Racial Capitalism and Self-Organized Houseless Encampments: (en)countering Banishment in Portland and Miami

Published In

Environment and Planning C-Politics and Space

Document Type

Citation

Publication Date

9-30-2023

Abstract

In this paper, I contribute to the literature on self-organized houseless encampments in the United States in two ways. First, I draw on Roy’s concept of racial banishment to examine the relationship between encampments and American racial capitalism. Second, I extend Caldeira’s theory of peripheral urbanization – originally developed to describe urban informality in the Global South – to encampments in the United States. Doing so highlights how encampment residents and local government interact with one another through transversal logics. I show how both these frameworks – racial banishment and peripheral urbanization – can help us understand the creation of two self-organized houseless encampments: Dignity Village in Portland and Umoja Village in Miami. In each city, I describe how these encampments not only encountered, but also countered various forms of banishment through creative means.

Rights

© The Author(s) 2023

DOI

10.1177/23996544231203896

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/40932

Publisher

SAGE Publications

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