The Department of American Culture and Literature is pleased to announce an upcoming talk by Dr. Kai Wen Yang entitled “In-Situ Displacement of the Body in Disaster Collaboration: Post-9/11 Redevelopment and Contamination in Ethno-Racialized Urban Spaces.” Refreshments will be served. We look forward to seeing you there.
Date: Tuesday, 18 March
Time: 17:30 to 19:00
Location: G-140
Abstract:
After the September 11 attacks, the collapse of the World Trade Center towers released toxic substances into the air over New York City, contaminating Chinatown and the Lower East Side (LES), two immigrant neighborhoods, and the Financial District, home to the world’s largest capital market. Reports and studies indicated that a racialized geographical restriction had excluded Chinatown and the LES from 9/11 relief programs, health programs, and cleanup efforts. This exclusion marked the beginning of disaster collaboration among governmental agencies, banks, nonprofits, and ethno-racial elites. Disaster collaboration reincorporated Chinatown and the LES within the broader economic framework of the Financial District. However, this reincorporation reproduced exclusion and proceeded without addressing the existing contaminants. Disaster collaboration created a new form of in-situ displacement, affecting the body’s biophysiological functioning as the body remained in a contaminated environment. Unlike eviction, biophysiological displacement became in situ as the body dwelled in contamination.
Bio:
Kai Wen Yang is a Visiting Research Professor at the University of California, Davis. He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from the State University of New York at Binghamton. His research explores the production of sexually ethno-racialized urban spaces, “primitive” accumulation of capital, urban planning, and gentrification. He is currently completing a monograph titled Collaborative Displacement: the Convergence of the Real Estate Industry, Governing Power, and Housing Activism in the Remaking of Urban Spaces.