🔊 Ep 3 👂🏾The Fictions of "Real" Estate

Carceral Fictions & Abolitionist Realities

Today, we drop Episode 3, Part 1 of Nature, where we explore land ownership and relations from the (Detroit) River to the (Mediterranean) Sea. Listen and view the full transcript on makingroom.online or listen wherever you get your podcasts:

In this episode, we meet neighbors and residents who have organized themselves to nurture lands they belong to, while Lauren Williams outlines seductive narratives of pioneerism, emptiness and care that beg the question of whether all property might be virtual.

In her eyes, land speculation, the financialization of housing markets, and urban “blight,” all feel more than a little esoteric, as if confusion is the point. Here, Williams clears the smoke and cracks the mirrors, braiding histories of property valuation, colonialism, and displacement from the Detroit River to the Mediterranean Sea.

I’m truly proud of this entire series, but the way we connect the dots in this episode between land, Nature, ownership, abandonment, genocide, colonialism, Detroit and Palestine might make this my favorite episode. In it, you’ll get to hear from Nate Mullen, Kyle Whyte and one of my favorite people, Myrtle Thompson-Curtis.

Myrtle Thompson-Curtis sits with her hands folded in her lap, wearing black and white plaid pants, shoulder length-curly hair, a black turtleneck and a black face mask while visiting the Making Room for Abolition exhibit in 2021, photographed by Giizhigad Bieber.

As always, the entire series was lovingly co-produced by Ayinde Jean Baptiste; audio was mastered by Conor Anderson; and our theme music is the instrumentals from Detroit Summer, by Invincible and Waajeed, courtesy of Emergence Media.

Thank you for listening on makingroom.online or wherever you get your podcasts.