Symposium Land in Common

An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Land Justice

In medieval Europe, the commons, or Allmende, referred to shared pastures, agricultural lands, and forests that were used communally for grazing cattle, harvesting lumber, and other subsistence activities. By the end of the 19th century, many of these resources had been enclosed and transformed into private property. But while the concept of ‘the commons’ appears democratic, it has always been premised on certain forms of exclusion, exploitation, and dispossession. And as American biologist Garret Hardin argued in The Tragedy of the Commons (1968), with the increase in global population, individual rights may clash with public interests as different concepts of freedom collide.

Today, the idea of 'the commons' encompasses a wide range of issues around shared resources and the public good, including waste management, city planning, urban and virtual infrastructure, and climate change. What can the concept of the commons help us understand about the relationship between individual liberties and the communal good, the history of Chicago itself, and our sometimes contradictory notions of environmental stewardship?

On Saturday, November 11th, join us for an interdisciplinary symposium on land justice and the commons. Topics include an Indigenous history of Chicago; the ideological underpinnings of the idea of ‘the commons’ and its application in Europe and the US; how urban farms become microcosms for new social worlds; and how civil rights law can combat environmental racism.

Speakers include: Daniel Loick, Associate Professor in Political and Social Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam; Juanita Irizarry, Executive Director of Friends of the Parks; Bweza Itaagi, lead steward of the Englewood Nature Trail, Anthony Tamez-Pochel, co-president of Chi Nations Youth Council, and others.

The event will conclude with a plant and seed swap, and is free and open to the public. Dinner and drinks available for purchase on-site at The Plant, including Heffer BBQ at Whiner Beer Co.'s Taproom and MeetStop by Ste. Martaen's vegan comfort food

Please register in advance to help us plan accordingly.

This symposium is organized in partnership with the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Bubbly Dynamics LLC, owner and operator of the former meatpacking facility now known as The Plant.


SYMPOSIUM SCHEDULE

Saturday, November 11, 2023

1pm – 1:30pm The Abuse of Property, with Daniel Loick (virtual presentation on-site)
1:30 – 2:30pm Parks as Democracy?: A People’s History of the Chicago Park District, with Juanita Irizarry
2:30 – 3:30pm From Placemaking to Worldbuilding: Reinventing the Urban Farm, with Nyabweza “Bweza” Itaagi, Robert Phillips, and Anthony Tamez-Pochel, moderated by Yaritza Guillen
3:30 – 4:30pm Redrawing Chicago’s Maps: Using Civil Rights Law to Combat Environmental Racism, with Robert Weinstock
4:30 – 5:30pm The Commons and the Public, with Mary Beth Pudup
5:30 – 6:00pm Plant and Seed Swap


1pm – 1:30pm
The Abuse of Property
It is generally argued that use requires property: in order to legitimately use land, for example, one has to have property rights in it. This intervention argues the opposite: property inevitably leads to specific forms of abuse, of things as well as people. In this on-site talk, Daniel Loick, Associate Professor of Political and Social Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam, argues that we need to politically challenge the property regime in order to repair ourselves and the world. 

1:30 – 2:30pm
Parks as Democracy?: A People’s History of the Chicago Park District 
What does it mean for parks to be democratic spaces? Renowned park designer Frederick Law Olmsted said that parks are democratic spaces, and the assertion that they are is often made. But in practice, not everyone experiences their park as a democratic space. In this look at the social forces that have shaped the Chicago Park District, Juanita Irizarry, Executive Director of Friends of the Parks, will discuss some of the social histories that have shaped Chicago’s parks and the urgent issues affecting the city’s parks and other green spaces, including the migrant crisis and unhoused people who live in parks.
 
2:30pm – 3:30pm
From Placemaking to Worldbuilding: Reinventing the Urban Farm
In this panel discussion, three Chicago urban farmers and environmental stewards will weigh in on how community gardens can propel broader neighborhood change. From turning a vacant lot into a cultural space to providing access to fresh produce in food deserts across the city’s South and West sides, urban farming can reshape neighborhood dynamics to model more equitable communities. This discussion will feature Nyabweza “Bweza” Itaagi, steward of the Englewood Nature Trail and co-owner of Englewood community production farm Sistas In The Village; Robert Phillips, owner and lead farmer of Patchwork Farms, which is based at The Plant; and Anthony Tamez-Pochel, co-president of Chi Nations Youth Council and member of the First Nations Garden in Albany Park. It will be moderated by Yaritza Guillen, urban planner and Stewardship Coordinator at Chicago nonprofit land trust NeighborSpace.
 

