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Abstract
Critics of human rights are hesitant to reject them outright for fear of undermining the work they may do in resisting oppression. This pragmatic justification is central to celebrations of human rights as well, but is it more than a failure to move beyond liberal hegemony? I argue that human rights have radical potential because the act of claiming such rights uses the ambiguous but universal identity of ‘humanity’ to make claims on the established terms of legitimate authority. The potential of human rights to fight for social change is examined by looking at the movement for a human right to housing in the USA. I explore how homeless individuals, public housing tenants and low-income urban residents realise their human right to housing through eviction defences, the occupation of ‘people-less’ homes, and attempts to remake the structure of home ownership through community land trusts.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Aggie Hirst for extensive comments on this piece when it was presented at City University London – with thanks owed to the seminar participants as well. Additional thanks are owed the anonymous reviewers and the guest editors for many helpful suggestions and comments. The fieldwork conducted for this project was funded in part by a pump-priming grant from City University London. Finally, I would like to extend my gratitude to all those who shared their experience fighting for the human right to housing with me, including members of ONEDC, the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign, LA CAN, Occupy Our Homes, Housing is a Human Right and the Western Regional Advocacy project, with a special thanks owed to Dominic Moulden and Rosemary Ndubuizu for their comments and corrections to this article. Any and all errors that remain are my own.
Notes
1. Author’s interview with Isaac (last name withheld), Chicago, September 2013.
2. Further information at http://chicagoantieviction.org.
3. Interview with Isaac; author’s interview with Willie JR Fleming, Chicago, April 2012 and August–September 2013; and author’s interview with Loren Taylor, Chicago, April 2012 and August–September 2013.
4. Charvet and Kaczynska-Nay, The Liberal Project and Human Rights. For criticisms, see Douzinas, “Postmodern Just Wars”; Mutua, “Savages, Victims, and Saviors”; and O’Connell, “On Reconciling Irreconcilables.”
5. Brown, “‘The Most We Can Hope For...’”; and Robinson, “The Limits of a Rights-based Approach.”
6. Brown, States of Injury, 121–134.
7. Ignatieff, Human Rights; and Rorty, “Human Rights.”
8. Benhabib, “Another Universalism.”
9. Hoover, “Towards a Politics for Human Rights.”
10. Benhabib, “Another Universalism.”
11. Agamben, Means without End, 15–28.
12. Donnelly, “The Relative Universality”; Ignatieff, Human Rights; and Rorty, “Human Rights.”
13. Brown, “‘The Most We Can Hope For...’”; Douzinas, Human Rights and Empire; and Žižek, “Against Human Rights.”
14. Hoover, “Towards a Politics for Human Rights”; and Hoover and Iñiguez de Heredia, “Philosophers, Activists, and Radicals.”
15. Baxi, The Future of Human Rights.
16. Rajagopal, International Law from Below.
17. Stammers, Human Rights and Social Movements, 9–23.
18. Ibid., 24–39.
19. Ibid., 102–130.
20. Foscarinis, “Advocating for the Human Right to Housing,” 464–472.
21. Foscarinis, “The Growth of a Movement”; and United Nations General Assembly, Report of the Special Rapporteur.
22. Camp and Heatherton, Freedom Now!; and Rameau, Take Back the Land.
23. Davis, Planet of Slums; and Kramer, Dispossessed.
24. Harvey, Rebel Cities, 3–114.
25. Western Regional Advocacy Project, Without Housing.
26. Rugh and Massey, “Racial Segregation”; and Wyly et al., “Cartographies of Race and Class.”
27. National Low Income Housing Coalition, Out of Reach 2012.
28. National Coalition for the Homeless, “How Many People Experience Homelessness?”; and Homelessness Research Institute, The State of Homelessness in America 2013.
