Spatial Justice: Resource Site for Gentrification of Highland Park

Cecilia Brawley

Entering this class focused on community based learning, I don’t think I quite understood the exact challenges and rewards entailed in such a process. What students are taught and prompted to examine within the traditional classroom setting is so much more complex, mysterious, and personal to those who experience these phenomena in everyday life. In this course, Spatial Justice, by actively engaging with the community in question and inviting affected individuals to come participate as both teachers and learners, my fellow classmates and I have been privileged to have the intimate moments we did with our community partners. By having open, honest, and justice-centered discussions with those people who have to live through gentrification many students formed personal narratives and motivations regarding this mission. Those who shared their stories helped to ground our discussion and journey as a class. Getting out into the neighborhood and seeing the murals while talking about them, organizing with a local group to bring a performance piece to campus, drafting a non-traditional survey hoping to acquire overlooked aspects of experiencing gentrification: all of these hands-on spins to academic learning helped us as students to form nuanced and lasting interest in the issue, and as community members to connect with people in Highland Park who live very different lives, often disconnected from Occidental completely.

This class has taught me not to overlook the spatial or geographic aspects of social justice, and this project has reminded me how to be truly empathetic and thoughtful towards vulnerable populations as individual peoples instead of the subjects of academic curiosity. Data mapping and collection were key components to this class, just as they have become key components to much of modern life. However, this class was careful to teach us how data can be misrepresentative of many social issues and may shroud others so they remain out of the public sphere. As a result, I have developed a critical eye with which to examine research findings, and worked to hone a method of collecting data that concerns affective emotions and other less tangible topics like sense of community. Centering issues such as these allow our research and efforts to perforate dominant narratives of gentrification as urban renewal, and also get to the truth of what day-to-day experiences in a gentrifying neighborhood are for different people or groups. Science has long held a prestige and authority in modern society, but we must remind ourselves that this does not mean empirical data is any less affected by the irrational sides of human thought, or any more “real” than any other form of information. In my personal academic career I have long since come to grips with this notion, but for a long time I failed to see how alternative approaches could not only be outside of dominant ideologies but also work subversively from within to disrupt them. This class will stand out in my mind for managing to balance those two troubling aspects of fighting for social justice. Rather than sacrificing the unheard voices of oppressed people in order to collect easily organized data sets, this class shows how information does not have to adhere to a certain set of arbitrary standards to be considered of value.

Through this project, I feel like I have learned so much about the vibrant community of Highland Park, yet barely scratched the surface. Many people affected by gentrification in this area are no longer anywhere to be seen. So many voices within this community go unheard, or are stifled before they can be expressed. Gentrification is not urban renewal, it does not help the economy of the neighborhood, it does not impart ‘culture’ to an area lacking its own, and it is not unavoidable. Gentrification is corrupt, it destroys homes and lives and communities, it drives out unique local economies which the gentrified community depended upon, it erases culture and commodifies certain aspects in order to claim authority, and it is a result of economic greed, ignorance, racism, as well as scores of other problematics. The realities of life within gentrification go well beyond the scope of the classroom, beyond the instances discussed here, even beyond the scope of the English language. Highland Park still shines with the roots of local, Latinx, and indigenous cultures, as well as many others, but by the time this class even began so much had already been lost. Unless we actively combat gentrification in this area, we are not only complacent but contribute to the widespread suffering which results. It is so hard to stop or even slow gentrification once it has become obvious, so I believe that efforts towards prevention must also be made using the tools of spatial justice. Going forward, I will be referencing this class and the methods we have used whenever I am making efforts on behalf of a community in which I may occupy a peripheral or even nonexistent role. The methods and mission of building strong, intimate connections with the community were integral to the work we have done here and provide an example for anyone looking to conduct research which is not at the expense of the subjects.

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Bio
Cecilia Brawley is a third-year majoring in Critical Theory & Social Justice with a minor in Studio Art. She spends her free time scouring thrift shops, relaxing in the sunny weather, and interning with a local artist who uses her practice to blend community empowerment with creative expression. In the future Cecilia hopes to similarly incorporate art into practice when working with communities since it has been underutilized as a component of resistance. She is thankful to the Highland Park community for their partnership in this course, and for the opportunity to live and study here.