THE CITY AND THE CITY: AN ETHNOGRAPHIC ARCHAEOLOGY OF UNHOUSED CAMPS IN THE NOMA BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT DISTRICT IN WASHINGTON D.C.

The NoMA Business Improvement District (BID) is one of Washington DC’s fastest developing areas and prior to the complete eradication of unhoused camps from NoMA’s underpasses, had the highest concentration of homelessness in the city. Using archaeological and ethnographic methods, I examine the convergence of NoMA’s newly developing luxury city and the tent city. This dissertation, which is partly historical and partly ethnographic, unpacks the legacy of poverty governance in the United States and how unhoused people have been targeted by property owners and city leaders in the neoliberal era. Contextualizing the history of homelessness in the United States alongside the historical production of space in the NoMA area, focuses in on the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production and the ways that property owners and city leaders conspire to control the movements of unhoused people. Examining the role that shelters and other so-called caring institutions have in the punitive control of unhoused people, I pull out the relationship between poverty governance and human agency. Narrowing in on the long durée history of camps made by and for unhoused people, I contextualize modern tent camps within a long history of resistance to dehumanizing and controlling institutional spaces. Many of the unhoused people I worked with in NoMA lived in underpasses created during DC’s City Beautiful Movement. Describing the daily encounters between housed and unhoused people, I contextualize the complaint-oriented campaign initiated against unhoused residents in NoMA, and the routine violence they endured by the District government. I end this dissertation talking about how the NoMA BID successfully lobbied the DC government to permanently evict all unhoused people from the underpasses and establish them as "no tent zones." This reveals the power that BIDs have in the neoliberal era and the primacy of urban consumption within the capitalist mode of production. BIDs are not simply practicing ‘mean urbanism,’ but rather are fighting for the very survival of the capitalist mode of production. Unhoused people are on the frontlines of a growing class war being waged over public space. By understanding the camps made by and for unhoused people as both products of uneven distribution and alternatives to dehumanizing institutions, I promote the radical rights of unhoused people to occupy public space. Understanding these spaces to be vital resources for the daily survival of unhoused people which encourage autonomy, solidarity, and mutual aid that help those who wish to take the steps necessary to exit homelessness.