Oppenheimer Park and the Contested Life of Public Space in the City of Vancouver

Keywords: homelessness, parks, tent encampments, Vancouver, regulation, urban
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 11:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 12:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 3

Abstract

In this paper, Oppenheimer Park is used as a case study site through which to explore the intersections of property, regulation, homelessness, and public space. Assemblage theory is mobilized to identify the actors, objects, and processes that interact in and through Oppenheimer Park, particularly when unhoused bodies and their possessions gather to meet their survival needs. Specifically, I will use as examples two eviction efforts at clearing the park of tent encampments, made by the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation and City of Vancouver over a 5-year period (2014-2019), to illustrate how distinct actions taken by political leaders assembled or disassembled the objects, bodies, and material infrastructures of Oppenheimer Park. In doing so, it will become clear that assemblage is an ongoing and relational process, one that reveals how life in public space is practiced, represented, struggled for, made and remade, by and for marginalized individuals in Vancouver.