“KEEPING THE KIDS OUT OF TROUBLE”: EXTRA-DOMESTIC LABOUR AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION IN TORONTO’S REGENT PARK, 1959-2012 RYAN K. JAMES A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO May 2017 © Ryan K. James, 2017 Abstract This dissertation is an historical ethnography of social reproduction in Regent Park, Canada’s first public housing project. Built from 1948 to 1959 as part of a modernist ‘slum clearance’ initiative, Regent Park was deemed a failure soon after it opened and was then stigmatised for decades thereafter, both for being a working-class enclave and for epitomising an outdated approach to city planning. A second redevelopment began in 2005, whereby the project is being demolished and rebuilt as a mix of subsidised and market housing, retail space, and other amenities. Despite its enduring stigmatisation, however, many current and former residents retain positive memories of Regent Park. Participants in this study tended to refer to it as a ‘community’, indicating senses of shared ownership and belonging that residents themselves built in everyday life. This dissertation emphasises the capacity of working-class people to build and maintain ‘community’ on their own terms, and in spite of multiple and intersecting constraints. To theorise community-building, I begin from the concept of social reproduction: the work of maintaining and replenishing stable living conditions, both day-to-day and across generations. Much of this work is domestic labour – unpaid tasks done inside the household such as cooking, cleaning, and raising children. In Regent Park, social reproduction demanded even more of residents: the stability of households was often threatened by dangers and challenges unique to life in a stigmatised housing project, and it was largely left up to residents themselves to redress these. To account for the considerable effort this involved, I propose a concept adjacent to domestic labour that I call “extra-domestic labour”: unpaid work done outside the household, usually through informal collaboration among members of different households, that is necessary for social reproduction. Extra-domestic labour built ‘community’ and fostered a territorial solidarity that, I argue, is the primary means through which Regent Parkers developed class consciousness. This ii was often expressed through emic class categories, which were defined in relation to the locality more so than the workplace, and through which people interpreted their position in the wider social order. iii Dedication To my parents, Kathy and Russ James. Their decades of hard work, kindness, and support made it possible for me to try university in the first place, let alone finish a PhD. I love you both. To my daughter, Nia James-O'Connor, nine years old and writing her first book, a screenplay, and some songs. I love you Nia! You are amazing. iv Acknowledgements My utmost thanks to every current and former Regent Parker who took the time to tell me their story. I would name you all individually if I did not have to maintain confidentiality. I am very grateful, and I hope my work has done justice to your experiences. I am fortunate to have been supervised by such an engaged, collegial, and dedicated committee. Thank you to Malcolm Blincow, Marilyn Silverman, and Douglas Young. I have gained a lot from being challenged, guided, and supported by you over the years. Our meetings and conversations are always a pleasure. Love and special thanks to Honor Brabazon, for the invaluable companionship, coaching, and feedback that it took for me to turn a very rough draft into a complete dissertation. Thanks also to the following: o Kerri Miller – going on 15 years of support and friendship. Please let me know if you find any typos in this dissertation. o Albert Schrauwers and Daphne Winland, for the generous feedback, moral support, and administrative guidance. o Those who have stayed solid through years of ups and downs: my oldest friends Omar Awara, Jay Bhadra, Mike Brito, Andrew Leyton, and Fraser Thomson, and my cousin Patrick McDonough. o The following friends, collaborators, colleagues, instructors, and others who have helped in various ways: Tania Ahmad, Othon Alexandrakis, Denise Allen, Shaheen Ariefdien, Kamal Arora, Martine August, Elif Babul, Ranu Basu, Joseph Bautista, Tommy Beach, Baani Bhathal, Jorge Britto, Marla Brown, Alessandro Camargo, Matt Collie, Juan Da Vila, Sarah Dennis, Siena Dolinski, Lynette Fischer, Anna v Galati, Ravi Gill, Alicia Grimes, Sunday Harrison, Teresa Holmes, Gail Hulls, Fatimah Jackson-Best, Sharon Kelly, Ken Little, Maia Machen, Maggie MacDonald, Siobhan McCollum, Jean McDonald, Nikki McFadyen, Heather McLean, Philip McManus, Rhiannon