Meghan Doyle
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Meghan Doyle's PhD research project
Detroit Is Us: A qualitative study of community action and DIY spirit in Detroit’s hidden neighbourhoods after state bankruptcy
My thesis explores the ways in which active residents in Detroit’s hidden neighbourhoods are reimagining urban futures at a local level in response to global crises as the City exhibits the ideal preconditions for hope and change.
This is examined through the individual and collective efforts of Detroit’s residents in developing a movement to redress the effects of global, social and financial inequality in the first quarter of the 21st century.
The research is positioned within a framework of social and environmental justice, community development studies, community geography and futures-focused anthropology, while also drawing on political, economic and critical urban studies. It draws on theories from David Graeber, Sarah Safransky, Adrian Pabst, Cornel West, Marjorie Mayo and Thomas Sugrue as a basis for examining contemporary forms of community development practice taking place in Detroit.
Researcher biography
I am community development practitioner with 25 years of experience in social housing, urban regeneration and resident involvement. For the past ten years, I have led the social and economic investment programme with Notting Hill Genesis on the groundbreaking Aylesbury Estate regeneration project, a 20-year, circa £1billion programme rebuilding the neighbourhood with and for the residents who call it home, while sustaining its many community strengths.
I hold an MA in social anthropology and art history from the University of St Andrews and an MPhil from the Glasgow School of Art in evaluating community arts practice. Many years later, while working in social housing in the UK, my native city of Detroit filed for the largest-ever municipal bankruptcy with a debt of $18billion, the highest unemployment rate of any large US city (23%) and nearly 30% vacant land.
With the population decreasing by two-thirds in the fifty years prior and mainstream media obsessed with portraying a ghost town of ruin-porn empty buildings, I felt compelled to learn from and amplify the stories of those residents who remained in the city and weathered the storm, focused on rebuilding their neighbourhoods from the ground-up through collective action and grassroots organising.
With the impacts of the global financial crisis and coronavirus pandemic still rippling through our societies and economies, compounded by decades of a neoliberal capitalist order perpetuating and exacerbating significant social and economic inequalities, it was shocking to see the voices of affected residents virtually absent academic literature on urban change and regeneration.
My thesis, Detroit is Us, decidedly explores how resident-activists in two hidden neighbourhoods in Detroit have been affected by global crises, public policy and resource distribution, while critically, have proactively designed their own community-led solutions to create urban futures built on social justice, equity and mutual reciprocity.