{"id":45,"date":"2018-12-20T10:23:08","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T15:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010-spring-2018\/?page_id=45"},"modified":"2019-04-26T20:03:08","modified_gmt":"2019-04-27T00:03:08","slug":"log-9","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-bmorande\/data-collection-logs\/log-9\/","title":{"rendered":"April 24: Research Log #5 – Infrapolitics and Occupy Movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reflection & Data:<\/strong><\/p>\n

When previously analyzing makeshift urbanism (Vasudevan 2015), I primarily focused upon how different municipal policies of regulation produce distinct possibilities for squatting. Even in the context of Detroit, I principally emphasized the manners by which law enforcement practices of non-intervention and thus acceptance of spatial appropriation ultimately facilitate a style of occupation amicable to neoliberal property rights. Accordingly, I felt that I lacked a sufficient conceptual framework for examining those squatting projects that external agencies might not detect, such as the democratic committees and practices of \u2018campzenship\u2019 present in Seattle\u2019s tent cities. Therefore, this past week, I decided to review political scientist James C. Scott\u2019s theory of infrapolitics (1990).<\/p>\n

In\u00a0Domination and the Arts of Resistance<\/em> (1990), Scott proposes that subordinate groups employ strategies of resistance \u2013 \u201cinfrapolitics\u201d \u2013 that go unnoticed by their superordinates (183). Acknowledging the \u201climitations of open confrontation,\u201d subaltern groups employ such tactics to \u201cprobe for weaknesses and exploit small advantages\u201d in surveillance and law enforcement beneath elites (184), thus functioning as makeshift urbanism. Scott further suggests that domination represents a \u201cprocess of subordination\u201d firmly anchored in material and symbolic \u201cappropriation.\u201d Given that the \u201crealities of power\u201d preclude \u201cfrontal assaults,\u201d \u201clow-profile stratagems\u201d represent \u201cpractical struggles to thwart or mitigate exploitation\u2026[and thus] minimize appropriation\u201d (187-88, 192).<\/p>\n

Scott (1990) usefully notes that critics of alternatives to direct conflict would claim that infrapolitics simply reinforce hegemonic structures by \u201cplay[ing] at rebellion within specified rules and times\u201d prescribed \u201cfrom above\u201d (191). However, the author maintains that the \u201cdiscursive [and material] practices offstage\u201d \u2013 the \u201chidden transcript[s]\u201d \u2013 ultimately both sustain resistance and precipitate \u201cpublic transcripts\u201d or visible confrontations between privileged and marginalized groups (192). All forms of subaltern resistance, he affirms, center upon the \u201ccreation of autonomous social space for assertion of dignity,\u201d as well as rituals of defiance. Such rebellious performances operate through a \u201clogic of disguise\u201d embodied in a \u201crealm of informal leadership\u2026of conversation and oral discourse, and of surreptitious resistance\u201d (200). Offering an example, Scott asserts that squatting illustrates the infrapolitical equivalent of an open land invasion, both aimed at resisting appropriation of land by elites, yet operating through distinct mechanisms depending on available opportunities (199). Nevertheless, the aggregation of \u201cthousands upon thousands\u201d of such hidden acts can produce \u201cdramatic economic and political effects,\u201d such as \u201crestructur[ing] the control of property\u201d in the case of squatting (Scott 1990:192).<\/p>\n

I hope to apply this notion of infrapolitics when assessing the unique practices of citizenship and governance that arise amongst squatting communities, especially in New York and Seattle. However, I also plan to expand upon Scott\u2019s theory by challenging the bifurcation between hidden and public transcripts, especially in contexts of streets and parks, where both subtle and blatant acts of resistance coexist in plain visibility, differing only in the media attention they garner. I imagine that such complexities appear within the 2011 Occupy Movement, specifically in temporary encampments, where protesters actively reimagined notions of \u2018home.\u2019 While I will not yet delve into such analysis, hereafter I briefly summarize Occupy\u2019s squatting practices.<\/p>\n

On September 17, 2011, hundreds of protesters occupied Zuccotti Park in New York City\u2019s Wall Street financial district to protest the economic inequality exacerbated by the Great Recession. In addition to a space of political manifestation, the Park also represented a temporary home for many occupants who inhabited the space for months, forming a micro-community that publicly contested the significance of both home and private ownership. Rana Jaleel (2013) proposes that the quotidian life of the encampment operated through an ethics of care, nurturing a \u201cqueer politics of home\u201d by \u201ccommoning\u201d the movement\u2019s \u201cmaterial means of reproduction.\u201d Opposing \u201cnarratives of both State and Private Property,\u201d the creation of such \u2018commons\u2019 encouraged a solidarity premised on rendering the traditionally private \u201clabor of care\u201d intimately public, extending its benefits to those who \u201cdwell beyond home,\u201d such as the chronically unsheltered. Jaleel affirms that the encampments also achieved \u201ca nascent, if difficult, fluency\u201d in organizing a functioning democratic community, providing its constituents food, shelter, medical attention, and other material resources, as well as direct political engagement, in a manner remarkably similar to Seattle\u2019s tent cities.<\/p>\n

