Land Justice as a Historical Diagnostic: Thinking with Detroit

Abstract

Debates around urban land—who owns it, who can access it, who decides, and on what basis—are intensifying in the United States. Fifty years after the end of legally sanctioned segregation, rising rents in cities across the country are displacing poor people, particularly people of color. In this article, I consider debates around land in Detroit. Building on work in critical race studies, indigenous studies, and decolonial theory, as well insights from community activists, I introduce and develop what I call a “historical diagnostic.” This justice-oriented analytical approach illuminates the racialized dispossession that haunts land struggles and foregrounds the historical antecedents to and aspirations of contemporary land justice movements. Drawing on research conducted in Detroit between 2010 and 2012, I analyze instances when the moral economy of land becomes visible, including a truth and reconciliation process, the period when the state of Michigan placed the city under emergency management, and a tax foreclosure auction. An examination of these events reveals alternative ways of knowing and being in relation to land that we might build upon to confront displacement in cities today.

在美国, 有关城市土地的辩论 —— 谁拥有土地、谁能使用、谁决定、以及根据什麽基础 —— 正逐渐加剧。终止合法进行隔离五十年后, 全国各大城市不断上涨的租金, 持续造成穷人流离失所, 特别是有色人种。我于本文中考量底特律的土地辩论。我植基于批判种族研究、原住民研究、去殖民理论, 以及社区行动者的洞见, 引介并发展我称之为 “历史诊断” 的概念。此一以正义为导向的分析方法, 描绘出纠缠着土地争议的种族化迫迁, 并强调当代土地正义运动的历史前身与灵感。我运用 2010 年至 2012 年间在底特律进行的研究, 分析土地的道德经济成为可见的境况, 包含真相与和解过程、密西根州将该城市至于危机管理之期间, 以及因未缴税而取消赎回权的财产拍卖。对这些事件的检视, 揭露出我们认知并与土地产生关系、并以此为基础来应对当下城市中的迫迁的另类方式。

Los debates alrededor de la tierra urbana––sobre quién la posee, quién tiene acceso a la misma, quién decide, y con qué bases––se están intensificando en los Estados Unidos. Cincuenta años después de que se castigara la segregación, el aumento de la renta de la tierra a través del país está desplazando a los pobres, en particular a la gente de color. En este artículo, tomo en cuenta los debates sobre la tierra que se están presentando en Detroit. Edificando desde el trabajo desarrollado sobre estudios críticos de raza, estudios indígenas y teoría descolonizadora, lo mismo que a partir de perspectivas esgrimidas por los activistas de la comunidad, presento y desarrollo lo que yo llamo un “diagnóstico histórico”. Este enfoque analítico orientado por la justicia ilustra las desposesiones racializadas que acompañan la lucha por la tierra y pregonan los antecedentes históricos de los movimientos contemporáneos de justicia por la tierra, y sus aspiraciones. Basándome en investigación efectuada en Detroit entre 2010 y 2012, analizo los casos en los que la economía moral de la tierra se hace visible, incluyendo un proceso de verdad y reconciliación, en un período durante el cual la ciudad fue puesta bajo administración de emergencia por el estado de Michigan y sometida a una subasta de ejecución hipotecaria por impuestos. El examen de estos eventos pone de manifiesto maneras alternativas de saber y ser en relación con la tierra sobre los cuales podríamos construir para confrontar el desplazamiento en las ciudades de nuestros días.

Key Words:

• the land question
• moral economy of land
• racialized dispossession
• truth and reconciliation
• urban commons

关键词：:

• 土地问题
• 土地的道德经济
• 种族化迫迁
• 真相与和解
• 城市公有地。

Palabras clave:

• la cuestión de la tierra
• economía moral de la tierra
• desposesión racializada
• verdad y reconciliación
• bienes comunes urbanos

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to all of those in Detroit whose interviews, stories, and actions shaped this piece and who have taught me so much. I am grateful for the questions and comments I received on this article when I presented a version of it as part of the Detroit School Series at the University of Michigan. Finally, thanks to Ashley Carse and two anonymous reviewers for your generous feedback and Nik Heynen and Jennifer Cassidento for your editorial support and guidance.

Notes

1. The opening scene comes from a description of the auction in an article by Laura Gottesdiener (2015). For more on the history of the auction, see Akers (2015).

2. As part of the Uniting Detroiters project, we produced a documentary video called A People's Story of Detroit (available on YouTube) and a book called A People's Atlas of Detroit (forthcoming from Wayne State University Press).

3. Heynen (2016a, 2016b) made a similar point in his call for “abolition ecology.”

4. A historical diagnostic is inspired by calls for “recuperative histories” from Bird Rose (2004), “secretive histories” from McKittrick (2013), and “legacies of ethical witnessing” from Ioanide (2014).

5. The largest gap in wealth transferences is between blacks and whites. It is also important to point out variation among black households, however. As Martin (2009) argued, the limited ability of blacks to transfer wealth from one generation to the next through the accumulation of property and other assets is a particular experience of being African American (vs. other black ethnicities) in the United States. She found that African Americans had the lowest likelihood of interest, dividends, and rental income of all black ethnic groups.

6. See also the Black/Land Project (http://www.blacklandproject.org), which gathers and analyzes stories about the relationship between black people, land, and place.

7. When talking about the uprisings of the 1960s, the distinction in terminology between riots and rebellions is important. Riots signal irrationality, whereas rebellion suggests a political response from blacks in the North facing de facto segregation and institutional racism. Moreover, calling the 1960s uprisings riots masks their difference with race riots of earlier decades that erupted as whites exacted raw violence on blacks fleeing the Jim Crow South in the name of defending white property. Consider, for example, the 1943 riot in Detroit that was sparked in part by a dispute the previous year over the siting of a black housing project called Sojourner Truth Homes in a white neighborhood. The Federal Housing Administration fueled white rage when it announced that it would not back mortgages in nearby neighborhoods, suggesting the role that the federal government played in de jure housing segregation, white flight, and the creation of a discriminatory marketplace (Freund 2007; Rothstein 2017). When black families tried to move in, white mobs numbering in the thousands assaulted them. Eventually, more than 1,000 city and state police and 1,600 members of the Michigan National Guard came to keep the peace as six black families moved in.

8. The nation's homeownership rates since 2007 have stabilized. According to a report by Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing, however, African American homeownership rates have not rebounded equally. The gap is particularly pronounced in Metro Detroit, where in 2015 African Americans had a 42 percent homeownership rate compared to 77 percent for whites. Between 2010 and 2015, homeownership rates for African Americans in the region declined by 11.6 percent compared to 3.0 percent for whites (Har 2017).

Additional information

Funding

The National Science Foundation (Award #1203239), the Wenner-Gren Foundation, and the American Council of Learned Societies provided financial support for research and writing.

Notes on contributors

Sara Safransky

SARA SAFRANSKY is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Human & Organizational Development at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include land justice, governmental technologies of planning, the politics of memory, social justice movements, and participatory research.