of spaces. I get… In Spanish, sometimes they’re called… Would roughly translate to independent self-manage social space or cultural space. These spaces often had urban gardens and were managed openly, voluntarily by people in the neighborhood.

0:23:40.9 Megan Saltzman: And yeah, they were open. So anybody can come in and help or take food or other resources if necessary. Here’s another example. This sign reads more peppers and less cement. Again, referring to the ongoing gentrification, there was one group I was able to participate in on several occasions called fem placa, which means we make the plaza. And here in Catalan it says, we recover public space as a place of coexistence. And their goal was to intervene in certain plazas where there was mass tourism and where a lot of buildings had been torn down and simply carry out everyday activities. Really simple activities like just standing there or just standing and talking or being together as a group, maybe eating, maybe drinking something, singing or dancing or talking about history. There was always one historian at these events who would read the history, the disappeared history of these plazas.

0:24:57.0 Megan Saltzman: And one day every month there would be one of these fem placa interventions and they carried out these activities without getting permission. So technically what they were doing legislatively is not legal. The police did approach at least twice when I was there and they asked what was going on and then walked away. There is this other element of which perhaps you all have thought about in your classes where, when the resistance looks cool, it can be so to say… So to speak, approved or co-opted by the ciudad concebida. So for example, this could be something that could actually attract more gentrifiers or more gentrification projects. I had another example up here where there were these critical spaces that I was seeing a lot in 2005, 2006 in Spanish, they’re called medianeras, where the buildings have been cut in half and you can see all of their interior private spaces just exposed to the public, to the passerby, people who are walking by. And on one hand, these are very historically triggering, right? You see this and your history questions are immediately mobilized. What happened here? Something happened here in the past. And I also came across some kind of artistic installation, something similar. They had replaced the sink and a shower head and what other bathroom features in this medianera. And then the next year I came across a postcard of this same artistic installation.

0:26:51.6 Megan Saltzman: So there is this tricky line of where does the critical art begin or where does the authorities end up creating it or co-opting it into something that can be commodified or sold. So yeah, here’s another example of the fem placa group. And one of the things they did in one of these interventions was to count all of the private seats in a plaza versus public seats. For example, this is… In this plaza, 61% of the places where you could sit were private. They were mostly cafes and restaurants. So they were highlighting this problem of the privatization of a public space. If I have time, I can go through more of the ways that these self-managed public spaces were operating. Yeah, I can go into that later if we have more time. How they were operating and how they were sharing their resources. Okay, and then the last chapter deals with immigration. Spanish cities not only experienced a boom of gentrification in the ’90s and the early 2000s, but also an immigration boom. So there’s the crux or intersection of these two major social phenomena. And Barcelona has been the Spanish city with the largest population of foreigners and undocumented people. So contrary to the dominant discourses on immigration, which tends to reduce immigrants to numbers or often negative narratives, this chapter seeks to understand these realities more holistically and with eyes on the creative spatial agency of this group of people.

0:28:42.8 Megan Saltzman: And for this chapter, I mainly analyzed two documentaries, Si Nos Dejan by Ana Torres and Raval, Raval by Antoni Verdaguer. And I also include my own ethnographic research on the phenomenon of informal street vending. And so from these resources, from these sources, sorry, I was able to get a better understanding of barriers in public space, specifically physical barriers, racial barriers, and legislative barriers. And also, I was able to see a certain type of mobility, a frequent zigzagging mobile itineraries across Barcelona and also across from city to city transnationally. And I think this is important because we still have very dominant national frameworks for doing the type of research we do and the type of thinking we do about time and space. In these documentaries and in the research, Barcelona is not this glamorous location, but simply a labor stopover within a network of European cities, especially downtowns, centers of these European cities that increasingly need and depend on cheap multilingual service labor, but they don’t offer ways to do so legally or humanely with housing. So that was another conclusion I got from this research. And then also through these films, the ethnographic research, I also saw a lot of solidarity and what I call neighborhood citizenship, referring to social bonds between strangers at the neighborhood level within a dense heterogeneous urban space.

0:30:36.5 Megan Saltzman: And this might be something more Mediterranean. I’m not certain because I’ve primarily done research in Spanish cities, but yeah, within the density of compactness of the Barcelona city, I was seeing this neighborhood citizenship, which was facilitating a more accessible and flexible notion of belonging and upholding networks of care. Again, although temporary and in the face of both gentrification and deportation, and I should add that everything that I have shown you, all of these small resistances, all of these here… Oh, with the exception of this one, they don’t exist anymore. So these urban gardens, these are all new buildings now. Fem placa does not practice anymore. This one, it’s called Germanetes, it does still continue. It was able to secure some legal and financial support from the city hall, which has allowed it to continue. Also this volleyball court, these are all apartment buildings now. That is a reality of this type of small resistance that I’m talking about. I have a lot of other images I could talk about, but this past January, I was able to share my book in Barcelona. And again, the issue of housing was very visible. Here you can see like this means, in Catalan, tourist flat. So you could see the type of graffiti. Also another example of this ephemeral resistance. Okay. So I guess I will end there. And if there’s certain questions, I can show you more of the images that I have. So that’s all for now.

0:32:33.9 Julian Agyeman: Well, thank you very much, Megan. This is a fascinating presentation. And we’ve got several questions, but I wanna open it up because I remember in the early days when we were talking about this, you said, but I’m from cultural studies. You people are in urban planning. It doesn’t matter. What you’re describing here is what we call pop-up urbanism. The small practices of everyday urbanism, pop-up urbanism, and it can be anything from a mural to seed bombing, like throwing seeds over a piece of vacant land. So this is exactly in our domain. And what’s quite refreshing actually is to hear a non-urban planner coming from a different discipline, obviously talking about this. So with that said, we’ve got a lot of questions and I’ve got a lot of questions of my own because I know a lot of people at the Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice, and they’ve been doing some fantastic work. Isabelle Anguelovski and her team. I don’t know whether you got to meet them, but Marvin says, I thought Barcelona is a walkable city and a sterling urban community model.

0:33:46.8 Megan Saltzman: Okay. Yeah, thank you, Marvin, for your comment/question. Yeah, so that is definitely part of the image and reputation that Barcelona has, especially around the… In the 1990s with the Olympics and right after the Olympics, there was the creation of… Or maybe not the creation, but there was this concept called the Barcelona model. And I think it’s quite well known in architectural studies of like you say, a city that has prioritized its inhabitants, walkability, democracy, green spaces. But upon researching this, that it wasn’t fully true and that all that I described at the beginning of the presentation about… Sorry, I had to turn something off. About the neoliberal effects and the population of the downtown decreasing and it becoming an increasingly exclusive city, at least economically, that those were aspects that were not included in this Barcelona model. So yeah, I mean there are definitely positive aspects and realities and truths in that Barcelona model. And Barcelona has many positive aspects today as well, especially if you compare it to other cities. But when you speak to the locals, when you speak to those who don’t have much of a voice, like people who are being pushed to the periphery or who are outside the institutions, then you do see that it’s much more nuanced and that a large, perhaps even the majority of the population has been excluded from the decision making process in terms of urban planning in the last couple of decades.

0:35:36.1 Julian Agyeman: Great, thanks, Megan. We have a question from Shmuel who says, I’m a social activist from Israel and I have a question how authorities of Barcelona are trying to ensure accessibility of poor and low socioeconomic groups of the local population to public spaces in the city?

0:35:53.3 Megan Saltzman: Thank you for your question and comment there. It’s a little tricky to respond to this question because it also depends a lot on what political party is in the city council. So from around 2008 to 2015, there was political party that came from a lot of the protests. If you all recall, Occupy Wall Street in Spain, this was much larger, it was called the 15-M or quince-m. And this… It was a massive grassroots movement all across the country, especially in cities. And one of these leaders of that movement became the first woman mayor, Ada Colau. And so under her mayorship, there were a lot of initiatives taken in the city to try to make sure, for example, that poor, what you name here, poor and low social economic groups and also people with disabilities or mobility issues, elderly people, women. There was a long list of different demographics that they tried to include in the decision making process and also in the material construction and renovation of the city. In the last couple of years there has been less of that. But there are the basics, I don’t know the words for them, but like different textures on the sidewalks for blind people or different sounds for… You’ll have to help me with these words. The different sounds of like for when to cross the street and stuff for blind people. But that’s as much as I can say about that, that it really depended on who was… What political party was in the seat of the city council at the time.

0:37:48.9 Julian Agyeman: Thanks. Sticking with that, the city council idea, we’ve got a question and it’s two part. Is there a way that the spatial tactics of a ciudad practicada can be institutionalized or does that stultify or co-opt the nature of the organic cultural movement? And then second, how did the government of Ada Colau, she’s a socialist, and the Guanyem movement push back against or follow neoliberal policies?

0:38:16.8 Megan Saltzman: Yeah, Mika, thank you for this question. And I talk about this in my book. In my book I say that a lot of these spatial tactics, if you look at… If you say you look at 20 of them, you’re going to see a pattern which is that they’re responding to something that could be some kind of need and these needs could be picked up by the city council. Perhaps we need more exercise equipment in the city, or perhaps we need a volleyball court in the, sorry, in the city. Or perhaps we need more benches if everybody is sitting wherever. So that is something that could be picked up and in some cases it has been picked up and worked on. However, as I mentioned in the book, the creativity, human or mammal creativity of spatial tactics, of being able to constantly adapt and re-adapt, it would continue. So I think that even if the city council did pick up on these and try to improve them, or if they picked up on them and improved them and then commodified them, which I could talk about some examples where that has happened, especially in terms of sustainability and green initiatives.

