Papers by Chandra Russo
www.cambridge.org © in this web service Cambridge University Press 1 Leo stands and invites the r... more www.cambridge.org © in this web service Cambridge University Press 1 Leo stands and invites the rest of us to do the same. We push back our small, plastic chairs. About forty of us rise in the circle, acknowledge each other with small nods, and join hands. Witness Against Torture has gathered at Saint Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Washington DC. It is the first week of January 2014. People are now entering the fifth day of their fast. Many have bundled themselves with scarves and hats. Those wearing orange jumpsuits have packed layers of wool and down under the iconic outerwear, preparing to stand for hours in front of the White House in what is certain to be a freezing drizzle. The room is necessarily large for all that it must accommodate. Rectangles of butcher paper scribbled with colorful notes line the back wall. There are lists of team members and their requisite tasks, words, and shapes from direct action planning. A tenfoot plastic folding table is set up for letter writing ...
City, 2021
Building on emerging work that considers urban life and designs through the lens of care, this ar... more Building on emerging work that considers urban life and designs through the lens of care, this article examines how a performative care practice might serve as an oppositional ethic and strategy in the late capitalist city. The analysis is based on the Guerrilla Grafters, an eco-arts collective that surreptitiously grafts fruit onto sterile city trees in San Francisco. Original data include interviews with participants and critics and a qualitative analysis of relevant media accounts. The article proposes that the Guerrilla Grafters are engaged in a performative care practice, a public facing set of actions that make visible and valuable the labor as well as ethics of attending to the interdependence of all life. This performative care practice is a discursive, relational and spatial strategy that seeks to interrupt relations of dominance and ideologies that cheapen certain life. Through a case study of performative care, this study provokes a more general examination of how care et...
Introduction Findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading intern... more Introduction Findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the leading international scientific institution on climate change research, unequivocally demonstrate that, without intervention, climate change will have devastating impacts on human communities. Those who face the intersections of racism, classism and sexism have long born the brunt of environmental hazards, both globally and in the United States (Bullard 2005; Chavis and Lee 1987). This is no different when it comes to climate change which, under existing social conditions, puts the global poor, people of color, and women at the greatest risk (Nagel 2012; Douglas et al. 2012; Shearer 2011) and has been projected to be “globally stratifying, because its worst impacts will fall disproportionately on those countries, livelihood systems and ‘at risk’ populations that are already poor”(Devereux and Edwards 2004: 28). Importantly, such global stratification should not be interpreted as only impacting region...
Interface: a journal for and about social movements, 2017
A few days after this year's US presidential election, I was invited to wear a safety pin at a st... more A few days after this year's US presidential election, I was invited to wear a safety pin at a student organized speak-out at my university. The students had convened this space to process their confusion, grief, anger and fear. A campaign waged on explicit white supremacy and sexual violence seemed a harbinger of events to come. In the ten days after the election, the Southern Poverty Leadership Center had counted 867 hate-based incidents. Those handing out safety pins were predominately students of color and queer identified folks, although the university I teach at has a majority white student body. They explained that in choosing to wear the safety pin we would be signaling ourselves as allies to those whose vulnerability had been highlighted or targeted throughout the campaign. These include folks of color, immigrants, Muslims, and those who are queer identified. Attentive to the students' testimonies, I did not think much before attaching the pin to my sweater. Wearing a pin " as a sign of solidarity " seemed a reasonable request. Within a day or two, however, it was clear to me that the safety pin tactic was a deeply contested one. The safety pin is a symbolic statement, akin to other forms of bystander tactics intended to display solidarity with an aggrieved community. Ribbons worn on one's person are one of the most common iterations of this kind of tactic. For instance, celebrities, most of whom were not themselves HIV positive or gay-identified, debuted the red AIDS awareness ribbon when attending the 1991 Tony Awards. The safety pin is akin to this ribbon in that it is meant to signal the wearer's ideological commitment to a cause and solidarity with the most directly affected. Like the AIDS ribbon, the safety pin might be also be seen as what I think of as entry-level activism, a tactic that seems broadly approachable to people from different walks of life and varying experience with social movement involvement. Putting on a safety pin seems a simple act. I put one on without fully considering the ramifications of doing so. Yet the safety pin is not quite entry level activism in that it is intended to identify the wearer as capable of a literal intervention on behalf of another's " safety, " hence the " safety " of the pin. By wearing the safety pin, one self-designates as willing to be called upon to intervene, de-escalate or otherwise provide bodily defense if another person is being harassed or victimized. The critiques of the safety pin come from multiple directions: from Trump supporters, from those scared they will be used by the hateful to trick vulnerable populations, from those concerned by the dynamics of privilege perpetuated by this tactic, and by those who worry at the lack of preparedness among those wearing them with good intentions (Koopman 2016). While I take up the latter two (and not the former), I am less interested in adjudicating the sanctity of the
