By Martina Locorotondo

In this post, CURA’s PhD student Martina Locorotondo reports the outcomes of a Boot Camp Workshop on Decolonial Diverse Economies, held at El Cambalache (Chiapas, Mexico) in January 2020, and reflects on the significance of this encounter for her own PhD research. A highly recommended read for academics both established and emergent, this is an honest and reflexive personal account of the research journey towards an ethnographic account of non-hierarchical knowledge production embracing decolonial thought and intersectional feminism  (1263 words / 5-7 minute read).   

“Desarmando el Capitalismo” (Dismantling Capitalism) – a big handmade graffiti on the front wall – is the first thing I saw when I entered the space of  El Cambalache. Then, just next to it, “Todo tiene el mismo valor” (everything has the same value) clarifies the terms of this statement. A doctor’s appointment, a laptop repair, a jacket or a pen: everything has the same value, and nothing corresponds to a monetary value. The hierarchies between knowledges, objects and services – necessary to capitalist profit – suddenly, are wiped away by the needs of a community that organizes itself.

El Cambalache is a space in San Cristobal de Las Casas (Chiapas) that is managed by a group of six women: some of them indigenous, others migrants. As Josefa – one of the generators – told, they came together five years ago, stating no estamos solas (we are not alone). But, what is exactly El Cambalache? How does it work? First of all, El Cambalache means ‘The Swap’ in English. Las compañeras describe it as a moneyless economy. People exchange goods, services, knowledge and mutual aid there, without the use of money. Anyone who decides to participate is invited to take/ask for what they really need, and give back what they don’t.

During the workshop, Las Cambalacheras (the term that women members of the group use to call themselves) tried to highlight some founding principles of their organizing, whilst connecting these latters to the local geopolitical context. The concepts of Decoloniality, Diverse Economies, Intersectional Feminism and Commoning have been addressed in a way that kept together theoretical elaboration and lived experience. 

The geography of resistance

El Cambalache is positioned in a residential neighbourhood of the mountain-town of San Cristobal de Las Casas – far from the city centre and from the roads scored by tourists. The soil, on which El Cambalache lays, is what gives vital lymph to its project. The roots that enhanced El Cambalache to grow – similarly to the many community projects that inhabit this territory – are deeply embedded in Maya-Tojolabal value of nosotrosidad (‘ourness’). Tojolabal and Tzotzil languages are characterized by the frequent repetition of the sound ‘tik’, which in English means ‘we’/’us’/’our’. The collective ‘us’ represents an organizing principle of such languages, as well as of the cosmovisions that are reflected in the same languages. The community is the organic whole composed of all its members. On one hand, community empowers and gives value to the individual. On the other hand, each individual is ‘organismically’ necessary to the community. As a consequence, there is no space for the individualistic affirmation of the ego, as each individual is what it is as an organic member of a whole (Lenkersdorf, 2002).

The geography of Chiapas is marked, at the same time, by the history of colonialism and domination. During a seminar, Belkis – one of the Cambalacheras – talked about the attempts by the conquerors of objectifying the subjectivities, the stories and the lands. This has been done in multiple ways: for example producing representations of the indigenous women as indecent because they were naked, and imposing clothes on them. Or reporting biased interpretation of cannibalism in order to label those populations as barbaric. In relation to territories, colonizers described them as passive lands and too vast for the Indio. Such representations served to push forward the acts of violence as not only justifiable, but also necessary.

On the one hand, the ‘white masculine European mappings’, on the other hand ‘a different sense of place’ that resisted centuries of colonialism and that dates back to the millenary Mayan culture. During the workshop, I appreciated a notion of geography, which is not static, ‘secure and unwavering’. It is rather characterised by the struggle, by the restless tension oppressing ↔ resisting (McKittrick, 2006). In this interplay, the ‘borderlands’ are the places where liminal intellectual spaces have survived in parallel to, and without being incorporated by colonialist thought (Anzaldua, [1989] 2012).    