0:39:31.4 Megan Saltzman: Either way, at the grassroots level, there will continue to be this creativity of circumventing whatever is there or whatever is not there. Let me see the second part of the question. Yeah, that’s a very big question about how the Ada Colau government pushed back because they did so many things. I can send you my book chapter if you like. So many things. I suppose the initiative that they were most internationally famous for is what’s been called… I’ll put it in the chat, it’s in Catalan or I think in English, they’ve been called translated to superblocks. And that is where they take a group of nine blocks and they make all the streets within those blocks for only pedestrians. And their political party, Barcelona en Comú, they created several of these super block conglomerations across the city of Barcelona. And yeah, you can see online on one hand they have become more sustainable, greener areas and for the most part they’re used. You can see people walking around, sitting, playing a wide variety of activities. On the other hand there have been complaints because there is always that population that wants to drive or that want to take their motorcycle.

0:40:56.9 Megan Saltzman: And so this pushes traffic and creates traffic jams in other parts of the city or pushes the pollution to other streets. And perhaps the unintentional effect of these superblocks was that the housing around the superblocks skyrocketed. So now everybody wants to live on a superblock and it has ended up pushing out lower and middle income residents. And yeah, this is in the news like right now, the last couple of weeks there’s been all the… A lot of talks and protest about the housing in these neighborhoods. Let me go back to your question. Where there… Where do there… Supposedly people find the policy, on the spectrum. Yeah, you had written about the superblocks. Well, the superblocks does fall on the spectrum. The progressive political party or if you wanna call it the left wing or whatever, but it fell within the spectrum or the part of the party that’s called Barcelona en Comú and there’s a lot of other examples of trying to… In Spanish they use the word pacificar which is like to make pleasant or to make peaceful, the public spaces for more pedestrians and areas where no cars would be allowed.

0:42:17.7 Megan Saltzman: For example, they also, on Sundays they have blocked off a lot of streets where cars can’t go through. They have also, you might have heard of something called bicibús, which is… If you Google it or look on YouTube you can see videos of it. They in the morning and in the afternoon when kids are going to school and when they’re coming home from school, they’re blocking off certain streets where all the kids can go together on their bikes. So that was another project. They also did try to… I have this chapter about these kind of independent public spaces/cultural centers. They did try to financially support several of them but again it was… It would be… It’s also temporary. It would be like financial support or permission for one year or two years and then when that party gets voted out, then they lose their support. It’s a big question. If you email me, I’ll send you my chapter and then you can get more of the specifics.

0:43:25.0 Julian Agyeman: Thanks Megan, for that. I’m going to ask a question of my own. Those of us in the sort of sustainable communities, sustainable urban planning field, Barcelona is often held up as being one of the key models. What do you think we should take from that? And what should we not take from Barcelona as being held up as one of these models? A socialist mayor, the superblocks, action on Airbnb, tourists go home, refugees welcome. This is a heady mix of progressive policies. What do we take and what do we leave?

0:44:01.0 Megan Saltzman: Yeah, yeah, that’s a good question. Well, I think you have to be constantly critical and you have to… In the book I talk about what happens when we start comparing cities and when we start to compare cities, like, oh, well, Barcelona is so much better than Philadelphia or for example, then we are disregarding the suffering that’s going down in Barcelona, for example, or we are ignoring the people who are not being included in these decision making or these initiatives or projects. So I would say sure, take the good, take the positive from whatever model and also whatever non-model and also take a nuanced view. What’s being left out, who’s not being included in this and ask a lot of questions. In the research for this book, it was just all about asking questions and asking questions. I’m not from Barcelona. I spent a long time living there. But I needed to ask questions not from just institutional people, but from absolutely anybody who is willing to speak with me. So, yeah, sure, again, take the positives, take the good parts, but also be critical. Know that there’s most likely something that’s not being talked about or most likely somebody who’s not being included. Yeah, yeah, just take a more nuanced view of… Yeah, I don’t doubt that Barcelona has positive things that I wish we could incorporate and repeat in Boston or elsewhere, but you have to get as holistic a view as possible of what that model…

0:45:38.8 Julian Agyeman: Another good example, Amsterdam and Barcelona are two of the only cities with sort of protection of people’s digital rights on the Internet. Some very progressive things coming out of Barcelona in that sense. Final question, and this is a real quick one and hopefully you can answer it pretty quickly. Would you be able to talk any more about those examples you referred to where cultural and social spatial practices have been commodified and the results? So just give us one example, maybe.

0:46:09.2 Megan Saltzman: Have been commodified and the results. Oh, probably one of the most popular ones, which I think is not getting so much attention nowadays, but about 15 years ago was the Barcelona graffiti. If you again put into Google images Barcelona Graffiti, you’ll see a massive database of very creative graffiti examples from all over the city. And this really increase tourism to the city. And so this was something also that the city council promoted as this… Barcelona as the city of creativity, the city of art, of informal art. And I would say probably something like 90% of those graffiti artworks are gone because they have destroyed the buildings to create new hotels and new tourist apartments. And I would say right now the biggest case is what’s going on with the superblocks.

0:47:08.8 Julian Agyeman: Great, Megan. I could ask many more questions and there’s many more questions just keep coming up in the chat. But what a fitting end to this semester of Cities@Tufts. Megan Saltzman, Mount Holyoke thank you so much. Can we give a warm round of applause, a warm Cities@Tufts round of applause to Megan Saltzman. Thank you Megan. Thank you so much. As I said, this is the last for this semester. Hope to see many of you back in September for a whole new raft of fantastic presentations.

0:47:41.2 Tom Llewellyn: We hope you enjoyed this week’s presentation. Click the link in the show notes to access the video, transcript and graphic recording or to register for an upcoming lecture. Cities@Tufts is produced by the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University and Shareable, with support from the Barr foundation, Shareable donors and listeners like you. Lectures are moderated by Professor Julian Agyeman and organized in partnership with research assistants Amelia Morton and Grant Perry. Light Without Dark by Cultivate Beats is our theme song and the graphic recording was created by Jess Milner. Paige Kelly is our co-producer, audio editor and communications manager. Additional operations, funding, marketing and outreach support are provided by Alison Huff, Bobby Jones and Candice Spivey. And the series is co-produced and presented by me, Tom Llewellyn. Please hit subscribe, leave a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts and share with others so this knowledge will reach people outside of our collective bubbles. That’s it for this week’s show.

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As a handy person, Devon Curtin spends a lot of time helping people enrich their living spaces. Recently, while working with a friend to remodel their floor, Curtin noticed that the cost of do-it-yourself projects is already rising because of Donald Trump’s tariffs.

“The cost of mahogany was the same as Douglas fir, which is kind of wild, but the cost of oak was double. And I was like, ‘Oh, we’re probably getting oak boards from Canada, and so the tariff cost on that is going to skyrocket,’” said Curtin. “And so all of a sudden, this project of building an oak countertop doubles in price because the tariffs are there.”

With the price of materials climbing (or set to), many DIY projects have become more difficult to finance overnight. But what if Curtin’s friend didn’t also have to purchase pricey tools to complete the project? What if he borrowed them all from neighbors instead, and returned them when he was finished? And what if those neighbors helped him through the project each step of the way?

This is more or less how tool-lending libraries work. Curtin, who is a volunteer and steering committee member of the nonprofit Rhode Island tool library PVD Things, connects people with the tools and know-how to make daunting do-it-yourself projects more accessible. For a sliding scale fee, members of the cooperatively-run library have access to a catalogue of about 1,630 items that have been amassed over the past four or so years through donations. Tools like the power washers, hammers, drills, cameras, lawn mowers, pet carriers, grills and pop-up tents can be borrowed for one to two weeks. But PVD Things is about much more than just the things. Volunteers get to know their neighbors and their stories, and provide guidance if they need help. Those volunteers told me about a local poet who borrows pop-up tents and tables to speed-write poems for passersby, and a surfer who borrowed palm sanders and dust extractors to build a fiberglass surfboard from scratch. Another member built out a camper van with their power tools. Several weeks ago, 30 gardeners borrowed rakes, shovels and pruners en masse for a big clean up party at a community garden that had been overgrown for years.

During open hours, I saw volunteers celebrating a member’s upcoming 10K when she came in to borrow a GoPro to document the run. The space was warm and welcoming, with a wall of free things, a whiteboard full of local event flyers near a seed library, and power tools impeccably organized on curvy psychedelic shelves that were designed and made by a program that works with Providence youth.

“It’s not really like a Home Depot where you just go in, you don’t talk to anybody, you pick a tool up and leave,” said volunteer and board member Erica Bello. “A lot of times we’re having really in-depth conversations with what these people are doing and their projects and all that stuff. And some people just come and hang out.”

Tool libraries such as these have surged in popularity since the Great Recession. Public library systems house many of them, as in Oakland and Berkeley, California; Grosse Pointe, Michigan; and in Providence, Rhode Island, through a partnership with PVD Things. Independent nonprofit tool libraries are flourishing across the country too. Hubs in Denver, Chicago and Buffalo all offer thousands of things and workshops; another in New York City’s Flatbush neighborhood offers free membership to all Brooklyn residents. A longstanding library in Baltimore heavily influenced the organizational structure of PVD Things.

Tool libraries are typically hyperlocal projects sustained primarily by donations and volunteers, making them relatively insulated from the whims of far-away neo-fascists and tech billionaires. As the Chicago Tool Library recently put it, “There are no tariffs on sharing. The more we share, the more we have.”