Mosher, Natasha Myers, Wesley Oakes, Amandeep Kaur Panag, Aruna Panday, Liselotte Pedersen, Meri Perra, Sean Purdy, Ruhama Quadir, Effrosyni Rantou, Josh Rapport, Nathan Rector, Faith Robinson, Jade Robinson, Paige Sayles, Maya Shapiro, Constance Simmonds, Emily Simmonds, Kaila Simoneau, Trevor Smith, Karen Swartz, Michelle Switzer, Alex Thomson, Karoline Truchon, Jaime Yard, and Dan Yon. o Diana Baldassi, Karen Rumley, and the late Sylvia Vettese for years of help with paperwork and procedure. o Every undergraduate student who has ever taken an interest in my lectures and tutorials. o The entire James and McDonough families. Finally, I am thankful for the funding and awards I received as a graduate student, from the Canadian Union of Public Employees (Local 3903), the Faculty of Graduate Studies at York University, the International Planning History Society, the Ontario Graduate Scholarship program, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………ii Dedication………………………………………………………………………………………...iv Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………..v Table of Contents..….……………………………………………………………………….…...vii Chapter One: “So Many Eyes on You”…………………………………………………………...1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Methodology and Ethics: “I Do Not Foresee Any Risks or Benefits From Your Participation in the Research” …………………………………………………………...13 From “Slum Clearance” to “Revitalisation”: Background and Chapter Outline………...28 Chapter Two: Social Reproduction, Domestic Labour, and Emic Class Formation: a Framework for an Historical Ethnography of Regent Park …………………………………………………..39 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………....39 Gramsci, History, and Regent Park: the Concept of Hegemony………………………...41 Domestic Labour, Social Reproduction, and Class Consciousness…………………...…49 The Emic and the Etic: Community, Class, and Metissage……………………………...60 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….67 Chapter Three: “Whoever Planned South Regent Did a Great Job”: A Youthful Regent Park, 1959-1969………………………………………………………………………………………..70 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………70 “No One Could Ever Convince Me to Leave”: The Built Environment of a Working- Class Enclave…………………………………………………………………………….75 Stigma, Roughness, and Coal in Bathtubs……………………………………………….86 Emic Class Identities: Work, Welfare Bums, and Meritocracy………………………….95 Conclusion: “Working-Class Realism” and Nostalgia…………………………………121 Chapter Four: Security, Racialisation, and Social Reproduction in Regent Park, 1970-1984…126 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..126 Security, Violence, and Predation………………………………………………………131 Help and Discipline: Supralocal Power Institutions……………………………………148 vii New Economy, New Differences………………………………………………………163 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………...184 Chapter Five: Common Sense, Territory, and Stigma, 1985-2001……………………………..189 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..…189 Common Sense....………………………………………………………………………193 Territory………………………………………………………………………………...208 Conclusion: Creative Destruction………………………………………………………231 Chapter Six: “Like Any Other Neighbourhood”: Neoliberal Urbanism and Social Inclusion in Regent Park, 2002-2012………………………………………………………………………...240 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..240 “Like Any Other Neighbourhood”……………………………………………………...244 Melodrama………………………………………………………………………….......252 Social Inclusion…………………………………………………………………………259 Conclusion: Displacement……………………………………………………………...280 Chapter Seven: Conclusion: “It Wasn’t That Bad”…………………………………………….286 “Keeping the Kids out of Trouble”: A Synthesis……………………………………….290 Implications and Directions for Future Research………………………………………297 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………302 Appendix A: Sketch of Regent Park Housing Projects, 1959 – 2005………………………….324 viii Chapter One “So Many Eyes On You” Introduction This dissertation is a study of the connection between domestic labour, social reproduction, and class consciousness in an urban Canadian context. It makes this connection through an historical ethnography of everyday life in Regent Park, a part of downtown Toronto widely known as Canada’s first modernist public housing project. Following Marxist-feminist scholarship on “domestic labour”, I use the term to refer to unpaid tasks done in the household towards the ends of social reproduction. Throughout this dissertation, I also expand the term to include what I call “extra-domestic labour”: unpaid work done in the “community” just outside the household, usually through informal collaboration among members of different households, and also towards the ends of social reproduction. I argue