Diverse Decolonial Economies

The resistance of pre-Hispanic values and organizing principles over centuries of colonization – in combination with marginality from capitalist economy – enhanced the development of diverse decolonial economies in the state of Chiapas. As Erin – cambalachera – explained, the economic project of El Cambalache can be read through this theoretical framework. Foremost, the collective calls for a pluralistic idea of economy, which is not limited to money exchange and it is not aimed at accumulation. Rather it embraces all of the activities that are necessary for living, first of which care for people, barter, gift, housework, interpersonal relationships, etc. (Gibson-Graham, 2013). These actions – it is relevant to stress – play a primary role in a context of limited access to resources controlled by capitalist economy. Accordingly, as Elena – another cambalachera – explained, El Cambalache sees as the beating hearth of its economy especially those things that are not valued by a capitalist economy. This entails considering as crucial social responsibility and care, as well as all of those relationships that tie together people, land and resources.

Intersectional Feminism and the Commoning

‘Economy is the space where we build how we live’, Las Cambalacheras stated during the workshop. With these words, they suggested that the everyday and embodied practices that are at the base of an economy, dynamically build communities and their power relationships. This process is also identified as Commoning. Accordingly, analyising commoning through an Intersectional-Feminist lens aims at shedding light on the practices that produce oppression as well as on the ones that generate collective well-being and mutual aid (Clement et al., 2019). Tito – a PhD student holding a seminar – has exemplified this theoretical standpoint telling the story of Virgin of Guadalupe Celebration.

The Virgin of Guadalupe is a catholic figure – tied to Spanish colonization – that is the national saint of Mexico. The same figure represents Mother Earth as well, a fundamental element of Mayan rituality. The reuniόn de senoras(ladies’ reunion) is the organizational center of the celebration: local women are in charge of the collective gathering of resources, as well as of the making of tamale. Tito explained that tamale is a Mexican food made of corn that has a particular bound to earth and its products, which is prepared collectively. Within this long-standing activity, all the work of the infrastructure is enclosed: often invisible, usually made by women. The celebration of Guadalupe, thus, represents the space of decolonization operated by local ladies. Indeed, through the re-appropriation of the colonial celebration, women construct forms of economy that are alternative to neo-liberal paradigm. Infrastructure, interpersonal relationships, collective managing of resources: these are the elements at the very heart of such diverse economies. 

A circularity of knowledges: how does it inform academic research?

Having participated in El Cambalache’s workshop has a fundamental relevance to my research. In first instance, since I am adopting a decolonial theoretical framework, learning about it from a community that is directly involved both in the oppression suffered from colonialism and in the decolonial endeavour is pivotal. Doing this on-site had the added value of appreciating the fundamental ties that exist between these processes and the human geography of a territory with its multiple stories. In second instance, the experience within a grassroots community provided me with some tools that I will develop further for the ethnography that I will conduct next year. For example, the feminist-intersectional lens will serve to analyse the everyday practices that shape communities. Ultimately, El Cambalache’s non-hierarchical standpoint in relation to the production of knowledges – whether they are skill-based, academic or non – will bring some reflections about the strategies I will adopt to better collect and report the variety of knowledges that one community produces.  

In this post, Dr Simon Stevens exposes the strategies used by local authorities and managers of pseudo-public spaces in English cities, to disperse, deter and dehumanise homeless residents. Seen through the eyes of a detective searching for a homeless witness of an alleged crime, the narrator exposes how our cities are responding to the ongoing crisis of homelessness following a decade of austerity. 

It is a grey morning. A man is looking for a witness to an alleged crime. Normally, he would have an address and could simply pay a visit. However, this time it is more complicated. The witness is homeless. He has a description of her but he must find where she is. This is why he is up and about very early. He is hoping to catch her still sleeping somewhere. Last night there was rain – he can still feel the ghost of it in the air. So, he is going to look for places that would provide shelter.

