Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Theoretical Framework
Relational Poverty
Calls attention to the relationships of poverty and privilege
How urban redevelopment uses discourse and strategies to
exclude
Reading for difference
Analyze poverty politics of particular people in particular
places
Zones of Encounter
Spaces where poverty and privilege come together
Potential for transformation and alliance
(Valentine 2008; Lawson and Elwood 2014; Lawson 2012; Gibson-Graham 2006)
Research Question
How is public space and urban redevelopment in this alley
negotiated around and through class boundaries to present more
hopeful possibilities of urban space?
RESULTS
Limits to Allyship
A lack of Self-Governance
Social service patrons not present in decision-making
meetings
Patron involvement is a model of inclusion, not powersharing
Results in Poverty Governance
Behavioral rules set and enforced by organization leaders
How do we achieve the kinds of wanted behavior in the
alley? -Joseph
Youre gonna put on these lights and people are gonna worry
about the folks waiting in line for [the] shelter I guess thats
my worry about the worries. Like, I think that as an alley... its a
place, for people who need to hide, to hide. -Katrina
Conclusions
A re-working of urban development for cross-class encounter
Acknowledgements
Many many thanks to:
The Geography Honors cohort: Mason Struna, Inna Shynshyn, Koji
Pingry, Rachel Kirschner, Kristen Hiatt, David Urbina
My faculty mentor Sarah Elwood-Faustino
Professor Vicky Lawson
My family and friends
The Mary Gates Endowment for providing scholarship support for this
research
And many others!
Citations
Gibson-Graham, J. K. 2006. Postcapitalist Politics. Minneapolis, MN, USA: University of Minnesota Press. http:
//site.ebrary.com/lib/alltitles/docDetail.action?docID=10151340.
Lawson, Victoria, and with Middle Class Poverty Politics Research Group. 2012. Decentring Poverty Studies:
Middle Class Alliances and the Social Construction of Poverty: Decentring Poverty Studies. Singapore
Journal of Tropical Geography 33 (1): 119.
Lawson, Victoria, and Sarah Elwood. 2014. Encountering Poverty: Space, Class, and Poverty Politics.
Antipode 46 (1): 20928. doi:10.1111/anti.12030.
Valentine, G. 2008. Living with Difference: Reflections on Geographies of Encounter. Progress in Human
Geography 32 (3): 32337. doi:10.1177/0309133308089372.
Images:
Background: https://catalyst.uw.
edu/workspace/file/download/59266b9c31f496114828853693c46a12425e385ee258adf730c8639caf203ca
2
Post Alley:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kgregory/4167515856/