Paper short abstract:

This presentation reflects on A People's Atlas of Detroit. Developed from a community-based participatory project, the book (forthcoming 2020) speaks to the challenges of fighting for land and housing justice, food sovereignty, economic democracy, accountable governance, and the right to the city.

Paper long abstract:

This presentation reflects on the recently published A People's Atlas of Detroit (Wayne State University Press, 2020). Edited by Linda Campbell, Andrew Newman, Sara Safransky, and Tim Stallmann, A People's Atlas of Detroit features contributions by over fifty figures from movement-building efforts in Detroit, including activists, farmers, students, educators, scholars, not-for-profit and city government workers, and members of neighborhood block clubs. Developed from a community-based participatory project, the book speaks to the challenges of fighting for land and housing justice, food sovereignty, economic democracy, accountable governance, and the right to the city in a Black metropolis. By drawing upon the collective analyses of Detroiters engaged in the front lines of struggle, A People's Atlas of Detroit argues that it is only by confronting racial injustice and capitalism head-on that communities can overcome the depths of economic and ecological crises afflicting cities today. The presentation focuses on the methodological process behind the Atlas and explores the following questions: How can research build an infrastructure for organizing and vice-versa? How do the institutional frameworks that shape the production of knowledge (i.e. strictures of publishing and norms of academic labor) shape the way researchers collaborate with activists? Once published, how can research continue to expand solidarity and organizing? In discussing these questions and others, the presentation aims to instigate discussion on the relationship between organizing, collective study, and research and consider how we might join together in new ways in the current political conjuncture.