Rahim Kurwa - "Indefensible Spaces" - David Stovall

Rahim Kurwa will discuss Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing. He will be joined in conversation by David Stovall. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion. 

RSVP Here: Please note your RSVP is requested but not required. 

At the Co-op.

About the book: Indefensible Spaces examines the policing of housing through the story of Black community building in the Antelope Valley, Los Angeles County's northernmost outpost. Tracing its evolution from a segregated postwar suburb to a destination for those priced, policed, and evicted out of Los Angeles, Rahim Kurwa tells the story of how the Antelope Valley resisted Black migration through the policing of subsidized housing — and how Black tenants and organizers fought back. This book sheds light on how the nation's policing and housing crises intersect, offering powerful lessons for achieving housing justice across the country.

About the author: Rahim Kurwa is an Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology, Law, and Justice and Faculty Affiliate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). His scholarship is focused on questions of housing justice. His book, Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing, offers a case study of the national crisis of the policing of housing, told through a history of Black organizing and resistance in one of Los Angeles’s most overlooked areas, the Antelope Valley. His current research is focused on evictions from the Chicago Housing Authority.

About the interlocutor: David Stovall, Ph.D. is a professor in the departments of Black Studies and Criminology, Law & Justice at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). His scholarship investigates three areas 1) Critical Race Theory, 2) the relationship between housing and education, and 3) the intersection of race, place and school. In the attempt to bring theory to action, he works with community organizations and schools to address issues of equity, justice and abolishing the school/prison nexus.