However, on November 15, 2011, the New York Police Department routed Occupy Wall Street activists from Zuccotti Park, detaining over 200 protesters. Yet, after the eviction, Occupy did not simply dissolve, but rather assumed new forms and objectives. Beneath the Great Recession, more than 20 million US households suffered foreclosure as a result of subprime loans, which had generated trillions for the banking industry while systematically dispossessing families of color (Arnold 2012). As economic conditions failed to improve and financial institutions \u2013 many of which used federal bailouts to directly bankroll foreclosures \u2013 refused to aid homeowners, thousands of Occupy protesters across the US decided in December, 2011 to squat foreclosed homes in what organizers described as the \u201cnew frontier\u201d of the movement (Gabbet & Devereux 2011). From Oakland to New York, affiliated movements joined with local activist groups to reclaim empty buildings, often renovating and thereafter handing over the spaces to housing insecure and homeless families (Burns 2012). During the following years, protesting financial entities, disrupting foreclosure auctions, and occupying abandoned properties grew increasingly common, often supported by nonprofit organizations, labor unions, policy advocates, and legal experts (Arnold 2012; Jaleel 2013).<\/p>\n

Next, I plan to continue examining these squatting initiatives, hoping to learn how a \u2018queer politics of home\u2019 transcended Zuccotti Park and informed these latter projects. Unfortunately, I cannot find any academic scholarship, specifically ethnographies, on this subject, a significant challenge for detailing forms of governance and citizenship in such spaces. Regardless, I very much look forward to intertwining my case studies throughout these upcoming weeks and establishing an overarching thread of analysis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Bibliography:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Arnold, Eric K. 2012. \u201cForeclosure Crisis Meets Occupy Effect.\u201d Race, Poverty & the Environment<\/em> 19(1):67-70. Retrieved March 1, 2019 (https:\/\/urbanhabitat.org\/files\/19-1.arnold.pdf<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Burns, Rebecca. 2012. \u201cNo Vacancies: Squatters Move In.\u201d In These Times<\/em>, April 19. Retrieved March 1, 2019 (http:\/\/inthesetimes.com\/article\/13037\/no_vacancies_squatters_move_in<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Gabbet, Adam & Ryan Devereux. 2011. \u201cWall Street protestors to occupy foreclosed homes.\u201d The Guardian<\/em>, December 6. Retrieved March 1, 2019. (https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2011\/dec\/06\/occupy-wall-street-occupy-foreclosed-homes<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Jaleel, Rana. 2013. \u201cA Queer Home in the Midst of a Movement? Occupy Homes, Occupy Homemaking.\u201d In Periscope: Is This What Democracy Looks Like?<\/em>, Eds. Bauer, AJ., Cristina Beltran, Rana Jaleel & Andrew Ross. Retrieved March 1, 2019 (https:\/\/doi.org\/10.7916\/D8FJ2SXZ<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Scott, James C. 1990. \u201cThe Infrapolitics of Subordinate Groups.\u201d In Domination and the Arts of Resistance<\/em>, pp. 183-201. New Haven: Yale University Press.<\/p>\n

Lopez’s Comments:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brandon you continue to make excellent progress on your final paper! You do a great job with your use of Scott’s infrapolitics, and I agree with you, his bifurcated approach does not completely capture the subtle and overt forms of resistance alive within squatter settlements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reflection & Data: When previously analyzing makeshift urbanism (Vasudevan 2015), I primarily focused upon how different municipal policies of regulation produce distinct possibilities for squatting. Even in the context of Detroit, I principally emphasized the manners by which law enforcement practices of non-intervention and thus acceptance of spatial appropriation ultimately facilitate a style of occupation … Continue reading “April 24: Research Log #5 – Infrapolitics and Occupy Movement”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":15,"menu_order":9,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-45","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-bmorande\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/45","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-bmorande\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-bmorande\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-bmorande\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-bmorande\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-bmorande\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/45\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-bmorande\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/15"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.bowdoin.edu\/sociology-3010a-spring-2019-bmorande\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}