what is at stake is a way of rethinking social relationality.

- Judith Butler, in Puar et al, 2012.

United We Transform,
Divided We Reproduce
Towards an understanding of the
political and transformative potential
of precarity
By Kristen Hackett
Second Doctoral Examination | Mon June 19th 2pm
Environmental Psychology, CUNY Graduate Center

Advisor: Susan Saegert

Committee Members: Michelle Fine, Tarry Hum
 PRELUDE
Young People, Precarity
& Political Participation
Rising cost of college, Underemployment
Fear, anxiety
Self-packaging as precarity-reducing
(selecting specific majors; pursuing
professional degrees
Promise of political participation
obstructed by perceived precarity and
lack of faith in formal political system
PRELUDE
PRELUDE
PRELUDE
PRELUDE
 what is at stake is a way of rethinking social relationality.
- Judith Butler, in Puar et al, 2012.

United We Transform,
Divided We Reproduce
Towards an understanding of the
political and transformative potential
of precarity

Precarity Commoning
 Precarity
a way to capture the material
and psychological
PRECARIOUS WORK
employment that is uncertain,
vulnerability arising from
neoliberal economic reforms unpredictable and risky from the point of
(Nasstrom and Kalm, 2015, view of the worker (Kalleberg, 2009, p2)
p556).
 LOW WAGE
WORK &
DUAL ECONOMY
- Technology advances,
hypermobility of capital
and rise of low wage work
sector undergird
hollowing of labor market.

(Autor, 2010)
WAGE STAGNATION
& DECLINE
(despite increasing in productivity)
Welfare State Neoliberal State

roll back, roll out (Peck and Tickell, 2012)

 CAPITALOCENTRIC
(Gibson-Graham, 1996)

unpaid, informalized, feminized

and relational work of social
reproduction:
by some estimates comprises 30-50% of
all economic activity in rich and poor
countries (e.g. Irongmonger, 1996)

an important foundation for the

operating of capitalist systems of
production (e.g. Fraser, 2016)

(The Community Collective, 2001)

GOVERNMENTALITY
-dependent on
the atomized,
autonomous, self-
seeking individual
Ex. Higher education & Young Adults

Federal and Private

Student loans
Fellowships
Grants & Aid
Work Study
GOVERNMENTALITY

Rate of 2 year, 4 year &

professional degree
pursuers/earners
Meanwhile, in the recesses of the formal economy
Counter hegemonic

Vs

Countering Hegemony
Counter hegemonic

a social relationality
Vs based
on care, reciprocity and
community

Countering Hegemony
 (EM)PLACING PRECARITY

how place-based
practices of
the place-based ways
in which capitalism
commoning work
aims to secure to subvert or
and reproduce the upend hegemonic
modes of social
relations of
relationality and
domination upon
undermine the
which the political
dominance of the
project depends
liberal capitalist
project.

a place-based perspective on the political and transformative possibilities of precarity

 HOME as: Networked
Communities of
Sustenance Making, maintaining
and pursuing life
Center of Dwelling

Autonomy Privacy

A Stable base Refuge

HOME as:
Affordable
Autonomy, Privacy, Refuge
A Stable base; center of dwelling
Networked communities of sustenance
Making, maintaining and pursuing life
Unaffordable
Stress, Anxiety
Loss of ontological security
Exacerbation of health issues
GEOGRAPHIES OF HOUSING AFFORDABILITY
HOME as:
Affordable Unaffordable
Autonomy, Privacy, Refuge Stress, Anxiety
A Stable base; center of dwelling Loss of ontological security
Networked communities of sustenance Exacerbation of health issues
Making, maintaining and pursuing life
DISPLACEMENT
-Stress, Health
-Job Insecurity
-Housing Quality
(Desmond, 2016)

-Community
Cohesion and
Stability
 Urban place-
making
threat of

DISPLACEMENT
Hyper-
commodification
of housing

Spatialization of
(housing)
precarity, 20th C
 Urban place- REVITALIZATION
making
Post-fiscal crisis >> neoliberal turn
Business approach
Entrepreneurial and growth as
Hyper- central securitizing values
commodification
of housing
Roll back / Roll out at municipal level
Reliance on External Capital
Spatialization of
(housing) Hypermobility of capital
precarity, 20th C
Heightened Intra-City Competition
 between 1981 and 2011, the
GLOBALLY-ACCESSIBLE regulated share of the market fell

LIQUIDITY from 62% to 47% of all units

(Madden and Marcuse, 2016)
Urban place-
making

Financialization Globalization
Hyper-
commodification
of housing

(De)(Re)Regulation

Spatialization of
(housing)
precarity, 20th C

Use Value
 Neighborhoods
Targeted for
Rezoning
Urban place-
making

Capital Flow
from Center
to Periphery
Hyper-
commodification
of housing

Spatialization of
(housing)
precarity, 20th C
 ROOT SHOCK

the obliteration of a neighborhood destroys the matrix that holds

people together on particular paths and in specific relationships
(Fullilove, 2005, p. 218).
PLACE-BASED COMMONING

Role of place attachment

Experimentation and extension of
commoning practices
Formalization through institutionalization
Expansion of self through remaking of social
and material environment
Role of historical exclusion and future
development
Role of the state
 How place-based
commoning networks fit
into larger city-wide,
national and even global
networks that feed and are
fed back the local
commoning networks
Tensions between
consciousness and individual and
embodiment of
alternative modes of strategies of
coping with
social relationality
through land use.
Forming a
Research Project
How longstanding
experiences with precarity
The relationship between and commoning are
precarity & commoning transmitted to and grow
through the incorporation
of younger members
The role of
Tensions
land and place
between
& disruption The role of the state
of place in
collective in mediating control
mediating the
over land.
transformative
potential of
precarity
commoning
How do the network of
The relationship between
commoning practices that
community gardens in
East New York for
are counter-hegemonic and
countering hegemony example, function at the
intersection of this
relationship.
Comments, questions, feedback, collaboratio