Stereotypically, he thinks of the park. There are benches and bus shelters there. As he arrives a council worker is just unlocking it – apparently they close it overnight now. This would mean she could not have slept here. He decides to look anyway, in case she managed to climb over the gate railings. But, when he approaches the benches he notices something new about them. They have been modified in a way that makes them a lot harder to sleep on.

Figure 1: Granby Street in Leicester (image source author)

He heads towards the train station. The second wave of commuters are arriving to the calming sound of classical music played over the station tannoy. It is only when he comes across a discarded newspaper that he learns that during the night, from midnight to 6.30am, the soothing strains of Mozart are replaced by bagpipe recordings, played loudly, on a constant loop (Durkin, 2015). The detective glances across the story, picking out the key points: ‘Earlier this year the Echo reported how commuters felt intimidated by the growing numbers of rough sleepers congregating at the travel interchange’. Then, further down the article: ‘One coach station worker, who asked not to be named, said: “Basically, the council has been playing bagpipe music through the night and it seems to be doing the job. They just cannot stand it, you try getting any sleep with that going on”. He continues to read, noticing with some interest, a local MP had been interviewed for the article. ‘Rough sleepers have rights’ he is reported to have said, ‘so do the other citizens, workers and businesses’: they ‘have the right not to be intimidated or to have to face the daily ordeal of belongings left in doorways when they arrive for work’ (Exeter City Council, 2015). Sighing, he remembers that nearby there is a multi-storey car park with a bridge-like entrance. He investigates but finds only cement spikes. So, no rough sleepers here.

Figure 2: Bournemouth: under a bridge, outside the multi-storey car park connected to ASDA, opposite the train station (image source author)

He decides to change tack. The street homeless also need access to hygiene facilities. He heads to the public toilets, only to find them locked – seemingly permanently. A sign informs him that there are pay-as-you-use toilets nearby. On his way to those ones, he comes across a community support officer. The detective is getting increasingly anxious at not finding the witness, because of these dispersal tactics. He approaches the officer who, he realises when he gets closer, is actually moving on some rough sleepers from a crevasse outside a shop, for being too close to an ATM machine. The detective asks why. The officer explains. She tells him a Public Spaces Protection Order has recently been implemented in this area to prevent anti-social behaviour, and she is simply carrying out her duty to disperse and confiscate(Home Office, 2014, pp. 32-38)(Hackney Borough Council, 2015, p. 1), as well as prevent ‘aggressive begging’ (Chelmsford City Council, 2015). Thinking of the closed toilets, replaced by pay-as-you-use loos, he worries about begging being legislated against.

Figure 3: Legislation takes on a physical visibility (image source  https://hackneyrenters.org/2015/06/05/hackney-council-back-down-on-plans-to-fine-rough-sleepers/)

The officer continues, only last week she was moving someone on for chalking the pavement, because ‘peddling’ and ‘marking surfaces’ has been added to the list of prohibited behaviours (Swindon Borough Council, 2015)after a man was drawing on the pavement for money, with the phrase ‘homeless art beats begging’.She tells the detective that PSPOs are ‘set by the local council’ (Home Office, 2014, p. 46). They enable council boroughs to introduce penalties to forms of behaviour they deem to have a ‘detrimental effect on the quality of life of those in the locality’ and are ‘persistent’ (Crown Court, 2014, p. 33). Once in place the PSPO can have its jurisdiction range ‘increased’ (Crown Court, 2014, p. 33)to cover a wider or previously unaffected area. A PSPO can be brought in if ‘it is likely that such activities will be carried on’ and that ‘they will have such an effect’ (emphasis added): it is therefore able to impede someone on the premise that they may cause a disturbance in the affected area. The detective frowns. This means that at any given point during the day, the homeless are always potentially about to commit anti-social behaviour. It is anti-social behaviour that presumably disqualifies the homeless from being seen as part of the ‘locality’, instead being seeing as something that causes a ‘detrimental effect’ on the ‘quality of life’ of those who are.

