Get Involved

You can get involved in the Housing Justice Oral History Project as an interviewer or as a narrator. More than being interested in assembling narratives, we intend to build relationships. We seek to work closely with a group, association, or organization for a period to build rapport and to decide how to tell and visualize the narratives collaboratively. We intend to build trust that might evolve into a one-time collaboration or a long-term partnership with Parsons Housing Justice Lab (HJL) involving community advocacy and public education programs.

If you are an oral historian, scholar, or community leader working closely with a tenant association, housing cooperative, mutual housing association, community land trust, community-based organization, neighborhood initiative, or any other group organizing for housing justice and are either interested in or currently involved in conducting an oral history with such a group, there are different ways to collaborate with us and include your work in our online repository. Please fill out the following form to provide more information about yourself and your oral history project: HOUSING JUSTICE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT CONTRIBUTION FORM

If you are an undergraduate, graduate, or postgraduate student or a researcher actively engaged in housing or urban studies, either at The New School or beyond, and you are interested in contributing to the ongoing oral history projects to gain experience in designing, conducting, and disseminating oral history projects, please fill out this form: HOUSING JUSTICE ORAL HISTORY PROJECT INTERNSHIP FORM

Through this work, we also aim to develop a framework for conducting oral histories that other institutions, researchers, and movements can learn from when designing their own projects. We are available and interested in mutual learning and supporting your work toward designing and conducting oral history, building interview skills and protocols, and developing ethical community and institutional processes. All involvement in this project, whether as interviewer or narrator, is conditioned on mutual respect and grounded in an ethical orientation towards co-creation, personal agency, and collective care.

This project involves communities marginalized by New York City’s housing system and whose activism increases their vulnerability to surveillance, policing, or landlord harassment. Thus, ensuring the safe participation of all individuals, groups, and communities is at the heart of our work. All team members are committed to a working framework that acknowledges ethical protocols and refuses any action that may increase the risk of involvement for any narrator. We see this as an opportunity to get creative with how narrators can participate in and shape this oral history. We also center the expertise and authority of narrators on developing risk mitigation strategies and designing modes of participation that directly support the safety and success of themselves and their communities. As in any oral history project, narrators retain the right to withdraw from the oral history at any point.

Please don't hesitate to contact us: housingjustice@newschool.edu