{"title":"Solving Problems by Fighting for an Interest","authors":"Paul R. Lichterman","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv12sdwj2.7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv12sdwj2.7","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter shows how fighting for an interest works as a strategy of collective problem-solving. It describes what that strategy sounds and feels like, and the central dilemma it produces for participants. The chapter also looks closely at everyday tests: points at which participants in a community of interest are faced with challenges and potential alternatives to their usual style of action. The activists' responses to these tests show concretely what kinds of decisions, arguments, and avoidances perpetuate a community of interest. A community of interest is not intrinsically more strategic or effective than other forms of collective problem-solving. The Housing Justice (HJ) and Inquilinos del Sur de Los Angeles / Tenants of South Los Angeles (ISLA) coalitions both experienced victories and disappointments. When it was time to end the field research, ISLA participants had won more of what they said they wanted than did the more conventionally strategic-sounding HJ coalition.","PeriodicalId":385441,"journal":{"name":"How Civic Action Works","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129331615","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Placing and Studying the Action","authors":"Paul R. Lichterman","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv12sdwj2.6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv12sdwj2.6","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the fight for housing affordability, which is just one instance of civic action. Advocates across the coalitions and organizations in this study talked about housing “affordability” as one of their primary concerns, and often the biggest one. When they said housing in Los Angeles was unaffordable and there was a “housing crisis,” they usually meant housing was too expensive for many ordinary Angelenos or frequently unavailable at an affordable price. Using the same language of affordability, it makes sense to ask about the big picture. Is housing unaffordability usually temporary or chronic? Does it result from deep, institutional processes or contingencies relatively easy to alter? Does it affect only particular kinds of people or places? It makes sense to ask about this study's locale too. What might make housing conditions and problems in Los Angeles distinctive, or characteristic of life in the United States, or global, or maybe all three? The chapter provides a brief sketch of crucial contexts that affect the affordability of housing and make it potentially a problem.","PeriodicalId":385441,"journal":{"name":"How Civic Action Works","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130381877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Solving Problems by Protecting an Identity","authors":"Paul R. Lichterman","doi":"10.2307/j.ctv12sdwj2.8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv12sdwj2.8","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter follows the action in scenes from the earlier phase of the Tenants of South Los Angeles's antidisplacement campaign. When advocates style themselves as a community of identity, they give themselves a distinctive dilemma. Their style of action, with its emphasis on a distinct, subordinated community, entangles them with different social realities from the ones immediately salient to a community of interest. The central dilemma for a community of identity is to balance strategies that are from the people most central to “the community” and those crafted by advocates for the community. The community of identity is a cultural reality of its own, with its own influence on how activists make claims and build relationships around claims. It generates distinct ways of talking and feeling. The chapter ends with scenes from Los Angeles People's Organization, a predominantly African American group that pursued housing and civil rights issues in the same style of interaction.","PeriodicalId":385441,"journal":{"name":"How Civic Action Works","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131846362","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}