The officer shrugs almost apologetically. She tells the detective of other restrictions: the rise of privately-owned public spaces. These‘Pseudo-public spaces – large squares, parks and thoroughfares that appear to be public’ are ‘actually owned and controlled by developers and their private backers’. Such spaces are ‘on the increase, as ‘local authorities argue they cannot afford to create or maintain such spaces themselves’. They are therefore regulated by the companies that own them, meaning they ‘are allowed to draw up their own rules for “acceptable behaviour” on their sites and alter them at will’. People can be moved on by private security guards for ‘protesting, taking photos … or just looking scruffy’ (Shenker, 2017).

The detective is now a little aghast. He understands that the homeless somewhat disrupt the image of prosperity commercial areas of town centres need to promote, but this just seems to be a harsh targeting. His anxiety increases. Time is getting on and he has to find the witness before nightfall. He decides to walk further into the commercial part of the high street. Shoppers and tourists are where homeless people need to be, if they are going to ask for money, albeit without attracting the attention of the community support officers. However, when he arrives he is a little shocked to see a collection of anti-begging posters. It is the way the homeless people are portrayed in them. Turned into a generalised, and threatening, stereotype. A deviant, anti-social other. The posters seem to justify the rest of the hostile architecture. It is at this point he realises that these dispersal tactics are not just about physically removing the homeless from view, but ensuring we awkwardly overlook their suffering when they are present. Invisibilising their visibility. Suddenly he wonders: perhaps he has already passed his witness. He just did not notice her. He only saw what he was told from the messages in the architecture around him: an anti-social nuisance. He decides there and then he will not look at a park bench in the same way again. Should you?

Figure 4: Nottingham Council put these posters in bus shelters (image source https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/sep/28/anti-begging-posters-banned-nottingham-city-council )

About the author

Simon completed his PhD at Loughborough University this year. His thesis investigated hostile architecture and its effects on the street homeless, and also involved a deep discussion on storytelling methods for political theory. During his doctoral research, Simon cultivated an interest in alternative modes of delivery and epistemologies, such as moral sentimentalism, genealogy, and Black feminist thought. Simon teaches at DeMontfort University where he is the module lead for the Political Theory and Power, Politics and Morality courses.  He is currently writing a book about the history of hostile architecture with Vernon Publishers and have articles under review with Social Theory and Practice and Contemporary Political Theory.

This blog post is based Simon’s publication about homelessness in the peer-reviewed Sage journal Organization Studies. This was a result of an international essay competition run by the Independent Social Research Foundation. The paper is accessible via https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0170840616686130

References

Chelmsford City Council, 2015. www.chelmsford.gov.uk. [Online]
Available at: https://www.chelmsford.gov.uk/communities/community-safety/pspos/
[Accessed Wednesday November 2015].

Crown Court, 2014. www.legislation.gov.uk. [Online]
Available at: http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2014/12/section/2/enacted
[Accessed Tuesday May 2018].

Durkin, J., 2015. Council bosses tackle antisocial behaviour with bagpipe music to deter rough sleepers – www.bournemouthecho.co.uk. [Online]
Available at: http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/14030597.Bournemouth_council_s_latest_scheme_to_deter_the_homeless__bagpipe_music/?ref=fbpg
[Accessed Sunday November 2015].

Exeter City Council, 2015. www.change.org.uk. [Online]
Available at: https://www.change.org/p/exeter-city-council-don-t-criminalise-exeter-s-rough-sleepers-or-destroy-their-belongings/responses/32234
[Accessed Wednesday January 2016].

Foucault, M., 2009. Security, Territory, Population. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hackney Borough Council, 2015. news.hackney.gov.uk. [Online]
Available at: http://news.hackney.gov.uk/update-on-hackneys-public-space-protection-order
[Accessed Monday June 2015].

Home Office, 2014. Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014: Reform of anti-social behaviour powers Statutory guidance for frontline professionals, London: Crown.

Parkinson, J. R., 2012. Democracy and Public Space. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Shenker, J., 2017. Revealed: the insidious creep of pseudo-public space in London – www.theguardian.com. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jul/24/revealed-pseudo-public-space-pops-london-investigation-map
[Accessed Friday December 2018].