They aren’t insulated from politics entirely. “This is a not-for-profit, and we are directly benefited by a lot of the programs and grants that kind of extend from what’s available in the state or in the city, or federally,” Curtin said. “That gives us the opportunity to grow.”

“We want people to realize their own self-reliance. You don’t have to be a consumer. You can be a repairer.”

The use of such grants and programs can also be a vulnerability. Last month, the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS), a government agency that funds one-third to one-half of state library agencies’ annual budgets, was gutted by the federal government. IMLS had provided grants to fund at least two tool libraries in California. Berkeley’s tool lending program — one of the first in the public library system — was originally funded by a federal grant in 1979.

PVD Things has secured a couple of grants, including one that led to the hiring of their first part-time employee, Manuela Hincapie Vidal, as a workshop programmer and volunteer coordinator. Born in Colombia, Hincapie Vidal moved to Rhode Island at age 11, where she was exposed to squatting culture and the Zapatistas at a community space in Providence shortly after graduating from high school. She first learned about tool libraries after enrolling at Berea College in Kentucky — a tuition-free college for low-income students — from an inspiring professor who also taught the class about back-to-the-land movements, timebanking, and municipal internet.

Hincapie Vidal said her Latina roots inspire her to ensure PVD Things’ workshops are accessible to their mostly Latinx neighbors. She has helped organize three Spanish-speaking workshops, spreading the word through Latina organizations and ditching Google docs — which seemed more friendly for English-speakers — in favor of email and text sign-ups. All three workshops quickly reached maximum capacity.

“Workshops help people feel a sense of belonging and ownership of the space,” said Hincapie Vidal, “and bring people in that feel compelled to be volunteers.”

Through workshops, locals have learned the basics of power tools, electrical work, plumbing, machine sewing, hand sewing, wood working, little free library building, sign making, and more. With these new skills, people are better equipped to repair their belongings when they break, saving them money and keeping things out of landfills.

“We want people to realize their own self-reliance. You don’t have to be a consumer. You can be a repairer,” Bello said. “So many things are kind of built nowadays where you can’t fix it, and corporations want you to discard it. It’s planned obsolescence. We are trying to give empowerment back to the people.”

PVD Things aspires to host open shop hours where people can fix things and collaborate on other projects together. When I asked Curtin and Bello about their other utopian dreams, Curtin said he hopes for each public library to involve a tool-lending program. Bello envisions a world where the proliferation of tool libraries allows people to climb up the economic ladder, and Curtin chimed in that tool libraries can serve as an incubator for small businesses.

Later, Hincapie Vidal pulled me aside and said that she had dreams too. “Imagine a world where there are tool libraries in every neighborhood, and they’re third spaces for people to hang out without having to spend money,” she said. “There are potlucks to share food, and urban farms.” We talked about alternative economic systems, such as solidarity economies that weave together things like worker-owned cooperatives, community land trusts, popular assemblies, and mutual aid networks to build a world that prioritizes people and planetary health over economic growth. “That would just be a disaster for capitalism,” she said cheerily.

Entire economies could even be organized around library concepts, as some have suggested: Under a system called “library socialism,” popularized by utopian comedy podcast “Srsly Wrong,” and further explored by YouTuber Andrewism, all kinds of goods and resources could be collectively catalogued and distributed to meet everyone’s basic needs and desires. Under library socialism, for example, apartments might be doled out by a collectively managed housing committee that is accountable to its local popular assembly. An affinity group might run a collective kitchen and return the space rental to the housing committee once it’s no longer being used. None of the concepts are necessarily new — solidarity economies and library socialism are modern spins on what many societies have been experimenting with since the dawn of humanity.

“It sounds utopian, but it’s not. We’ve been made to believe that capitalism is the only way, because it feels like it has existed forever and that there are no other alternatives,” said Hincapie Vidal. “But that’s not true. It’s pretty new. The history is there so we can bring it forward and learn and share it.”

Free Download: “The Library of Things Toolkit”

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Canada was founded on enslavement and dispossession, most exemplified by its assimilationist ideologies and policies, the displacement, subjugation and oppression of Indigenous and Black peoples and cultures, and the expropriation of Indigenous lands. The colonial theft of land and the accumulation of capital have been foundational to Canada’s wealth. In this presentation, Dr. Ingrid Waldron uses settler colonial theory to examine environmental racism in Canada to highlight the symbolic and material ways in which the geographies of Indigenous and Black peoples have been characterized by erasure, domination, dehumanization, destruction, dispossession, exploitation, and genocide. She offers a historical overview of cases of environmental racism in Canada and outlines how she has been addressing environmental racism over the last 10 years in partnership with Indigenous and Black communities, and their allies.

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About the speaker

Dr. Ingrid Waldron is Professor and HOPE Chair in Peace and Health in the Global Peace and Social Justice Program in the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University. Her research focuses on environmental and climate justice in Black, Indigenous, and other racialized communities, mental illness and dementia in Black communities, and COVID-19 in Black and South Asian communities. Ingrid is the author of the book There’s Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities, which was turned into a 2020 Netflix documentary of the same name and was co-produced by Waldron, actor Elliot Page, and Ian Daniel. She is the founder and Director of the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health Project (The ENRICH Project) and helped develop the federal private members bill a National Strategy Respecting Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice (Bill C-226). Bill C-226 was approved at Senate on June 13, 2024, and given royal assent on June 20, 2024, becoming the first environmental justice law in Canada. Dr. Waldron’s book entitled From the Enlightenment to Black Lives Matter: The Impact of Racial Trauma on Mental Health in Black Communities, was published on November 25, 2024. It traces experiences of racial trauma in Black communities in Canada, the US and the UK from the colonial era to the present.

Video of A History of Violence: The Legacy of Environmental Racism in Canada with Ingrid Waldron

Transcript of A History of Violence: The Legacy of Environmental Racism in Canada with Ingrid Waldron

0:00:08.8 Tom Llewellyn: Welcome to another episode of Cities@Tufts Lectures where we explore the impact of urban planning on our communities and the opportunities designed for greater equity and justice. This season is brought to you by Shareable and the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University with support from the Barr Foundation. In addition to this podcast, the video, transcript and graphic recordings are available on our website shareable.net just click the link in the show notes. And now here’s the host of Cities@Tufts, Professor Julian Agyeman.

0:00:41.3 Julian Agyeman: Welcome to our Cities@Tufts Virtual Colloquium. I’m Professor Julian Agyeman and together with my research assistants Amelia Morton and Grant Perry and our partners Shareable and the Barr Foundation, we organize Cities@Tufts as a cross disciplinary academic initiative which recognises Tufts University as a leader in urban studies, urban planning and sustainability issues. We’d like to acknowledge that Tufts University’s Medford campus is located on colonized Wampanoag and Massachusetts traditional territory. Today we’re delighted to host Dr. Ingrid Waldron. Ingrid is professor and Hope Chair in Peace and Health in the Global Peace and Health Social Justice Program in the Faculty of Humanities at McMaster University. Her research focuses on environmental and climate justice in Black, Indigenous and other racialized communities, mental illness and dementia in Black communities, and COVID 19 in Black and South Asian communities.

0:01:42.7 Julian Agyeman: Ingrid is the author of the book, “There’s Something in the Water: Environmental Racism in Indigenous and Black Communities” which was turned into a 2020 Netflix documentary of the same name and was co-produced by Waldron, actor Elliot Page and Ian Daniel. She’s the founder and director of the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health Project, the ENRICH Project and helped develop the Federal Private Members Bill, a National Strategy Respecting Environmental Racism and Environmental Justice and that’s Bill C226.

0:02:20.4 Julian Agyeman: This bill was approved by Senate, the Canadian Senate, on June 13, 2024 and given royal assent on June 20, 2024, becoming the first ever environmental justice law in Canada. Dr. Waldron’s book entitled, From Enlightenment to Black Lives Matter, the Impact of Racial Trauma on Mental Health in Black Communities was published in November last year. The book traces experiences of racial trauma in Black Canadian and US communities and in communities in the UK from the colonial to the present period. Ingrid’s talk today is a history of violence, the legacy of Environmental Racism in Canada. Ingrid A Zoomtastic welcome to Cities@Tufts.

0:03:07.1 Ingrid Waldron: Thank you very much and good afternoon to everyone. Can you all hear me? Okay.

0:03:14.6 Tom Llewellyn: Yep, just fine.

0:03:16.1 Ingrid Waldron: Okay. Great. I’m going to begin with a Quote from a resident of Lincolnville, one of the communities that I met with back in 2013 when I started my project. I wanted to meet the indigenous communities and the African Nova Scotian communities to hear what their concerns were about at that time. So I’m going to start. If you look at the health of the community prior to 1974, before the landfill site was located, and our community seemed to be healthier from 1974 on until the present day, we noticed our people’s health seems to be going downhill. Our people seem to be passing on at a younger age. They are contracting different types of cancers that we never heard of prior to 1974. Our stomach cancer seems to be on the rise. Diabetes is on the rise. Our people end up with tumors in their body and we’re at a loss of what’s causing it. The municipality says that there’s no way that the landfill site is affecting us. But if the landfill site located in other areas is having an impact on people’s health, then shouldn’t the landfill site located next to our community be having an impact on our health too? And that community, as I said, is Lincolnville.

