On how to live while being thrown away: Black people who use drugs and the politics of anti-disposability, North Philadelphia, circa 2007 to 2010

Abstract

Drawing on 3 years of fieldwork (2007–2010) in North Central Philadelphia with homeless and transiently-housed Black people who use drugs, this article explores the politics of mutual aid and community survival during a period of city-sponsored redevelopment. Drawing on Black feminist theory, I show how this community responded to and resisted their marginalization from urban space and Philadelphia history through developing a theory and practice of collective care. Resisting narratives that would position them as “worthless throwaways,” my informants responded to and reworked dominant narratives about what being a Black person who uses drugs means. As redevelopment threatened their neighborhood with increasing velocity, I reflect on how policing and incarceration disrupted my informants'—and my—relationship to history and urban space. I argue that in the shooting galleries, I learned the politics of anti-disposability: the right to live (and not just die) a junky.