Fall 2021 Colloquium Speaker Series – Desiree Fields

Care and the Politics of Reclamation

This talk is based on a collaborative project with Brandi T. Summers. We examine Black women’s efforts to reclaim space in response to the finance-led transformation of West Oakland, California. Our analysis focuses on the Moms 4 Housing movement, which began when five Black mothers occupied a vacant, corporate investor-owned house in West Oakland to protest how real estate speculation is fueling displacement and homelessness for Black Oakland residents. We ask how Black people reclaim space, and through centering Black women and Black feminist praxis to counter capitalist dispossession, we examine how Moms 4 Housing enacts a Black radical politics of urban care.