0:04:38.8 Ingrid Waldron: And this is James Desmond. He is, or was, I should say. Unfortunately, he passed away two years ago, but he was a staunch environmental activist in his home in Lincolnville. And during that same meeting, we were filming a documentary called, “In Whose Backyard”, which is available on my website. And we asked James to define environmental racism because at that time a lot of people, particularly in Nova Scotia, where I had begun this work, were very confused by that term, environmental racism. So we asked him to define it, and I find that his definition is one that I use often because it’s extremely simple and concise, but very layered at the same time and aligns well with the more academic definition of environmental racism by Dr. Robert Bullard, who I’ll show his definition just after this one. So James Desmond says here, the practice, which is environmental racism, has been locating industrial waste sites next to African, Nova Scotian native and poor white, communities that don’t have a base to fight back. You ask if that’s environmental racism, it’s environmental racism to its core. And here’s the more academic definition of Environmental Racism by Dr. Robert Bullard.

0:06:00.5 Ingrid Waldron: Dr. Robert Bullard is an African American who teaches at a university in Texas, and he is considered to be the father of environmental justice. He’s obviously my hero, and I had the opportunity to host him at a symposium that I held in 2017 on environmental racism when I was in Nova Scotia. So this is coming from his early work. His very first book was called I believe, Dumping in Dixie, from 1990. But this is how he defines environmental racism. He says, environmental racism is racial discrimination in the disproportionate location and greater exposure of indigenous and racialized communities to contamination and pollution from environmentally hazardous activities. It is also about the lack of political power these communities have for resisting the placement of industrial polluters in their communities.

0:07:00.2 Ingrid Waldron: The third definition or component of that definition is, the implementation of policies that sanction the harmful and in many cases, life threatening poisons or presence of poisons in these communities. Fourth, environmental racism is racial discrimination in the disproportionate negative impacts of environmental policies that result in differential rates of cleanup in these communities. And finally, environmental racism is about the history of excluding the very communities that are most impacted by environmental racism. Indigenous communities, black communities and racialized communities. We often use that phrase, having a seat at the table. These are the communities that typically don’t have a seat at the table. Even though they’re more vulnerable than other communities to environmental racism.

0:07:52.3 Ingrid Waldron: So they’re often not invited to the table to help develop policy and decisions around environmental racism. As I’ve done in my book, what I want to do now, very briefly is talk about geography in a way and space. Because I think it’s really helpful when you situate environmental racism within a spatial analysis. And I do that a lot in my book. I look at spatial processes and spatial inequality in a way to broaden the discussion on environmental racism, which helps us to address the siloing, I think, sometimes of environmental and climate issues. We have to understand that environmental racism is connected to so many other issues in our places and spaces. So that’s what I will do here. So environmental racism that is a manifestation of white supremacist use of space that has come to characterize the harmful impacts of spatial violence in black, indigenous and other racialized communities. And when we say spatial violence, for me that means policy.

0:08:56.1 Ingrid Waldron: That means what is happening on the ground in terms of the various inequalities and oppressions that marginalized racialized communities are experiencing on the ground due to the various policies that can be harmful in purposeful ways, but also policies just by the absence of or the erasure of the issues that these communities are facing. That’s harmful as well. If the policies are excluding the experiences of, or there’s an absence of the experiences of indigenous and black and other racialized people in policymaking, that’s also harmful in subtle ways and perhaps in very indirect ways.

0:09:35.4 Ingrid Waldron: Teelucksingh and Masouda are both Canadians who are working in the space of environmental racism and spatial inequality. And they observe that space is more than a geographical area. It is also a socially constructed and highly contested product that has significant political, cultural and economic implications. So what they’re saying here is we often tend to look at, or in the past we did, geography as this fixed issue. And now we’re seeing with human geography, health geography, all these really exciting disciplines popping up. We know that it’s not simply about a fixed space. It’s about how inequalities are imbued within spaces. And it also talks about how these spaces are socially constructed.

0:10:23.8 Ingrid Waldron: They’re socially constructed because individuals, communities have relationships with each other and they have relationships with organizations. And there’s the social construction. They’re always manifesting these issues, these inequalities over time. So we have to look at space as always under construction, as fluid, as never fixed, and as ever changing. So this is what Teelucksingh and Masuda argue. Lipsitz, who is another professor I admire who is American, he taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara. At that same event where I hosted Dr. Bullard, I also hosted at the same event, Dr. Lipsitz. They were both my keynote speaker. And I love doctor Lipsitz’ work on the racialization of space and the spatialization of race. It really helped me to open up my view on environmental racism. I had a very, in the beginning, a very constricted view of environmental racism. And after reading his article on the racialization of space, which I think comes from a publication from 2007, it opened up my eyes about the various connections and how we can talk about environmental racism in a more critical way. So he talks about that and he talks about the inequalities, racial inequalities that are imbued and manifest in all our spaces.

0:11:49.4 Ingrid Waldron: And this concept is useful in helping to think through the implications of race, class, gender and other social factors with respect to spatial processes that have the most deleterious impacts in racialized communities. And these include government and industry expropriation of indigenous lands, the formation of neighborhoods segregated by income, class and race, neighborhood revitalization projects that gentrify low income and often marginalized areas by bringing in businesses and housing that ultimately push out long term residents, and also environmental racism.

0:12:31.8 Ingrid Waldron: What these spatial processes have in common is a quest for profit by business owners and industry leaders. And these processes tend to shed light on how spaces of profit are often premised on possession, dispossession and displacement. It’s for these reasons that it’s important to challenge notions of space, as I said earlier, as fixed, neutral, ahistorical and physical.

0:13:02.7 Ingrid Waldron: So rather, space is an embodiment of power relations that are fluid and ever changing. And I also point to Doreen Massey, the late Doreen Massey. Her work on space also resonated with me, specifically her work from this article from 1992. She put it really succinctly when she argued that space is never apolitical, but imbued with a complex web of relations of domination and subordination, of solidarity and cooperation.

0:13:39.7 Ingrid Waldron: There have been, in Canada, several cases of environmental racism in Indigenous and African Nova Scotian communities. I would say over the last 70 years. I’m going to begin with my work in Nova Scotia. That’s where I began my work on environmental racism in 2012. And what’s on the screen is a community called Shubenacadie First Nation. This is an Indigenous community. And starting in 2014, Alton Gas, which is a company in Alberta, Canada, was planning to build a brine discharge pipeline near the Shubenacadie river near to this community. There are tons of studies in the United States indicating that brine discharge pipelines can be dangerous, although Alton Gas argued that it was not dangerous, it was safe and the community had nothing to be concerned about. But starting in 2014, when this project was announced, the community began resisting.

0:14:39.3 Ingrid Waldron: And in 2021, I’m happy to say that the project was closed. We often don’t find success when we’re talking about environmental racism. There’s often not success. But they spent seven years resisting this pipeline project. They were concerned about the impact of the pipeline on fish, on their health and on climate change. And they used social media and on site, in person practices and approaches to stop this pipeline project from coming into their community. And in the end, they won in 2021 when Alton Gas decided to pack up and leave.

0:15:21.5 Ingrid Waldron: We have another Indigenous community in Nova Scotia, Canada. It’s called Pictou Landing First Nation. And this is an aerial shot given to me by a journalist when he was flying over Pictou Landing First Nation. And this is called Boat Harbour. And Pictou Landing was a pristine hunting and fishing ground for the Indigenous community before a mill started dumping effluent into boat harbor in 1967. And over that time, particularly in the 1980s, the government made many broken promises to the Indigenous community, saying that they were going to close the mill. That never happened.

0:16:07.1 Ingrid Waldron: This is another success story, but it took 50 years, unfortunately. In the end of 2019, the Nova Scotia government said that the mill did not come up with an appropriate or robust plan for their waste water treatment, and that he was going to close the mill. And he did. And that happened at the end of January 2020. But you can imagine, 50 years this mill was operating, dumping effluent into Boat Harbour. It became a toxic cocktail of different pollutants.

0:16:42.9 Ingrid Waldron: And the community would say that high rates of cancer, high rates of respiratory illness and skin rashes and other illnesses is due to Boat Harbour. What can I say about Boat Harbour? Yeah, I think that’s really the pertinent issue. There were some rumblings that the mill would open again, which of course concerned the community, but that hasn’t happened. So they’re involved right now in the long process of cleanup.

0:17:09.9 Ingrid Waldron: We have Aamjiwnaang First Nation, another indigenous community near Sarnia, Ontario, and it’s often referred to as Chemical Valley, which tells you all that you need to know. This is a stunning case of environmental racism. I would say the worst case of environmental racism in Canada. Why? Because the community is surrounded by over 60 petrochemical facilities. And it sounds incredible, but I also remember reading, I think it was a New York Times article way back about an African American community in Louisiana that was also surrounded by a lot of toxic facilities or petrochemical facilities. And that community was referred to as Cancer Alley. And they had, of course, high rates of cancer. And they were, just like Aamjiwnaang, surrounded by petrochemical facilities.

0:18:05.3 Ingrid Waldron: So this community, like the other communities I’ve discussed, have extremely high rates of cancer. They have… When I talk about environmental racism, I often say it’s also a gendered issue because many indigenous women have reproductive cancers. They have gestational issues, birth anomalies. So the birth rate ratio is abnormal compared to the Canadian average. I believe there are more female births than male, and it’s extremely out of whack. And of course, all these communities will have mental health issues, the psychosocial stressors of living near to these contaminated sites. Redress is on the way. The Canadian government, the Department of Environment and climate change, is currently working with the community, with the chief, to address this issue.