3:30-4:30pm
Redrawing Chicago’s Maps: Using Civil Rights Law to Combat Environmental Racism
In our city, public health and environmental burdens are the most present and pernicious where lower-income communities of color reside as a product of racial segregation created and perpetuated by law and legal institutions.  Observing this fact leads to an obvious question:  if law created this concentration of harms, how can law address and unwind them?  Environmental and land use laws are intended to protect the public from the burdens that flow from people living in proximity to polluters. But, federal environmental law is fundamentally siloed and technocratic; built from the perspective of individual polluters, not communities exposed to multiple and cumulative health stressors.  And land use law in Chicago is both designed to prioritize development and built on a racially segregated map.  Professor Weinstock’s talk will explore the connection between segregation and environmental burdens in Chicago, introduce these conceptual shortcomings of environmental law, and explain how federal civil rights laws are being used to push the City toward true reform of its land use policies to ensure that no Chicago neighborhood bears a disproportionate share of environmental burdens. 

4:30 – 5:30pm
The Commons and the Public
In this talk, historical and economic geographer Mary Beth Pudup will identify a few themes and red threads that run through the afternoon’s sessions and reflect on some of the challenges of commoning and governing the commons as policy and practice, suggesting a necessary step towards future commons in any realm of social existence perhaps depends on an urgent project of rescuing and rehabilitating “the public” realm from its currently damaged and derogated condition.   

5:30 – 6:00pm
Plant and Seed Swap
A plant swap is an event where fellow plant owners come together to trade plant cuttings and seeds. If you would like to participate, please bring a pest-free plant (or however many you’re willing to part with!). They can be potted or bare root, but please note that we will not be providing soil and pots for whatever you’d like to take home. There will be a table set up at the entrance to The Plant for you to leave your donated cuttings, which will be available for anyone to take for the duration of the full ‘Land in Common’ event. Please label what you bring with basic care instructions. If you’d like to mingle with other plant swappers or have any questions about plant care, meet us at the tables from 5:30-6:00pm!

Not sure if your houseplant is propagatable? Check here for some tips on which plants make for good plant swap material and how to take cuttings.

Dinner and drinks will be available for purchase on-site at The Plant, including pizza at Whiner Beer Co.'s Taproom and MeetStop by Ste. Martaen's vegan comfort food


TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14th, 2023

6:00pm 
A Brief History of Indigenous Chicago (VIRTUAL-ONLY PRESENTATION)
Indigenous peoples lived in the Chicago area for thousands of years before the arrival of European and American adventurers, explorers, missionaries, and colonists. Who were they, how did they live, and how did they respond to settler colonialism? Dr. John N. Low (Pokagon Band Potawatomi) will provide an Indigenous perspective on the invasion of the Great Lakes region. Please register separately here for the Zoom link.


SPEAKER BIOS

Daniel Loick is Associate Professor of Political and Social Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. After receiving his PhD in 2010 from Goethe University Frankfurt, he held positions at multiple institutes in Germany, Switzerland, and the US, such as Harvard University, the New School for Social Research in New York and the Center for Humanities and Social Change in Berlin. His main research interests are in political, cultural, legal and social philosophy, social theory, and political theory. He just published "The Abuse of Property" with MIT Press. Forthcoming in German is his new book "Die Überlegenheit der Unterlegenen. Eine Theorie der Gegengemeinschaften" with Suhrkamp (2024).

Juanita Irizarry is the executive director of Friends of the Parks whose mission is to inspire, equip, and mobilize a diverse Chicago to ensure an equitable park system for a healthy Chicago. She is currently leading the organization’s role as a co-plaintiff along with the Alliance of the Southeast in a lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers to stop the expansion of a pollution dump at the confluence of the Calumet River and Lake Michigan and adjacent to Calumet Park in the 10th Ward environmental justice community. She previously led the organization’s successful challenge to George Lucas and Rahm Emanuel’s efforts to site the Lucas Museum on protected parkland on Chicago’s lakefront and has since overseen the release of the organization’s State of the Parks report, focused on park equity. This work builds on years of advocacy and organizing work toward healthy, sustainable neighborhoods as an affordable housing and community development practitioner and local leader. She has lived most of her life along the border of Humboldt Park and Logan Square where she learned to love Chicago’s boulevards and parks.

