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Communal Re-Appropriation of Blighted Spaces: Governmentality and the Politics of Everyday Life in the Kensington Recovery House Movement Author: Robert P. Fairbanks, II Dissertation School: University of Pennsylvania Pages: 495 Publication Date: October 2004 Availability: Access Number: 10791 Abstract: Philadelphia faces enormous structural problems borne out of the interconnected forces of postindustrial decline, uneven geographical development, and suburbanization. The fallout from these forces is evident in the abandonment of the built environment, with current estimates at 26,115 abandoned houses, 30,729 vacant lots, and 2,950 vacant commercial structures within city limits. Compounding these challenges, Philadelphia faces a "new poverty" in the neo-liberal era shaped by economic polarization, political demobilization, market triumphalism, and devolution/retrenchment of the welfare state. The extent to which each of these factors mutually reinforces one another is virtually without historical precedent. Yet little is known about the conditions of poverty within the midst of these transitions, and many of the cultural strategies taking shape are new and in urgent need of study. This study proposes to offer a new way of looking at the various practices of daily life—including flexible, informal economic activities and post-welfare related "lifestyles" of resistance—by conducting spatially informed ethnography in a Philadelphia neighborhood. Among the most prominent configuration is the burgeoning "recovery house" movement in Philadelphia. Historical forces have generated a postindustrial habitus where more than 400 unregulated, unlicensed "recovery" spaces have emerged at the vortex of the built environment, the welfare state, and street level actors suffering from addiction. This study seeks to elucidate the ways in which postindustrial space interacts with culture, poverty, and addiction within Kensington recovery houses; as well as the ways in which users continue to appropriate postindustrial spaces in culturally meaningful ways under the aegis of the semi-welfare state. Recent transformations in urban anthropology suggest new ways to study the built environment through the integration of a broad array of spatial theoretical perspectives from cultural geography, political economy, urban sociology, and regional and city planning. The new emphasis on spatial relations provides insight into material, ideological, and experiential aspects of the urban environment, while the reliance on ethnography allows researchers to present an experience-near account of the politics of everyday life in urban neighborhoods (Low & McDonough, 2001). The proposed research is informed by these nascent academic trends, seeking to introduce new understandings of the specific issue of recovery houses—particularly in reference to the ways in which recovery house networks provide affordable housing alternatives; strengthen communities; prevent homelessness; and meet the needs of persons suffering from chemical dependency. |
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