Friday, June 7th, 2024 – 10am-12pm ET on Zoom
Join us as we celebrate the launch of the special issue of Built Environment with the theme Root Shock 20. Organizers and researchers from the US and Ireland will share how Root Shock has influenced their work and thinking at this online symposium.
FACILITATOR
ROBERT SEMBER
Robert Sember is an educator and artist who has taught most recently at The New School’s Eugene Lang College in New York City and with the Alabama Prison Arts and Education Program’s Higher Education in Prison initiative in Auburn, Alabama. He is a recipient of a Vera List Center for Art and Politics fellowship.
BUILT ENVIRONMENT PRESENTERS
Root Shock at Twenty: Reflections from Roanoke
MARY CARTER BISHOP
Mary Carter Bishop is a retired journalist and author. Her memoir, Don’t You Ever: My Mother and Her Secret Son, was published by HarperCollins in 2018.
Root Shock and Postcolonial Trauma in Ireland
GERRY KEARNS
Gerry Kearns is Professor of Geography at Maynooth University, Ireland, and works at the intersection of historical, health, and political geographies. He is the author of Geopolitics and Empire (Oxford University Press, 2009) and co-editor of Spatial Justice and the Irish Crisis (Royal Irish Academy, 2014).
Displacement in Place: Root Shock in the Pearse Street Community, Dublin
MARY BROE
Mary Broe is a PhD student in the Department of Geography, Maynooth University, Ireland. Her master’s thesis investigated the impact of urban regeneration on Pearse House, a social housing complex, using Dr Mindy Fullilove’s concept of Root Shock to examine the effects of redevelopment on community cohesion. Her PhD research on The Making and Unmaking of Homely Places explores how traditional, embodied practices influence the experiences of persistence and displacement among generations in Dublin’s Pearse Street communities amid urban change. Her research interests are class dynamics and the interaction between urban environments and communities.
Root Shock as Social Discipline: Marginalization and Racism in Irish Social, Asylum, and Refugee Policies
NIAMH MCDONALD
Niamh McDonald is Director of Advocacy and Community Engagement with the Hope and Courage Collective. H&CC supports communities, organisations and wider society to respond to hate and extremism while remaining grounded, caring and resilient. Niamh is a member of SPARK (Single Parents Acting for the Rights of their Kids). Niamh has a long history of grassroots community organising on issues of housing and bodily Autonomy.
The New York City Real Estate Industry and Voter Suppression
DEBORAH WALLACE and RODRICK WALLACE
Deborah Wallace received her Ph.D. in ecology from Columbia University in 1971 and then worked for a decade in environmental impact assessment for the electric utility industry. She applied analytical approaches from ecosystem science to urban systems and public health, concentrating on the impacts of fire company cuts in New York City in the 1970’s. She worked at Consumers Union 1991-2010 and has been writing papers and books on social epidemiology since retirement.
Carceral Displacement: The Root Shock of Mass Criminalization
LA-MEIK COOK TAYLOR, ERIC PARIS WHITFIELD, KEITH ROGERS, and ROBERT SEMBER
La-Meik Cook Taylor works in the fi elds of restorative justice, mental health advocacy, and youth support services. He is a co-founder of the Upstate NY ReEntry Network and Prisoner’s Brain Trust. A graduate of Bard College, La-Meik is a three-time intercollegiate Debate Union champion.
Robert Sember is an educator and artist who has taught most recently at The New School’s Eugene Lang College in New York City and with the Alabama Prison Arts and Education Program’s Higher Education in Prison initiative in Auburn, Alabama. He is a recipient of a Vera List Center for Art and Politics fellowship.
Root Shock’s Missing Appendix: Using Situation Analysis for Critical Policy Studies and Beyond
JENNIFER S. RAMIREZ, KATHERINE DILLARD GONZALEZ, TALIB HUDSON, and WHITNEY BLANCO
Jennifer S. Ramirez is a Senior Researcher at the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School, New York. She leads action-based research projects in partnership with environmental and climate justice groups across the United States. Her research areas encompass community organizing, resource mobilization, urban planning, disaster recovery, and impact evaluation for grassroots climate change solutions.
From Root Shock to Urban Alchemy: The (Re)making of Urban Space through the Lens of Black Older Women
H. SHELLAE VERSEY, LAURENT REYES and JARMIN YEH
H. Shellae Versey is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at Fordham University. Her research interests include gentrification and displacement, health inequity, urban aging, and intersections between gender, class, and race.
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POET
KATHY KREMINS
Kathy Kremins (she/her) is a retired New Jersey public school teacher and coach. Her debut full-length collection, The Curve of Things, is published by Cavankerry Press (2024). She has two chapbooks of poems, Seamus & His Smalls (Two Key Customs, 2023) and Undressing the World (Finishing Line Press, 2022). She is the author of An Ethics of Reading: The Broken Beauties of Toni Morrison, Nawal el Sadaawi, and Arundhati Roy (Lambert Academic Publishing, 2010). She works as an editor for NJ Audubon Magazine.
READINGS AND REFLECTIONS
LOURDES RODRIGUEZ
Lourdes Rodriguez, MPH, DrPH serves as Chief Executive Officer at the David Rockefeller Fund, based in New York City. Before joining the Fund, she served as a Senior Program Officer at the St. David’s Foundation in Austin Texas. Prior to joining the Foundation in 2020, she served as Associate Professor and Director of Community-Driven Initiatives at the University of Texas Austin Dell Medical School.
TERRI BALTIMORE
Terri Baltimore has over thirty years’ experience working in the non-profit sector. She is a ‘tour guide’ introducing national, international, and local visitors to the Historic Hill District, one of Pitt sburgh’s storied African American neighborhoods. Past projects include: The Greenprint, the Hill District’s award-winning green plan, the development of August Wilson Park and The Dot Talley Center.