0:19:04.1 Ingrid Waldron: We also have Grassy Narrows First Nation, another indigenous community near Kenora, Ontario. So in the 1960s and 1970s, mercury was dumped into the Wabigoon English River near to this community. So you can imagine mercury is serious and will have health effects. There was cleanup in 2015. The government put millions of dollars towards cleanup and it was cleaned up. However, in 2022, April, there was a CBC article that came out with residents talking about the enduring health impacts from the mercury being dumped into the Wabigoon English River in the 1960s and 1970s, which just shows you that even though you might have cleanup, the health effects can remain. So they talked about less serious health issues, skin rashes, to more serious health issues such as, cognitive delays, neurological problems such as numbness in the fingers, et cetera.

0:20:06.8 Ingrid Waldron: This is another indigenous community in Canada, this time in British Columbia, specifically in northern British Columbia. So there is a plan, there has been for a while to develop a multi billion dollar pipeline project near to this community which is called Wet’suwe’ten First Nation. And over the past several years, there have been mass demonstrations, sit ins and blockades that have gripped parts of Canada over the movement to support the leaders of Wet’suwe’ten First Nation, who are opposed, of course, to this multi billion dollar pipeline project near to their community in Northern BC. This is an ongoing issue.

0:21:01.3 Ingrid Waldron: In the United States, it’s not strange to talk about African Americans experiencing environmental racism. But I think in Canada, when people hear environmental racism, they assume that only indigenous people are impacted. That’s not the case, and it’s certainly not the case in Nova Scotia, which is a province in Canada. And that’s where I began this work and I spent 13 years there. And what I witnessed during my 13 years there is that quite a few African Nova Scotian communities are impacted by environmental racism. And it’s been… I haven’t seen that in other parts of Canada, but for whatever reason I see it in Nova Scotia, the province of Nova Scotia.

0:21:40.6 Ingrid Waldron: What you’re seeing on the screen is Africville. This is a historical African Nova Scotian community. The unique thing about African Nova Scotians is that they’re in many ways unique. They’re dissimilar from the Caribbean community and the community that comes from the continent of Africa. African Nova Scotians have been in Canada for over 400 years, so they’re not considered to be an immigrant community, although everybody’s an immigrant really, because I could talk about their heritage.

0:22:11.1 Ingrid Waldron: So African Nova Scotians are descendants of black loyalists from the United States who came to Nova Scotia after the War of 1812 that took place in the US. They’re also descendants of Jamaican Maroons and they’re descendants of people from Sierra Leone. So they’ve got all that in their heritage. However, they’re the longest residing black community in Canada with, I would say, unique and very specific challenges related to racism. They fare worse on every social indicator, whether you’re talking about employment and education. They fare worse compared to other black Canadians in other provinces.

0:22:54.3 Ingrid Waldron: So this is Africville. And Africville is one of those historic African Nova Scotian communities. There’s a total of about 45 African Nova Scotian communities. And what makes them unique as well is the fact that they’re located mostly in rural areas. Typically when black people immigrate to Canada, they’re going to Toronto or Montreal or the more urban spaces to find work. The unique thing about African Nova Scotians is that they typically reside. There’s only one community that was urban, and that’s the one that you see on the screen, Africville. But all the other communities are rural. Africville was certainly not wealthy. There are no wealthy black communities in Canada. But they were thriving in terms of they were well connected. And we know that social connectedness is an important determinant of health. Some of them had their own businesses, right? 

0:23:47.1 Ingrid Waldron: So in many ways, they were well connected and a healthy community. And then in around the mid-1960s, Halifax, the city of Halifax, decided to gentrify their community and start building or started engaging in industrial development. So they needed this community to get out and so they pushed out this community, which is gentrification, or what we call urban revitalization.

0:24:13.8 Ingrid Waldron: So I would say that Africville is an example of both gentrification and environmental racism. Why is it an example? We know why it’s an example of gentrification because the government was trying to push them out to engage in industrial development. But it was also considered to be a case of environmental racism because a lot of social and environmental hazards were left in the community due to industrial development. And these social and environmental hazards, making this a case of environmental racism, included a fertilizer plant, a slaughterhouse, a tar factory, a stone and coal crushing plant, a cotton factory, a prison, three systems of railway tracks, and an open dump.

0:25:00.4 Ingrid Waldron: Here’s another African Nova Scotian community. So you saw a photo of James Desmond earlier. I said he was from Lincolnville. This is Lincolnville’s dump. Starting in 1974, the municipality placed a first generation, let’s say, landfill, because a dump is different from a landfill. So this is a landfill. They placed a first generation Landfill in 1974 near to the African Nova Scotian community. And just when the community thought that perhaps they were making some headway in getting redress and having the government relocate this landfill, they received a bit of a slap in the face.

0:25:39.5 Ingrid Waldron: In 2006, the municipality put a second generation landfill over the first one. What a slap in the face, of course? So of course, the dirty water is seeping into the second landfill. And the community would say that we’ve seen, as I… That was the quote I presented to you when I first came on the screen. The quote from somebody from Lincolnville who said over the years, since 1974, our health is worsening. Higher rates of cancer, higher rates of respiratory illness. So this is what the community argues, that it’s because of these two landfills that we are seeing poor health outcomes in our community.

0:26:15.8 Ingrid Waldron: If you were able to watch my documentary at all, it ended up on Netflix in 2020 and it was co-produced by myself and actor Elliot Page. You would have seen activist Louise Delisle from Shelburne. Now, the African Nova Scotian community lives primarily in the south end of Shelburne, but the white community lives in the north end of Shelburne. They’ve had a dump. So I’d call this a dump, not a landfill, because there’s no liner. They’ve had a dump in their community since the early 1940s. I would say probably in Canada, this is probably the first case of environmental racism, because all the way back in the 1940s, this dump was placed there. And the community would say everything and anything went into this dump. Syringes from the hospital, items from the military base, dead animals, et cetera, et cetera.

0:27:10.8 Ingrid Waldron: And over the years, they would also say that we’ve seen increasing rates of cancer, and particularly like multiple myeloma, which is a blood cancer. When I first met with Louise in my office, she said to me, Ingrid, 95% of the people in my community have cancer. Of course I didn’t believe her, but I remembered that New York Times article about that African American community in Louisiana where most people had cancer because they were surrounded by petrochemical facilities. And I said, is this happening in Canada? I really couldn’t believe it when she said 98% of the people in my community have cancer. But she was telling the truth, because if you see the film, she’s driving down a street, many streets in Shelburne, pointing out different houses with people who had cancer. And it’s a stunning part of the documentary.

0:28:00.9 Ingrid Waldron: So it is the case that there are extremely high rates of cancer in Shelburne. Lots of things are happening right now. I don’t have the time to talk about it. Louise is a strong leader and she’s led so many things in that community and so many great things are happening right now, such as a Nova Scotia human rights case. The first part of it, which has found, actually, which is probably the first time in Canada that what’s happening in Shelburne is a case of racism because it’s environmental racism. That’s never happened in Canada where environmental racism by any human rights board or commission has found it to be an example of racism.

0:28:38.6 Ingrid Waldron: So they’re making a lot of headway, and I would say primarily due to Louise’s activism. Here is Toronto. The Greater Toronto and Hamilton area is known for high levels of air pollution, particularly Hamilton. So I teach at McMaster University in Hamilton. And Hamilton is considered to be Canada’s industrial town and increasing rates of immigrant people, racialized immigrant people who are being exposed to poor air quality. And that’s the same in Toronto, particularly in areas such as Scarborough and Etobicoke north in Toronto, where there are high rates of or poor air pollution.

0:29:23.6 Ingrid Waldron: So what have I been doing over the years to address these issues? I founded, in 2012, an organization called the ENRICH Project, the Environmental Noxiousness, Racial Inequities and Community Health Projects, which would be advocating around environmental racism for indigenous people and African Nova Scotian people. First off, in Nova Scotia, now it’s gone broader than that because I’m back in Ontario, so it’s all across Canada now. And I didn’t know what ENRICH would be at that time. I was new to environmental racism. I had no experience. But it has turned out to be incredibly interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, multi approach, multimedia, and very intersectional in its approach, in its viewpoints, in many ways, in terms of how I articulate what I’m finding.

0:30:17.5 Ingrid Waldron: I thought that the first important thing for me to do when I founded ENRICH was to raise awareness because there were a lot of people who were skeptical about what I was doing. They were environmental racism. Are you sure about that? And they thought the term was funny. And I let people know, I said, this isn’t a term that I came up with. This is a term that originated in the United States by Reverend Benjamin Chavez back in the early 1980s. So I didn’t create this term. So don’t get angry at me. They thought I created it and I was playing the race card. And everything that people say about people like me who are staunchly anti-racist and whose work I consider myself to be a race scholar before I would consider myself to be an environmental scholar or health scholar, I focus on race.

0:31:08.5 Ingrid Waldron: So I got a lot of pushback in the beginning. So I thought, well, in order to address the pushback, maybe I need to raise awareness to talk about the structural underpinnings of environmental racism. Because when you look at the term environmental racism, it sounds crazy. Someone would say, anyone could say, yeah, how can the environment be racist? People are racist. How can the environment be racist? So I said to myself, I needed to explain to people the structural policy implications of environmental racism in order for them to understand this as a systemic issue. Just like when we talk about racism in labor, racism in health, racism in employment, this is racism in the environment, and it means that environmental policies are the root of it.

