Creative Strategies for Remapping Geographies and Reclaiming Space: A Transdisciplinary Inquiry into Environmental and Social Systems under Stress

Abstract

Our lack of imagination and involvement with our most neglected and abused spaces represents one of the most serious crises of contemporary living. These overlooked places — from large swaths of toxic desert wastelands to densely populated informal settlements that have literally cemented over entire mountainsides — whose people suffer from intense socio-economic marginalization and environmental degradation, are perceived to hold little value. However, through an exploration of cultural practices, this research demonstrates opportunities to envisage how these kinds of spaces can be seen as platforms for constructive process and creative resilience. Explicitly, it looks at how environmentally-engaged artistic structures can open up physical and conceptual junctures that connect critical political thought to DIY action in regions that are characterized as low income areas, by weak state capacity, or where citizens are vulnerable to a range of distresses that include limited access to public utilities, natural resources, social services, education, information technology, economic stability, and public safety. The first body of research presented in this thesis maps land degradation and reclamation efforts in the expansive desert tribal lands of the SouthwesternUnited States. The second is an urban remediation project located inside someof the largest and most densely populated favelas (slums) in all of Brazil. In bothcases, the extremities of environmental degradation collide with cultural activismin attempts to reclaim space for more ecologically and socially responsible landuse. Both of these projects ask: what happens when the rules and policyboundaries of the socio-political complex are confronted through culturalaction; how does this connect to the material production of knowledge; andfinally, how does this open up potential to redress systems of control?