(Re)envisioning Land and Power: A Fight for Community Ownership + Control in Massachusetts

Abstract

This thesis describes a client-based project I undertook in service to the Healthy Neighborhood Study Research Consortium (HNSRC) to help them develop a toolkit for community ownership + control. The toolkit explores what it takes to carry out community-led transformation for collective spaces. The toolkit came together through a participatory action research (PAR) process that built on years of neighborhood-level work carried out by folks committed to transforming their communities.

My role in helping develop the toolkit was three-fold. First, I undertook archival and case study research to understand the historic and present day conditions that produced one parcel of vacant land in Boston as a way of adding contextual information to the toolkit. Second, I facilitated Learning and Innovation for Neighborhood Change (LINC) Lab working sessions with resident researchers, members of the HNSRC and who served as my committee of advising resident researchers, to surface insights into community land issues. Third, I synthesized my academic archival and case study research together with HNS insights to draft the toolkit itself. The result is a joint-authored, action-oriented HNS toolkit that aims to help community members better understand and navigate the process of taking community control over land.