0:31:57.6 Ingrid Waldron: So because I needed to raise awareness, I held so many events in Nova Scotia, in other parts of Canada, and even in the United States. I was asked to talk at various events in the United States as well. And this is one of the events that I held where I brought together communities and activists and government people. And this continues to be what’s on the screen, my favorite event. It was inspiring. It was educational and entertaining. We had drum groups.

0:32:27.2 Ingrid Waldron: And so I try to do different things every time I have events. And I think over time, particularly in the province of Nova Scotia, people began to get it, right? Because I was constantly, every year putting on these events, trying to explain what environmental racism was. And I would say, in Nova Scotia, people get it. And what happens when people get it is that they want to help. And often after my events, people will say, oh, I get it now. I didn’t know this was happening in Nova Scotia. How horrible can you let me know how I can help? And that’s magic to my ears, of course. So I think creating awareness sounds benign, but it has been extremely important for me and for my project, because eventually people want to help out, and it’s really good if I don’t have a grant, it’s really good to have volunteers who really want to help and who are really passionate.

0:33:21.0 Ingrid Waldron: As I said, multimedia has been part of what I’ve done. Multimedia is a way of sharing information, just like an event. So I’ve done a lot of it. And I like to be creative. I recognize, particularly as a professor, I’ve got students in my class, and students want to learn differently, they want to be assessed differently. Some students are good at writing essays. Some students are good at multiple choice, right? So for me, this is about targeting my audience in a way. Who needs to hear about environmental racism? Who needs to do something about it? Is it the policymaker? Is it the educator? Is it the ENGO? 

0:33:58.4 Ingrid Waldron: So I have to think about who I’m targeting and then what multimedia, creative multimedia resources can I create or use? One of those was a map using GIS analysis, a map of Nova Scotia that actually shows the location of toxic facilities, different types in African Nova Scotian and Indigenous communities. What is on the screen is a flat map, but if you go onto my website, you will see one layer for indigenous communities and another layer for the black communities. So basically, this is not saying that white communities are not close to these sites, but it shows undeniably that black and indigenous communities are disproportionately near these different sites.

0:34:42.1 Ingrid Waldron: And here is actor Elliot Page. This is a kind of a long story, so I can’t get into it, but we connected through Twitter in 2018, just a few months after my book came out. Elliot had apparently read my book and loved it and wanted to express that on Twitter. So I noticed that my Twitter page was extremely active and I saw somebody following me called Elliot Page. I didn’t connect it to the actor. I didn’t realize it was the actor. And I had seen Elliot’s movies like inception with Leonardo DiCaprio and Juno and other movies. And I said to myself, is this the actor? Like, why would he be trying to connect to me? And it was. So I DM’d him. And I said, I want to thank you for promoting my book and for supporting my Enrich project and supporting the women on the front lines. And he said to me, I’m trying to find a way to use my celebrity to help. And Elliot’s from Nova Scotia, interestingly, and his family is near to Shelburne, which I just talked about.

0:35:57.9 Ingrid Waldron: So he had a kind of very personal connection to this. We ended up talking at the end of 2018, the week of Christmas, on the phone with his friend who actually connected us. Because when the friend found out Elliot had connected with me on Twitter, the friend said to me, oh, I’ve known Elliot for 15 years, Ingrid, do you want me to connect you guys? And I said, yes. So we did it on the phone and we didn’t really come up with anything. Then we met again in January of 2019 and we decided we would do some maybe posts and videos, short videos, 10 minute videos to post on Twitter. And then we changed again.

0:36:37.1 Ingrid Waldron: I had an opportunity to see the full film. Elliot had come down to Nova Scotia where I was living and filmed me in my home, and then went out to the community to film the indigenous people and also Louise Delil, the African Nova Scotian woman in Shelburne. And Elliot invited me to his mother’s home in Halifax to see the film. And I noticed when I was looking at the film, I said, people are crying. This seems really emotional. I don’t think slapping it onto Twitter is going to do this topic of environmental racism justice. I said to them, Elliot and the co-director, Ian Daniel, I said, we want awareness, don’t we? We want to make an impact. What better way than to create a documentary? And Ian said to me, are you talking about like a 70 minute documentary? I said, yes, and we could submit it to the Toronto International Film Festival and Robert Redford’s Film Festival.

0:37:38.7 Ingrid Waldron: And the Berlin Flag just kept going. And they agreed and we submitted it very late. I would say it was after the deadline, to be honest. And we got into the Toronto International Film Festival and it premiered in September of 2019. And Elliot’s publicist also arranged for us to speak to all these high profile media outlets. So we spoke to the Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, Rolling Stone Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, which is an Entertainment Magazine, and other media outlets, Television, Entertainment Tonight Canada, et cetera, et cetera. It was an extremely exciting day to have this film based on my book. It was actually based on my book. My very first book premiere at a film festival at the Toronto International Film Festival, which is widely considered to be the best film festival in the world. I’m a bit biased.

0:38:38.0 Ingrid Waldron: And then to have all these media outlets that we connected with to get this issue out into the public, this is what we call, as academics, knowledge mobilization, but for me, prime knowledge mobilization. And for this to happen to me and to my first book, I’m still very shocked by it after all these years. So this was 2019, I’m still shocked. And then we heard rumblings that it was going to go to Netflix. And I was like, okay, I can’t believe this. And that came from Elliot. We were walking with Ian Daniel to a Japanese restaurant in Halifax and I think Elliot said, I think it’s going to Netflix. And at that time, Elliot had started that show called the Umbrella Academy, which was on Netflix. And I thought, oh, maybe this is kind of going to happen because Elliot’s already on Netflix. And it did happen. We found out in October of 2018 it was going to Netflix. And it started streaming on Netflix March 29, 2020, just a few weeks after COVID hit.

0:39:38.3 S4: And then I also heard then it also went to Apple TV. I think it’s still on Apple TV, Amazon Prime and also Microsoft Xbox. So I’ve done a lot of media stuff, I’ve done a lot of creative stuff because I think it’s important to share information about studies in creative ways. This is Nocturne, Halifax’s annual nighttime art festival. This was during the height of COVID We did this on Zoom. It was really interesting. We had the community activists, indigenous and black, in five minutes, talk about environmental racism in their community.

0:40:19.4 Ingrid Waldron: And then they were paired with an artist. So whether it be a musician, a spoken word artist, or poet, a dancer, a multimedia artist, the goal of this project that I developed was to pair one activist with an artist on Zoom. And it was very well received. People loved it. And the fact that we were able to do it on Zoom, something like this was just an achievement, really. So it’s just another example of how I like to be creative, to share knowledge.

0:40:50.0 Ingrid Waldron: So media is really important to me, and I continue to give interviews to television and radio and podcasts and magazines and newspapers for all my research projects. Of course, I have to do research. I’m a professor. I’ve done a lot of research. But the one that’s wrapping up right now is Focus on Shelburne. I mentioned to you that Shelburne, they’ve had a dump since the 1940s. I mentioned multiple myeloma and cancer and high rates of cancer. So we’re trying to figure out with this study, why are there such high rates of cancer in Shelburne? And we’re looking at four issues as causal factors potentially. Is it the dump? Is it racism and other structural determinants of health? Is it lifestyle factors such as smoking, nutrition, diet, exercise? Or is it African ancestry and genetics? So we have a black cancer biologist on the team, and she looks at race and cancer, cancer in black people, particularly black women.

0:41:54.2 Ingrid Waldron: So we’ve done the focus groups and interviews. We’re just waiting for the DNA sampling to come in. So we took blood at a town hall two years ago when we went to Shelburne, and the DNA sampling stuff takes a while to come in. That’s going to come in soon, and we’ll write a report on that. But we’ve already written a report on the focus groups and the interviews, and we’ve shared that on social media. Of course, I have to publish, and this is my very first book on environmental racism. I look at environmental racism in Canada, but of course, Nova Scotia is a bit of a case study.

0:42:29.2 Ingrid Waldron: I also talk about the United States and the leaders there, such as Dr. Bullard and others. And this was the book that the Netflix documentary was based on. I like to build capacity in communities. I don’t want to be a professor, a researcher who goes into communities and just takes from them and never returns. So I like to build capacity. And one of the many ways that I’ve done that is by water testing. Many of these communities, specifically Lincolnville and Shelburne, have always wanted to test their water, but they didn’t want the government to do it because they didn’t trust the government because the government would probably say everything’s fine, right? 

0:43:10.7 Ingrid Waldron: So I got together a team comprised of a hydrogeologist, an environmental science professor and environmental science students. We formed a working group in 2016 to test the water of Lincolnville. And we tested the water at no cost. That’s the whole point of this. These are low income black communities in Nova Scotia. They don’t have the money for this. So we did this in the environmental science professor’s lab at no cost. We tested the water, we wrote a report on the findings, we went back to the community, we shared our findings and we educated them on how to keep your drinking water healthy, how to manage your drinking water.

0:43:53.8 Ingrid Waldron: And we continue with various projects like Healthy Wells Day. Many rural communities in Nova Scotia are on wells. They’re not on municipal water. Well water can be contaminated. So we have done this kind of multimedia social media on site project, awareness project for Nova Scotians to say, you’ve gotta find ways to keep your well water healthy. And we post infographics on social media. We did Facebook live and we also chose four communities to test their water on site. We collected the water from them and it’s a whole day, one day, typically it’s October, where we just educate the Nova Scotian public about keeping your well water healthy.

