Caitlin Cahill: “Home is where crisis is lived everyday”

Caitlin Cahill has earned an international reputation for her work, which brings together youth geographies with policing, discrimination, and immigration. She is especially known for her engaged participatory and action research approaches, which draw upon art, film, and political intervention.

Three years ago the Researchers for Fair Policing, an intergenerational participatory action research team, set out to document the experiences of young people growing up with “Broken Windows” policing in the contemporary context of gentrifying/still disinvested New York City.  Foregrounding an intimate and embodied geopolitics, our research explores the contradictions of the neoliberal city, offering insights into the intertwined struggles over representation, real estate, policing, public space, and the sites of social reproduction: home, school, and community.  This talk will focus on the ways that the crisis is policed at home (Hall et al., 1978). Our work suggests alternatives for understanding our cities and ourselves, and a new geographical imagination for sustaining affective alliances and building political community.