Nyabweza “Bweza” Itaagi is an urban farmer, community cultivator and horticulturist. Raised in Colorado’s Denver-Metro area, Bweza moved to Chicago 2015 to pursue a master's degree in Sustainable Urban Development at DePaul University. As a first generation Ugandan-American, she seeks to incorporate traditional African diasporic farming practices in Chicago. She views land stewardship as a spiritual practice with the ability to heal communities and build collective power. In her work, she is one of the stewards of the Englewood Nature Trail with Grow Greater Englewood, and co-owns an Englewood based community production farm, Sistas In The Village.

Robert Phillips is first-generation Mexican American and owner and lead farmer of Patchwork Farms, which he started working for in 2018. Patchworks Farms' mission is to provide culturally significant, nutrient-dense produce to Chicagoans, while also cultivating a reciprocity towards the earth.

Anthony Tamez-Pochel is First Nations Oji-Cree/Black and the current Chairman of the Center for Native American Youth’s Advisory Board, a member of Chi-Nations Youth Council, a Chicago-based grassroots collective of Native peoples, and a steward of the First Nations Garden in Chicago’s northwest neighborhood of Albany Park. As a Black and Native person, Anthony is committed to teaching others how to live ethically on Anishinaabek lands and supporting Black Indigenous solidarity in the struggle for collective liberation. 

Yaritza Guillen is an urbanist, storyteller, and unapologetic optimist. Her focus lies in interdisciplinary practices, community-based design, and story mapping. As a cultural producer and community planner, she has engaged in various projects, including the Nuestra Herencia: Legacy Film Project where she documented the experiences of elders in her community during the pandemic. She is one of the We Will Chicago artists whose project involved designing a weather adaptable pergola at South Merrill Community Garden. She also led an Ethical Storytelling Training for Environmental Justice Lawyers with the Environmental Defense Fund. Currently she works as the stewardship coordinator at NeighborSpace, the Chicago nonprofit urban land trust that preserves and sustains gardens on behalf of dedicated community groups.

Robert Weinstock is the Director of the Environmental Advocacy Center at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, where he is also a Clinical Associate Professor of Law, and leads the EAC’s diverse docket of environmental justice advocacy, environmental enforcement litigation, work on energy system transitions, and various policy projects.  Rob is counsel to the Southeast Environmental Taskforce in its civil rights complaint to the Department of Housing and Urban Development and May 2023 settlement with the City of Chicago in connection with the proposed relocation of the General Iron scrap metal facility and discriminatory impacts of broader land use policies and practices.  Before directing the EAC at Northwestern, Rob has taught in the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School, where he participated management of the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic's cutting-edge advocacy efforts, including co-authoring the 2020 report, “Poisonous Homes: The Fight for Environmental Justice in Federally Assisted Housing.” 

Mary Beth Pudup is the Director of Community Studies in the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU) at the University of Chicago. Pudup is a historical and economic geographer with abiding interest in the comparative political economy of cities, regional development, community organizations, and the ecology of place. Her early research focused on the Midwestern agro-industrial complex that underwrote Chicago’s industrial landscape during the nineteenth century. She then conducted research in eastern Kentucky exploring how household subsistence agriculture shaped central Appalachia’s long-term development. She is currently completing a book project using urban agriculture as a lens to understand social, economic and environmental problems of the contemporary US city, focusing on how San Francisco’s community garden history bears witness to key moments of the city’s transformation.

Dr. John N. Low is a citizen of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, an associate professor at the Ohio State University in Comparative Studies, and Director of the Newark Earthworks Center at the University. Low received his Ph.D. in American Culture at the University of Michigan and also earned a graduate certificate in Museum Studies and a Juris Doctorate from that University. He received a BA from Michigan State University, a second BA in American Indian Studies from the University of Minnesota, and an MA in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago. His research interests and courses at the Ohio State University include American Indian histories, literatures, and cultures, Native identities, American Indian religions, Indigenous canoe cultures around the world, Urban American Indians, museums, material culture and representation, memory studies, Indigenous futures, American Indian law and treaty rights, Indigenous cross-cultural connections, and TIK environmental perspectives and practices.
 

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