Community-Engaged Regenerative Mapping in an Age of Displacement and COVID-19

Abstract

Displacement is detrimental not only to displaced individuals and families but also to the communities left behind and their ability to collectively resist and mobilize against global processes that negatively affect their ability to engage in practices of resilience and regeneration that support well-rooted communities. Critical approaches to the study of displacement should not only focus on mapping vulnerability factors and analyzing dominant power structures driving racial, social, and environmental injustice but should also include the collective resilience, everyday vitality, and community knowledge that characterize rooted urban neighborhoods and build immunity to serial forced displacement. Building on theoretical and methodological foundations in critical, Black, Latinx, and Indigenous geographies; Black feminist theory; and environmental justice, we argue that for mapping to have a positive change outside the already academic understanding of displacement and inequity, we need a methodology to (1) identify intersectional oppressions and name them as such, (2) center community knowledge and strengths enabling resilience, and (3) advance community activism. This methodology requires trust and community engagement but is vulnerable to systems that interrupt the embeddedness of researchers. The response to the COVID-19 pandemic is one such system; not only has the pandemic exacerbated displacement crises, making the need for engaged, critical, and cocreative partnerships even greater, it has abruptly halted opportunities for these community partnerships and regenerative work to happen. Drawing on our experiences attempting these approaches during the COVID-19 pandemic, we discuss challenges that arise when researchers are displaced from field sites, best practices, and implications for future research.

迁移不仅有害于迁移个人和家庭, 也有害于其所属的社区, 有损于它们集体抵制和动员起来反对那些负面影响了他们参与社区恢复和再生行为的全球过程的能力。批判的迁移研究方法, 不仅应侧重于绘制脆弱性因子图, 分析导致种族、社会和环境不公正的主导权力结构, 还应包括集体恢复力、日常活力以及社区知识, 应描述城市社区的特征、建立对连续被迫迁移的免疫力。基于黑人、拉美和土著批判地理以及黑人女权主义理论和环境正义的理论和方法, 我们认为, 为了使制图能在学术界对迁移和不平等的理解之外产生积极变化, 所需要的方法论应当能够（1）识别交叉压迫并对其命名, （2）把中心放在能建立恢复力的社区知识和力量, （3）推进社区活动。这种方法需要信任和社区参与, 但某些体系会干扰研究人员的嵌入性。对新冠病毒流行病的反应就是这样一个体系。新冠病毒流行病加剧了城市迁移危机, 我们更加需要参与性的、批判的、共创的伙伴关系, 但是流行病却突然终止了社区伙伴关系和再生行为的实现机会。根据在新冠病毒流行病期间对这些方法的尝试, 我们讨论了在未来研究中, 研究人员脱离实地的挑战、最佳方式和含义。

El desplazamiento es perjudicial no solo para los individuos y familias desplazados, sino también para la comunidad que se deja atrás, y para su capacidad de resistir colectivamente y movilizarse contra los procesos globales que afectan negativamente su voluntad de involucrarse en prácticas de resiliencia y regeneración, aquellas que apuntalan las comunidades bien arraigadas. Los enfoques críticos en el estudio del desplazamiento no deben centrarse solo en la cartografía de los factores de vulnerabilidad, y en analizar las estructuras de poder dominantes que son responsables de las injusticias raciales, sociales y ambientales, sino que también deben incluir la resiliencia colectiva, la vitalidad cotidiana y el conocimiento comunitario que caracterizan a los vecindarios urbanos raizales y proveen inmunidad contra los desplazamientos forzados en serie. Construyendo desde las fundaciones teóricas y metodológicas de las geografías críticas, negras, latinx e indígenas; la teoría feminista negra; y la justicia ambiental, sostenemos que, para que la cartografía tenga una imagen positiva por fuera de la comprensión académica del desplazamiento y la inequidad, necesitamos una metodología para (1) identificar las opresiones interseccionales y nombrarlas en consecuencia, (2) centrar el conocimiento comunitario y las fortalezas que habilitan la resiliencia, y (3) avanzar en el activismo comunitario. Esta metodología requiere confianza y compromiso comunitario, aunque es vulnerable en sistemas que obstaculizan el involucramiento de los investigadores. La respuesta a la pandemia del COVID-19 es uno de tales sistemas; no solo ha exacerbado la pandemia las crisis de desplazamiento, creando la necesidad de pactar compromisos de cooperación más grandes, críticos y cocreativos, sino que ha interrumpido abruptamente las oportunidades para que se den estos compromisos colectivos y el trabajo regenerativo. A partir de nuestras propias experiencias intentando tales enfoques durante la pandemia del COVID-19, discutimos los retos que surgen cuando los investigadores son desplazados de los sitios del campo, las mejores prácticas, y las implicaciones para investigaciones futuras.

Key Words:

• community-engaged research
• COVID-19
• displacement of the researcher
• regenerative mapping
• urban displacement

关键词:

• 社区参与研究
• 新冠病毒
• 研究人员脱离实地
• 再生制图
• 城市迁移。

Palabras clave:

• cartografía regenerativa
• COVID-19
• desplazamiento del investigador
• desplazamiento urbano
• investigación comprometida con la comunidad

Acknowledgment

We thank the community organization for whom we worked.

Notes

1 Building on distinctions drawn by Jiron and Carrasco (2019) in their work on methodologies for understanding everyday mobility strategies, we recognize that everyday strategies for resilience and regeneration are also emplaced in physical space, embedded in social structures or networks, and embodied in varied human bodies that have an impact on the way places and communities are experienced.

2 The organization does not want to be named or to have information about it shared in academic publications.

3 Although online “whiteboard” spaces exist both within Zoom and via other platforms, they pose accessibility challenges, and they are poor substitutes for the rich, interactive, tactile engagement that emerges among people seated at a common table.

4 Precedents include National Science Foundation support of applied, transdisciplinary sustainability research networks with increasing emphasis on community engagement (e.g., https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=505707).

5 Community organizers and scholars alike have been sharing their adaptive response to inclusive, antiracist facilitation via Zoom and other modalities. Resources include: https://commonslibrary.org/facilitating-online-meetings/; http://www.ruthdesouza.com/2020/07/04/virtually-racist-anti-racist-work-in-the-time-of-zoom/; and http://www.leadinggroupsonline.org/ebooks/Leading%20Groups%20Online.pdf

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Solange Muñoz

SOLANGE MUÑOZ is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37916. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests employ qualitative and ethnographic methods to address how struggles for access to housing and to remain in the city are routinely lived and experienced by traditionally marginalized urban populations.

Elizabeth A. Walsh

ELIZABETH A. WALSH is Program Coordinator for the Grand Challenges Urban Sustainability Cohort at the University of Denver, Denver, CO 80204. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include urban and community planning for equitable, resilient, and regenerative communities.

J. A. Cooper

J. A. COOPER is a recent Master of Science graduate from the Department of Geography at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and is currently the Geospatial Research Analyst at Child Care Aware of America, Arlington, VA 22201. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests range among sport geographies, place-based regional identity, sustainability, and tourism geographies.

Jeremy Auerbach

JEREMY AUERBACH is a Lecturer in the School of Natural and Built Environment at Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK BT71NN. E-mail: [email protected]. He works with and for community organizations to develop quantitative methods that evaluate programs and policies around urban housing, health, and transportation.