Urbanities,
Vol. 4
·
No 1
·
May 2014
© 2014
Urbanities
8
members and drug dealers. It is the only co-op on the block, although the building next door is in
the process of co-op conversion, also under UHAB’s guidance. The hope is neighbours will see
how well Home Together works and want to emulate them.
One woman born on the block says it is much safer now, like in the 1970s when she was a
child (the crack era was difficult on the neighbourhood). Other residents, however, believe that
because of the bad economy, the amount of crime and drugs on the block has gotten worse in the
last few years.
Conclusion
This research brings together two seemingly disparate fields of anthropological inquiry, the
anthropology of finance and the anthropology of identity, to argue for the analytical benefits that
accrue from putting these domains in critical dialogue, which few anthropologists have done (but
see Ho 2009). In Ethnicity, Inc. (2009), the Comaroffs explore how and ‘why identity congeals
into property… [to] fully grasp emerging patterns of selfhood and sociality’ (2009:144), but they
focus more on the ways in which race and ethnicity are commodifed into new forms of
commercial enterprises rather than on how new understandings of ‘value’ can change ways of
thinking about ownership itself and about the stakes of possessive individualism/collectivism. By
engaging these two ostensibly separate fields (finance and identity), my project will offer a new
way of conceptualizing value, arguing for the inextricable (and mutually constitutive) links
between the valuations of property and the valuations of people.
The economic crisis of 2008 and the continuing recession it has spawned highlights the
need for anthropological interrogations of cultural life in the context of social transactions that
have become increasingly volatile and uncertain (and at least partially by design). Using low-
income cooperative housing in a gentrifying neighbourhood as empirical grounding, my work
will contribute to a new understanding of identities, subjectivities and socialities as seen through
the lens of finance capital’s global ubiquity and its seepage into areas of social and ‘cultural
intimacy’ (Herzfeld 2005). Overall, this research offers far-reaching insights into the
contemporary financial crisis, which I explored through contested conceptualizations of housing
value and human value.
Despite all the issues at Home Together, everyone involved with this building, from
residents to UHAB employees to myself, believes this will be a successful co-op. Miss Ruby’s
hard work, mediation, and cultivation of new younger leaders is key. In the face of vast
differences among residents, they are able to work together for their common cause, thanks in
large part to her leadership.