0:44:44.3 Ingrid Waldron: I’ve recently got into climate change, I would say maybe since 2021. I would say most of my projects now are on climate change. And I didn’t think I would be interested in this topic, but I realized that it operates very similarly to environmental racism. Who are the communities that are most vulnerable and exposed to climate change? It’s black communities once again, it’s indigenous communities. Why? Well, it’s because these communities tend to be low income. If they’re low income or poor, they’re living in neighborhoods that are low income and poor.

0:45:16.3 Ingrid Waldron: Low income and poor neighborhoods are less prepared for climate change. Their public infrastructure might be fragile, their housing might be poor. So when people often say to me, Ingrid, everybody’s impacted by climate change, not just black people and indigenous people, I say to them, yes, climate change doesn’t choose black people to impact, but they’re more vulnerable to it because they tend to be. In Canada, black people and indigenous people are our poorest, lowest income groups. And that means it’s like a Domino effect. That means they’re going to be living in neighborhoods that are low income and poor. And that means that their public infrastructure will be fragile, including their housing.

0:45:57.9 Ingrid Waldron: And that means that they will be less prepared for the onslaught of climate change. And it also means that they are the communities that are less… They’re not given attention by policymakers, climate policymakers. So these are the reasons why black and indigenous communities and racialized communities and low income white communities will be more vulnerable to climate change. I’ve looked at legal remedies for environmental racism, particularly with Ecojustice.

0:46:25.9 Ingrid Waldron: This is a law charity, environmental law charity in different cities in Canada. So I’ve worked with them so that they can develop a case for some of the communities I talked about. This confidential information, so I don’t have much information unless I get permission from community members, which I have in the past, just to say that it was really convenient that we had water testing results because we were able to hand over those water testing results to Ecojustice to help them make their case for many of the communities that I have worked with.

0:47:00.0 Ingrid Waldron: Then we get into politics. I wanted to have an environmental justice law for Canada for a long time and that started just provincially. I wanted an environmental justice law for Nova Scotia and that never happened. And I co-developed the very first environmental justice private members bill with former politician Lenore Zann. And she put that private members bill forward in Nova Scotia several times. It never went anywhere.

0:47:30.1 Ingrid Waldron: So in 2020, she moved over to the federal department as an MP Liberal for Justin Trudeau, our Prime Minister. And she said, Ingrid, remember that bill we developed back in 2015? And I said, yes. She said, well, it’s now 2020 and I think we should take that bill and turn it into a federal bill for all of Canada, not just Nova Scotia. I said, fantastic idea. I said, because we can deal with all the pipelines in indigenous communities across Canada.

0:47:58.7 Ingrid Waldron: So we took that 2015 Nova Scotia private members bill and we turned it into a federal Canadian bill, hoping that it will become environmental justice law in Canada. We didn’t know at the time that it would. And that private member’s bill was called Bill C226. And it eventually, shockingly went to Senate, third reading at Senate in June 13th of 2024. And I thought to myself, this rarely has a chance of becoming the very first Canadian environmental justice law. And I don’t even know if the United States has this a law. I know everything is being dismantled by that president that you have, but I think this is maybe really groundbreaking, I thought.

0:48:45.6 Ingrid Waldron: And then on June 20, 2024, it passed. It was given Royal Assent, which means it became Canada’s first, very first, environmental justice law. And I’m, of course, happy that I was part of it, that I helped to develop it with Lenore Zann. Part of this law, there is a policy, it’s called the National Environmental Justice Policy, which requires the government to do consultations across Canada with impacted communities and to allow them to give them an opportunity to be part of the policy making. If you remember earlier, I talked about having a seat at the table, and I said, one aspect of environmental racism is that [inaudible] table. With this new legislation, this new law, and with the national environmental justice strategy, which is essentially a policy, the communities now have, I think, a seat at the table because in addition to sharing their concerns about environmental racism in their communities, they get an opportunity to say, this is what I think should be in this policy. So they’re, in a way, co-creating this national environmental justice strategy with government.

0:50:02.2 Ingrid Waldron: So I’m happy really to say that this law, this environmental law and the strategy specifically, has to wrap up. With the law, its going to be there forever, but the strategy has to wrap up next year. So right now, the government is engaged in consultations with indigenous and African and other communities across Canada, but their deadline is next year. And that’s it. I thought I would leave you on a high note. So we have a law in Canada, environmental justice law. Yay. Thank you very much.

0:50:37.9 Julian Agyeman: Well, thank you so much, Ingrid. What a tour de force presentation on all of the issues in Canada. Unfortunately, we’re out of time for questions at the moment. I just… One little thing that I was thinking, but you’ve addressed it at the end. Environmental racism is the kind of negative. Environmental justice is the goal. And I notice in your bill, it’s a bill for environmental justice. Can you just say in one minute a word or two about your use of the two terms environmental racism and environmental justice? 

0:51:11.3 Ingrid Waldron: There was a bit of a debate about that. We wanted it to be called environmental racism, and the government wouldn’t let it go. They said, we’re not going to agree to that unless you put in the title environmental justice. But that’s fair, because that’s what we want. So for me, people obscure. People use those terms interchangeably. Environmental racism, environmental justice. What we want is environmental justice. So for me, what environmental justice is, it’s the tools, the actions, the resources that we put in place to advance environmental justice by addressing environmental racism.

0:51:50.1 Ingrid Waldron: So for me, the bill is one of those tools. You can use various tools. You can use activism, you can use advocacy, you can use a private member’s bill, you can use the legislation that we developed. That’s a tool to advance environmental justice, which means that you are addressing environmental racism. Environmental racism is the sickness, it’s the condition, it’s the illness that we have to deal with. Environmental justice is the antidote, it’s the medication. That’s the way that I describe it.

0:52:22.2 Julian Agyeman: On that note, can we thank Ingrid with a warm Cities@Tufts round of applause. Thank you. Thank you, Ingrid.

0:52:30.2 Tom Llewellyn: We hope you enjoyed this week’s presentation. Click the link in the show notes to access the video, transcript and graphic recording or to register for an upcoming lecture. Cities@Tufts is produced by the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University and Shareable with support from the Barr Foundation, Shareable donors and listeners like you. Lectures are moderated by Professor Julian Agyeman and organized in partnership with research assistants Amelia Morton and Grant Perry. Light Without Dark by Cultivate Beats is our theme song and the graphic recording was created by Anka Dregnan. Paige Kelly is our co-producer, audio editor and communications manager. Additional operations, funding, marketing and outreach support are provided by Allison Huff, Bobby Jones and Candice Spivey, and the series is co-produced and presented by me, Tom Llewellyn. Please hit subscribe, leave a rating or review wherever you get your podcasts and share it with others so this knowledge will reach people outside of our collective bubbles. That’s it for this week’s show.

[music]

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State of the Movements is a recurring NPQ column dedicated to tracking the pulse of social movements and the solidarity economy in 2025. 

“As goes the South, so goes the nation.” This maxim may not yet be standard among political analysts, but its truth is undeniable. Nowhere is this more evident than in Atlanta, a city steeped in both radical history and corporate reinvention.

Beyond the familiar narratives of a “Black Mecca” or a Democratic stronghold, Atlanta is a battleground where grassroots movements, labor struggles, and corporate influence collide. The city holds a strategic position, not just geographically but in the broader political landscape of the South, where movements for economic justice, racial equity, and abolitionist futures take shape and fight for survival.

Atlanta occupies a unique position in the South, both as a site of historical Black economic and political power and as a contested space for social movements.

As the present contradictions of racial capitalism sharpen and the cracks of neoliberal solutions give way to reveal the facade of racial progress, communities are searching for solutions transcending business-as-usual identity-based social justice driven by national nonprofits. There are unique lessons in Atlanta about sustaining movements beyond philanthropic support. The urgency of the moment demands that we learn lessons from the past and embrace radical solutions.

Atlanta as Bellwether—Or Anti-Revolutionary Bulwark

Jerome Scott, a longtime labor organizer and cofounder of Project South, embodies the tradition of Southern radical resistance. His experience, from being fired from Chrysler to organizing with the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, shaped his perspective on the necessity of independent, working-class struggle. His experience early on helped him to realize not all skinfolk are kinfolk, and he found a sophisticated strategy in entering the hospitality workforce across from the factory that fired him—allowing him to connect and organize across races.

In a recent conversation with NPQ, Scott reflected on the founding of Project South and the challenges of maintaining movement integrity in an era of increasing co-optation by philanthropy and electoral politics. “We didn’t even apply for a single grant during the early years…we were clear on our values and the threat of capture,” he explains.

Project South was born out of necessity, created to serve as a space for political education, movement building, and base development among Southern communities. Unlike many organizations that rely on large foundation grants, Scott and his cofounders were intentional about rejecting funding that came with restrictions. Their decision was rooted in the understanding that corporate and philanthropic interests often seek to domesticate radical movements, making them palatable to power rather than effective tools for change.

Over the years, Project South has stood as a counterweight to the creeping professionalization of people-powered community and social justice efforts by the nonprofit industrial complex. It has remained committed to organizing people at the grassroots level, particularly in the South, where systemic underfunding has historically left movement organizations to fend for themselves. This resistance to compromise has allowed Project South to build deep and lasting relationships with frontline communities, ensuring that its work remains relevant and accountable to the people most impacted by racial capitalism.

Atlanta occupies a unique position in the South, both as a site of historical Black economic and political power and as a contested space for social movements. As Scott and others have pointed out, the city has long served as a gatekeeper, determining which movements gain visibility and resources and which remain on the margins.