29. Carr, “Responding to the Foreclosure Crisis”; and Dymski, “Racial Exclusion.”
30. Gottesdiener, “The Great Eviction”; Gottesdiener, “How Wall Street”; and Niedt and Martin, “Who are the Foreclosed?”
31. Roth, “Charade of US Ratification.”
32. Foscarinis, “The Growth of a Movement.”
33. Foscarinis, “Advocating for the Human Right to Housing.”
34. United Nations General Assembly, Report of the Working Group.
35. Pfeiffer, “Displacement through Discourse.”
36. Interview with Fleming.
37. Miller, “The Struggle over Redevelopment”; and Terry, “CHICAGO NEWS COOPERATIVE.”
38. LaTrace, “The Debate”; and Smith, “HOPE VI.”
39. Burnette, “Public Housing Waiting List.”
40. Author’s interview with Dominic Moulden, Washington DC, March 2012 and August 2013; interview with Fleming; and interview with Taylor. See also Goetz, “Forced Relocation”; and Hartung and Henig, “Housing Vouchers and Certificates.”
41. Bogira, “Separate, Unequal, and Ignored”; and Sledge, “Chicago’s Black Population Dwindles.”
42. Goetz, “Gentrification in Black and White”; and Saegert et al., “Mortgage Foreclosure and Health Disparities.”
43. Tavernise, “Washington, DC, Loses Black Majority.”
44. Further information at http://www.onedconline.org.
45. Ober, “Can Affordable Housing Survive the Boom?”
46. Morello and Keating, “Number of Black DC Residents Plummets.”
47. Human Rights Watch, No Second Chance.
48. Department of Housing & Urban Development versus Rucker, 535 U.S. 125, 128 (2002).
49. Caputo, “One and Done”; Cinti, “Dismantling Families”; and Moser, “Innocent until Proven Guilty?”
50. Author’s interview with Becky Dennison, London, February 2012 and Los Angeles, April 2012.
51. Pitts, “The Fight over LA’s Skid Row”; Roberts, “Los Angeles Community Leaders Ask”; and author’s interview with Bilal Ali, Los Angeles, April 2012.
52. National Law Center on Homelessness & Poverty and National Coalition for the Homeless, Homes Not Handcuffs; Amster, “Patterns of Exclusion”; and Foscarinis et al., “Out of Sight – Out of Mind.”
53. Los Angeles California Action Network, “People’s Declaration.”
54. http://wraphome.org/work/civil-rights-campaign#bill-of-rights, accessed October 31, 2014.
55. Author’s interview with Matt Browner-Hamlin, London, February 2012; author’s interview with members of ONEDC, Washington, DC, March 2012 and August 2013; and interview with Taylor.
56. Author’s interview with Michael Primo and Rachel Falcon, New York, March 2012; interview with members of ONEDC; interview with Dennison; author’s interview with Paul Boden, San Francisco, April 2012; and author’s interview with Laura Gottesdiener, London, November 2013.
57. Interview with Moulden; author’s interview with Rosemary Ndubuizu, Washington, DC, August 2013; interview with Fleming; and interview with Boden.
58. Interview with members of ONEDC.
59. Interview with Moulden.
60. Branford and Rocha, Cutting the Wire.
61. Madlingozi, “Post-apartheid Social Movements”; Miraftab, “The Perils of Participatory Discourse”; and Selmeczi, “Abahlali’s Vocal Politics of Proximity.”
62. Kingsley, “South Africa’s Shack-dwellers”; author’s interview with Rob Robinson, Chicago, March 2012; interview with members of ONEDC; interview with Fleming; interview with Taylor; interview with Denison; and interview with Boden.
63. Interview with Robinson; interview with members of ONEDC; interview with Fleming; interview with Taylor; interview with Denison; and interview with Boden.
64. Gutierrez, “Ex-cop Alleges Foreclosure Fraud”; Krauser, “Retired Cop Facing Eviction”; and author’s interview with Patricia Hill, Chicago, March 2012.
65. Jones and Manilov, “‘This is not America’”; Orr, “Rochester Woman Wins”; and interview with Robinson.
66. Further details at http://takebacktheland.org; and in Rameau, Take Back the Land.
67. Rameau.
68. Interview with Fleming; interview with Hill; author’s interview with Toussaint Losier, Chicago, August–September 2013; and author’s interview with Taylor.
69. Interview with Browner-Hamlin, interview.
70. Ibid; and interview with Gottesdiener.
71. Interview with Moulden.
72. Interview with Fleming.
73. Rameau, Take Back the Land.