Swindon Borough Council, 2015. www.swindon-csp.org.uk/. [Online]
Available at: http://www.swindon-csp.org.uk/asb/Pages/pspo.aspx
[Accessed Wednesday August 2016].

The Centre for Urban Research on Austerity at De Montfort University is pleased to advertise its 2019-2020 call for short-visit fellowships. Proposals are welcomed in any area of research expertise identified by CURA including:  impacts of austerity, retrenchment and neoliberalisation on urban living  and alternatives that enable and empower grassroots democratic participation.

Deadline: 2 December 2019.

For further details, please see the guidance for applicants below, or contact valeria.guarneros@dmu.ac.uk for an informal discussion.

CURA SHORT-VISITING FELLOWSHIP SCHEME

GUIDANCE FOR APPLICANTS

The Centre for Urban Research on Austerity, De Montfort University, is pleased to announce its Short-Visiting Fellowship scheme for the academic year 2019-20

About The Centre for Urban Research on Austerity (CURA)

Centre for Urban Research on Austerity (CURA) explores the impact of austerity. This includes examining variegated impacts of austerity, retrenchment and neoliberalisation on urban living; the responses of those subjects to effects, and identifies ways that research can help support truly sustainable development, including eliminating poverty and inequality and giving voice to the marginalised and dispossessed. We seek to contribute to a radically new research-informed policy landscape, which will enable and empower grassroots democratic participation, and foster discussions on, and solutions to, intersecting inequalities in urban contexts.

About the Visiting Fellowship Scheme

The scheme aims to:

• Provide support to early career scholars from across the globe with relevant subject expertise to pursue innovative and interdisciplinary research
• Develop networks with outstanding early career researchers
• Facilitate collaboration with senior academic staff and early career researchers

The scheme is open to early career researchers (with a PhD award letter). Applications are welcome from outstanding candidates wishing to develop a project of empirical research and conceptual innovation in CURA’s areas of interest. Particularly we welcome candidates who have peer-reviewed journal publications or/and can demonstrate a significant engagement in knowledge exchange activities relating to their research.

The scheme offers funding for a short visit to CURA (ca. 2 weeks or equivalent) and applicants may request funding for up to £1,500 to support travel and subsistence expenses for the duration of the visit. Fellows shall comply with DMU staff travel policies (https://demontfortuniversity.sharepoint.com/sites/DMUHome/org/SIPS/Pages/Staff-Travel-Guidance.aspx

 Responsibilities of CURA Short-Visiting Fellows

• To explore avenues for further research collaborations with CURA (idea for post-doctoral proposal or another academic activity)
• To deliver a seminar to academic staff and research students
• To write a blogpost for CURA website on the applicant’s research
• To observe the policies, procedures and processes of CURA and De Montfort University, including but not limited health and safety, travel, equality and diversity. Copies of such policies and appropriate guidance will be available to Fellows upon arrival to CURA.

Facilities available to Fellows

Fellows will have access to shared office space (including: email/internet, stationary, printing, photocopying for research-related purposes) and a mentor to work alongside the visit.

Entry to the UK

DMU will provide a letter of invitation to successful candidates on request. Successful candidates are responsible for fulfilling UK entry visa requirements.

Method of application

Applicants must submit their following documents to valeria.guarneros@dmu.ac.uk by 2 December 2019:

• Short CV – including information about qualifications, stand-out academic achievements, publications, current or recent funded research and/or knowledge exchange activities undertaken.
• Application form including an outline proposal for the fellowship that could also form the basis for longer-term collaborations (max. 600 words)
• One Reference – normally from PhD supervisor

Assessment criteria

• Academic excellence and research potential of the applicant
• Fit with research excellence and expertise within CURA
• Extent to which the applicant can demonstrate ideas to contribute to the development of CURA

Applications will be considered by an Internal Selection Panel. Applicants will be notified of the outcome within 2 weeks of submission. Informal queries can be directed to valeria.guarneros@dmu.ac.uk