Care Praxis in Los Angeles’s Antigentrification Movement: On-the-Ground Womxn of Color Geographies

Abstract

This article analyzes womxn of color (WOC) antigentrification activism and examines the layered embodied politics through a “praxis of care.” Adopting an intersectional lens not only enhances our racial, cultural, and gendered analysis of the impacts of gentrification; it also signals more ethical and holistic approaches to gathering data from aggrieved communities who face precarity across a spectrum. We discuss how we employed a praxis of care as a method for this article while also discussing its effect through the racial and gendered modes of antidisplacement work via “on the ground” community members we refer to as compañeras. This analysis focuses on three central and interrelated themes that arose from our time interviewing our compañeras, who personally and collectively address gentrification in their community through a sense of place, trauma gender battle fatigue, and accountability. Less is known, however, about how WOC navigate their interpersonal and collective responsibilities under systems of power that influence processes like gentrification. Scholarship examining the intersections of antigentrification work through a gendered and racial lens provides significant insight into present-day urban landscapes like Los Angeles’s South Central and greater Eastside neighborhoods.