Between Rights and Responsibilities: Insurgent Performance in an Invisible Landscape

The rise of voluntary and participatory discourses under neoliberalism has been met with suspicion among scholars who identify within them vulnerabilities to state cooptation and control. A growing body of research suggests, however, that local communities and volunteer organizations are not so easily duped and that the new politics of public participation offer otherwise rare opportunities to pursue and enact alternative political agendas. This paper contributes to this debate by examining voluntarism in a long-marginalized African American community in Philadelphia. Far from being co-opted agents of state agendas, I argue that voluntary participation in the restoration of a local park has been seized upon by local residents in their efforts to reclaim public space, expose racialized injustice, and enact community citizenship. I adopt social theories of insurgency and performance to make my argument. I conclude with a discussion of the significance of devolution to communities whose principal experience with the state is one of political neglect.