Spelman College brought civil rights leader Efia Nwangaza to Atlanta, and the Atlanta Project kept her there. The Atlanta Project, originally a part of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Nwangaza told NPQ, learned the lessons of revolutionary capture.

Across the South…corporate philanthropy and liberal electoral politics often work hand in hand to neutralize revolutionary demands for change.

“The ‘misleadership class’ had a general agreement that the movement would not ‘disrupt’ governance agreements and so the Atlanta Project-SNCC were often excluded from those discussions because we would not comply with the PR and marketing campaigns that Atlanta was the ‘city too busy to hate’ despite its repression of Black people,” Nwangaza said.

This same dynamic is evident today in the ongoing Stop Cop City movement, where activists and organizers are pushing back against the city’s efforts to expand policing at the expense of Black and working-class communities. Notably, among the advances in activism and impact this movement has accomplished amidst immense state repression, the Stop Cop City movement stands out for its integration of mutual aid, cooperative organizing, and communal organizing into more traditional organizing tactics.

As organizer Julian Rose observes, “One of the main things that has felt so different about this movement is the ways people have cared for one another. This can be explained, in part, by the fact that many of the Black radical youth organizers in Atlanta who have been holding down mutual aid since the initial stages of the pandemic are also sustaining care work in support of the Stop Cop City movement.”

The struggle in Atlanta reflects a broader pattern across the South, where corporate philanthropy and liberal electoral politics often work hand in hand to neutralize revolutionary demands for change. The myth of Atlanta as a “Black Mecca” has been weaponized to obscure the deep racial and economic inequalities that persist in the city. The 2020 State of the South Report from the Southern Movement Assembly makes it plain: “Despite its richness in diverse landscapes and natural resources, the South is financially ranked as the region with the most poverty in the country and with pockets of persistent poverty throughout, particularly in parts of Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia (also known as the Black Belt).”

The post Our Task Ahead: Reclaiming Revolutionary Struggle in Atlanta and the South appeared first on Shareable.

Julian will start with a 25-minute presentation about power dynamics and how to work with others before addressing questions submitted by the live audience. 

Resources:

• New Economy Coalition
• Sources of Power
• Tyranny of Structurelessness (Jo Freedman)
• Mutual Aid 101 Learning Series
• Mutual Aid 101 Community Canvas
• Mutual Aid 101 Session 2 w/ Stephanie Rearick and Julian Rose (Video)
• Mutual Aid 101 Session 2 w/ Stephanie Rearick and Julian Rose (Transcript)
• Mutual Aid 101 Session 2 w/ Stephanie Rearick and Julian Rose (Slides)
• Mutual Aid 101 Session 2 w/ Stephanie Rearick and Julian Rose (Links from Stephanie, Julian + chat)
• Donate to The Response

Episode credits:

• Hosted and executive produced by Tom Llewellyn
• Produced and edited by Paige Kelly
• Theme Music by Cultivate Beats

Follow The Response on Twitter and Instagram for updates, memes, and more. Our entire catalog of documentaries and interviews can be found at theresponsepodcast.org — or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Response is an award-winning podcast series produced by Shareable exploring how communities respond to disaster — from hurricanes to wildfires to reactionary politics and more.

Want to help spread the word? Please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify — it makes a huge difference in reaching new people who may otherwise not hear about this show.

Available anywhere you get your podcasts, including:

The post Group decision making, conflict management, and power dynamics with Julian Rose appeared first on Shareable.

This talk explores how and why city governments can step up to lead on climate action and how resident organizing is critical in making this happen. This talk also explores how to build and sustain the political coalition to ensure climate justice policies can be passed and implemented.

About the speaker

Hessann Farooqi is the Executive Director of the Boston Climate Action Network. He is the youngest person and the first person of color appointed to lead BCAN. Hessann studied economics at Boston University, worked in the United States Senate under Sen. Ed Markey, and served on various federal, state, and local political campaigns. Boston Mayor Michelle Wu also appointed him to oversee the implementation of Boston’s key climate law on the Building Emissions Reduction and Disclosure Ordinance (BERDO) Review Board. Hessann is Co-Coordinator of the Boston Green New Deal Coalition and serves as an Environmental Justice Advisor to the Metropolitan Area Planning Council on developing their Greater Boston Climate Action Plan. Hessann previously served as an advisor to The White House and Department of Energy’s Opportunity Project.

Watch the video of Local Leadership for Climate Justice with Hessann Farooqi

The post Local Leadership for Climate Justice with Hessann Farooqi appeared first on Shareable.

All of our materials are free and available for non-commercial purposes. We’ve put together this helpful guide to get you started on creating a seed library in your community.

Free Download: “The Library of Things Toolkit”

Step 1: Get your people together

Who is going to help you? What are some natural alliances that you can create with other community groups or businesses?

Here are a few ideas to help you get started

• A permaculture guild or transition town initiative
• A local garden club
• Master gardeners
• Libraries or community spaces
• Check to see if there are sister libraries located near you or in a similar bioregion. They may have suggestions or seed saving and library material adapted to your situation.

Step 2: Locate your space

We recommend a well-visited community space. Pick a venue that is frequented by the general public. We chose the main branch of the local public library since it is open to the public, widely used by a broad spectrum of citizens, and the missions of Richmond Grows and the public library dovetail nicely.

Step 3: Acquire library materials

You’ll need a sturdy cabinet for the seeds and, of course, seeds. We recommend getting a wooden cabinet, as you will probably have to put some dividers in the drawers to organize the seeds into rows. The height of the drawers is important as it should be high enough to accommodate a regular-sized seed packet, but not too high as to waste space. A good height for the drawer is about 6 inches.

Additional materials you’ll need:

• Cabinets for seeds
• Seeds! Write to seed companies and explain your project and the community you will be serving. Be sure to include the seed-saving aspect in your letter so you don’t get hybrid seeds. 
• Dividers for different types of seeds (you’ll need around 50 just for the vegetables and fruits).
• Wooden dividers for the drawers (drawers are much wider than seed packets; having dividers creating rows of seeds will keep it more organized).
• Labels for the outside of the drawers and the dividers inside the drawers.
• 1–2 stamps for checking in and out.
• 1–2 stamp pads.
• Donated envelopes for borrowing seeds (don’t use envelopes with open windows).Check local printers for discards. Legal-sized envelopes, sealed with edge taped shut, and then cut in half, are a great size for people returning seeds to the library.
• A ledger (either online or in-person) to keep a record of members checking out and donating/returning seeds.

Step 4: Label your seeds

When you get drawers for your seeds, you will need to label them clearly. The labels serve a dual purpose of helping members find and return seeds easily while educating them about plant families.

Our vegetables are labeled by plant families. We recommend that you put easy-to-save seeds in the upper drawers and difficult ones further down.

Besides labeling the families in each drawer and including some common family members, we also recommend that you clearly label the difficulty of the seeds to be saved. The three categories we use are Super Easy, Easy, and Difficult.

NOTE: All of our labels are for the San Francisco Bay Area. Certain families may be more difficult in your region if you have cold winters. Tomatoes, lettuce, beans, and beans are “super easy” regardless of your climate.

Labels for inside of drawers
1.  Amaranth (Goosefoot) Family
2.  Gourd Family
3.  Grass Family
4.  Lily Family
5.  Mint Family
6.  Mustard Family
7.  Nightshade Family
8.  Parsley Family
9.  Pea Family
10. Sunflower Family
11.  Miscellaneous Edibles

We also have numbers on the drawer and an alphabetized list of common edibles so people can easily find a plant. (Example: Arugula – Drawer 9 – Super Easy). Here is our list along with Spanish translations. If you have a small collection, this will probably not be necessary.

Seed markers – When people check out seeds, it’s helpful to have “seed markers” (kind of like book markers) available for them to stick in the drawers so they can easily return packets where they found them. We had a number of them made on card stock and used a variety of colors so if several people are using the library simultaneously, such as at an orientation, they can keep track of which spaces are theirs by using only one marker color. 

Step 5: Create your brochures

Educating people about seed saving is an essential part of the library. Otherwise, you may get many things that aren’t what they claim to be. Every time we do an orientation, we provide “How to Save Seeds” brochures and refer people to our website for additional resources. Around harvest time, we will also offer some basic seed-saving classes.

We have a “Super easy seed saving brochure.” But there are lots more resources at SeedLibraries.net.

Note: Language access is an important factor to consider when printing brochures. Make sure to have literature available in multiple languages if the linguistic makeup of your community calls for it. We provide brochures in English, Spanish, and Mandarin. 

Step 6: Launch your seed library

One way to launch your seed lending library is to have a seed swap. Be sure to have volunteers who can help new gardeners and seed sharers get started. You can post orientation invitations on local listservs and even invite local officials and press to your grand opening.

Step 7: Host orientations to the library

Orientations help people know how to use the library properly and understand how they can make the library self-sustaining. They can be 30-minute long sessions. Our orientations occur online, with the focus of the orientation including what is the library, how the library is organized, and how to check out seeds.

Share orientation dates and details with neighborhood councils, garden clubs, and other community listservs. You can also reach out to potential attendees through social media. Use Eventbrite, or a similar site, to help promote your event and keep track of registrations.

This guide was taken with permission from the group’s website and originally published in a 2014 Shareable article and updated on January 8, 2025.

Check out Seed Libraries to see a more extensive list of resources to support existing and emerging seed libraries. Join UpBeet! to connect with other seed librarians. Apply to become a sister seed to RGSLL library here. You can also check out Shareable’s comprehensive new guide on starting and growing a Library of Things.

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