The Guantánamo Bay detention camp is a quintessential structure of the US national security state... more The Guantánamo Bay detention camp is a quintessential structure of the US national security state and contemporary Empire. For such imperial formations to proceed as if they are 'normal' requires solidarity from various publics. This paper explores what it means to refuse such solidarity through an ethnographic examination of Witness Against Torture (WAT), a group of US citizens enacting solidarity with the men detained at Guantánamo. WAT's tactical repertoire intervenes in three ways. The Guantánamo prison is not supposed to be seen, but WAT travels there to expose state secrets and the administration's myth of transparency. The prisoners are not supposed to be heard, but WAT publicly amplifies their testimonies through affectively potent street performances. Indefinite detention and torture are meant to remain distant, but WAT links the plight of detainees to that of Black communities in the US interior. Through these acts, WAT simultaneously reveals and contests the culture of erasure and radical divisiveness upon which the US national security state depends.
This article examines how embodied experience and the accompanying emotions help social movement ... more This article examines how embodied experience and the accompanying emotions help social movement allies to forge collective identity. The analysis is based on the Migrant Trail, an annual protest event in which allies of the border-justice movement spend a week walking seventy-five miles through the U.S.-Mexico borderlands to protest migrant deaths. Original data include four years of participant observation, interviews conducted during the 2011 Migrant Trail, and surveys conducted a year and a half after the event. Findings suggest that embodied and emotional experiences help allies overcome challenges such as social distance from beneficiaries, a lack of credibility in the movement, and no lineage of resistance. This study contributes to an understanding of collective identity formation among allies and offers an illustrative case for the important role embodiment plays in the emotions of collective action.
The environmental justice framework demonstrates that communities plagued by injustice, poverty, ... more The environmental justice framework demonstrates that communities plagued by injustice, poverty, and a lack of sociopolitical access have long been more vulnerable to environmental destruction and are today less resilient to the impacts of climate change. We suggest that environmental justice scholars should have a distinct interest in municipal climate action plans (CAPs), which, in the absence of leadership from the United States federal government, may be the foremost means for addressing climate change. Yet this important policy tool has been criticized for various weaknesses. We focus on two of these. First, CAPs have tended to neglect adaptation planning in favor of climate change mitigation. Second, CAPs have often neglected issues of social equity. We see this coupled weakness as both pitfall and potential. CAPs are not yet doing what they could to enhance urban resilience. However, as US municipal adaptation strategies are still in their relative infancy, there is great potential for them to incorporate social equity objectives in consequential ways. Drawing on examples from five US based CAPs, we elaborate a conception of transformative adaptation that centrally incorporates equity concerns, addressing the root causes of social vulnerability to climate change impacts. These instances augur a resiliency strategy that speaks to the importance of doing adaptation and doing it equitably.
The United States has refused to advance meaningful legislation to hedge against an impending glo... more The United States has refused to advance meaningful legislation to hedge against an impending global climate change crisis. Instead, US cities and states have been forced to take policy leadership by adopting Climate Action Plans (CAPs). In this chapter, we argue that CAPs, if a step in the right direction, have neglected issues of social equity, specifically the raced, classed and gendered dimensions of urban inequality. Because CAPs can do little to ameliorate cavernous wealth divides, we conclude that a more redistributive economy is necessary for making the kinds of emission reductions that our current climate crisis requires.
As a social movement scholar and a sociologist of race, gender and class, it’s hard to know where... more As a social movement scholar and a sociologist of race, gender and class, it’s hard to know where to start in making sense of the 2016 Presidential Election results. Regardless of whether one agrees that this election was a referendum on racism, misogyny, homophobia and xenophobia, it is indisputable that this year, a populist message articulated in racist, misogynist, and xenophobic tones was a winning one.
Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2014
This pilot survey research project, conducted in the summer of 2011 by a collaborative of PUEBLO ... more This pilot survey research project, conducted in the summer of 2011 by a collaborative of PUEBLO and the University of California Center for New Racial Studies, explores the relationship between the Santa Barbara Latina/o community and local police. Bilingual teams of student researchers and community members went door-to-door soliciting respondents’ perceptions of police, levels of civic engagement, and general comfort living in the city. A brief summary of our findings follows.
Data collected during the survey indicate that although there is not an acute crisis of trust between the Latina/o community and police, some patterns of interaction with police have eroded the Latina/o community’s willingness to interact with law enforcement. The community relies, as before, on the police to respond in emergencies and to keep them safe. Still, under certain conditions, people are much less likely to trust police. Respondents who have had a direct experience with police in the past or perceive themselves as likely to interact with the police in the future are less likely to express trust in police. These members of the Latino community are less likely to turn to police in times of need.
Santa Barbara is at a crossroads. While everyone in Santa Barbara relies on effective policing, there are marked instances of Latina/o mistrust, misgivings, and confusion about the police and police practices in the city. Both respondents and researchers recognize that the police have made efforts toward establishing a more trusting relationship with the community. Yet we recommend that further steps be taken to cultivate trusting relationships with the Santa Barbara Latino/a community.
Complete journal issues by Chandra Russo
by Laurence Cox, Chandra Russo, Phil Hedges, Janine Joyce, Alice Poma, Tommaso Gravante, Antonios Broumas, Astrid von Kotze, Jeffrey W Rubin, Bieler Andreas, Dennis Eversberg, and Dominika V Polanska Interface, 2017
Books by Chandra Russo
Cross-border solidarity has captured the interest and imagination of scholars, activists and a ra... more Cross-border solidarity has captured the interest and imagination of scholars, activists and a range of political actors in such contested areas as the US-Mexico border and Guantanamo Bay. Chandra Russo examines how justice-seeking solidarity drives activist communities contesting US torture, militarism and immigration policies. Through compelling and fresh ethnographic accounts, Russo follows these activists as they engage in unusual and high risk forms of activism (fasting, pilgrimage, civil disobedience). She explores their ideas of solidarity and witnessing, which are central to how the activists explain their activities. This book adds to our understanding of solidarity activism under new global arrangements, and illuminates the features of movement activity that deepen activists' commitment by helping their lives feel more humane, just and meaningful. Based on participant observation, interviews, surveys and hundreds of courtroom statements, Russo develops a new theorization of solidarity that will take a central place in social movement studies.
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Papers by Chandra Russo
Data collected during the survey indicate that although there is not an acute crisis of trust between the Latina/o community and police, some patterns of interaction with police have eroded the Latina/o community’s willingness to interact with law enforcement. The community relies, as before, on the police to respond in emergencies and to keep them safe. Still, under certain conditions, people are much less likely to trust police. Respondents who have had a direct experience with police in the past or perceive themselves as likely to interact with the police in the future are less likely to express trust in police. These members of the Latino community are less likely to turn to police in times of need.
Santa Barbara is at a crossroads. While everyone in Santa Barbara relies on effective policing, there are marked instances of Latina/o mistrust, misgivings, and confusion about the police and police practices in the city. Both respondents and researchers recognize that the police have made efforts toward establishing a more trusting relationship with the community. Yet we recommend that further steps be taken to cultivate trusting relationships with the Santa Barbara Latino/a community.
Complete journal issues by Chandra Russo
Books by Chandra Russo
Data collected during the survey indicate that although there is not an acute crisis of trust between the Latina/o community and police, some patterns of interaction with police have eroded the Latina/o community’s willingness to interact with law enforcement. The community relies, as before, on the police to respond in emergencies and to keep them safe. Still, under certain conditions, people are much less likely to trust police. Respondents who have had a direct experience with police in the past or perceive themselves as likely to interact with the police in the future are less likely to express trust in police. These members of the Latino community are less likely to turn to police in times of need.
Santa Barbara is at a crossroads. While everyone in Santa Barbara relies on effective policing, there are marked instances of Latina/o mistrust, misgivings, and confusion about the police and police practices in the city. Both respondents and researchers recognize that the police have made efforts toward establishing a more trusting relationship with the community. Yet we recommend that further steps be taken to cultivate trusting relationships with the Santa Barbara Latino/a community.