Literal Belonging: Safe Outdoor Spaces Modeling Oral History Making

ABSTRACT

In this article, I cite oral history narratives donated by people living and working at Safe Outdoor Spaces (SOS)—sanctioned campsites in Denver, Colorado—to propose that SOS sites (which follow a harm reductionist stance, offer physical safety, and are largely staffed by peer navigators) offer a model for oral history making that takes place daily and off the record. As oral history projects contribute to representational belonging in archives and historical records, we might also consider the ways in which oral history making can create a belonging that is lived, inherent, and literal. By framing SOS sites as one possible living model for oral history making, this article demonstrates how oral history might shape not only our future understanding of the past but also the way our society lives in the present.

KEYWORDS:

• best practices
• peer navigators
• representational/literal belonging
• sanctioned urban campsites
• shared vulnerability
• symbolic/literal annihilation

Acknowledgments

I am grateful foremost to the people living and working at SOS sites who shared their experiences in the SOS Oral History Project. Further thanks to Chad Seader, Anna Winter, Lucien Darjeun Meadows, and Sara Sheiner, whose encouragement made it possible to submit a draft of this article, and to the Oral History Review peer reviewers and editorial team, whose generous and thoughtful suggestions helped this article find its shape.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflicts of interest are reported by the authors(s).

Notes

^1. D., interview by author, August 19, 2021, The Safe Outdoor Spaces (SOS) Oral History Project, transcript, p. 1, https://www.alisonturnercomposing.com/sos-oral-history-project.

^2. D. interview, transcript, p. 2.

^3. “About Us,” Colorado Village Collaborative, https://www.coloradovillagecollaborative.org/about.

^4. This project has partially been accessioned into the History Colorado online oral history collection: “History Colorado Online Collection,” History Colorado, https://5008.sydneyplus.com/HistoryColorado_ArgusNet_Final/Portal.aspx?lang=en-US&g_AAFC=HistoryColorado_ArgusNet_Final+%7cObject+%7c%25SsearAtta+%3d+%272022.47.1%27&d=d. The full collection is available online on the author’s personal website: Alison Turner, “Safe Outdoor Spaces (SOS) Oral History Project,” Alison Turner, https://www.alisonturnercomposing.com/sos-oral-history-project.

^5. Crystal Mun-hye Baik, “From ‘Best’ to Situated and Relational: Notes toward a Decolonizing Praxis,” Oral History Review 49, no. 1 (2022): 4 (italics are Baik’s).

^6. Baik, “From ‘Best’ to Situated and Relational,” 3.

^7. Baik, “From ‘Best’ to Situated and Relational,” 5.

^8. Michelle Caswell et al., “‘To Be Able to Imagine Otherwise’: Community Archives and the Importance of Representation,” Archives and Records 38, no. 1 (2016): 1–22.

^9. “Principles of Harm Reduction,” National Harm Reduction Coalition, accessed February 18, 2023, https://harmreduction.org/about-us/principles-of-harm-reduction/.

^10. Alessandro Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different,” in The Oral History Reader, eds. Robert Perks and Alistair Thomson (London, UK: Routledge, 1998), 63–74.

^11. Elspeth H. Brown and Myrl Beam, “Toward an Ethos of Trans Care in Trans Oral History,” Oral History Review 49, no. 1 (2022): 29–55.

^12. Michael Frisch, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1990), 26; Amy Starecheski, “Introduction to Using Oral History for Research,” virtual workshop, September 30, 2022.

^13. Caswell et al., “To Be Able to Imagine Otherwise,” 2.

^14. D. interview, transcript, p. 4.

^15. Frank Kensaku Saragosa, personal conversation with author, December 2022. The metaphors of “sweeping” and “cleaning up,” more often used to describe that which needs to be thrown away, are used with normalcy in Denver newspapers, reports generated by advocacy groups, and community members. For example, see Joe Rubino, “Denver’s sweeps, cleanup zones criticized for pushing homeless farther from city center—and housing resources,” Denver Post, January 29, 2022, updated June 2, 2022, https://www.denverpost.com/2022/01/29/denver-homelessness-sweeps-housing-resources/; Denver Homeless Out Loud, Swept to Nowhere: Experiences and Recommendations from Unhoused People during the COVID-19 Pandemic, https://denverhomelessoutloud.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/swept-to-nowhere_-experiences-and-recommendations-from-unhoused-people-during-the-covid-19-pandemic.pdf.

^16. Caswell et al., “To Be Able to Imagine Otherwise,” 4.

^17. Cuica Montoya, “Oral History of Cuica Montoya,” interview by author, September 16, 2021, SOS Oral History Project, History Colorado Online Collection, transcript, p. 4, https://5008.sydneyplus.com/HistoryColorado_ArgusNet_Final/Portal.aspx?lang=en-US&g_AAFC=HistoryColorado_ArgusNet_Final+%7cObject+%7c%25SsearAtta+%3d+%272022.47.1%27&d=d.

^18. Montoya interview, transcript, p. 23.

^19. Montoya interview, transcript, p. 5.

^20. Issac, interview by author, August 17, 2021, SOS Oral History Project, transcript, pp. 4–5, https://www.alisonturnercomposing.com/sos-oral-history-project.

^21. D. interview, transcript, p. 7.

^22. D. interview, transcript, p. 8.

^23. I explore this question more thoroughly in the context of the Denver Coliseum’s repurposing as an emergency shelter for women and trans folx during the COVID-19 pandemic. Alison Turner, “Archival Readiness: Building Shelter for ‘Homelessness’ in Archives,” Archivaria 92 (2021).

^24. D. interview, transcript, p. 4.

^25. For example, see the ongoing zine project Keeping Six Hamilton out of Ontario: “The Zine—Keeping Six,” Keeping Six Hamilton, https://keepingsix.org/zine/. I explore the topic of zines and community publishing among communities experiencing homelessness in Alison Turner, “Perfectly Designed for Connections: Zine Making in Denver Shelters,” Western American Literature 57, no. 2 (2022): 153–67, https://doi.org/10.1353/wal.2022.0016.

^26. Daniel Kerr, “We Know What the Problem Is’: Using Oral History to Develop a Collaborative Analysis of Homelessness from the Bottom Up,” Oral History Review 30, no. 1 (2003): 27–46; Amy Starecheski, “Squatting History: The Power of Oral History as a History-Making Practice,” Oral History Review 41, no. 2 (2014): 188, Project MUSE.

^27. “About Us,” Colorado Village Collaborative.

^28. Nick, “Oral History of Nick,” interview by author, August 20, 2021, SOS Oral History Project, History Colorado Online Collection, transcript, p. 9, https://5008.sydneyplus.com/HistoryColorado_ArgusNet_Final/Portal.aspx?lang=en-US&g_AAFC=HistoryColorado_ArgusNet_Final+%7cObject+%7c%25SsearAtta+%3d+%272022.47.1%27&d=d.

^29. Nick interview, transcript, p. 6.

^30. Montoya interview, transcript, p. 23.

^31. Issac interview, transcript, p. 6.

^32. Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different,” 68.

^33. Portelli, “What Makes Oral History Different,” 67.

^34. Physical safety is as nuanced and individual on the streets as it is off. For example, Helena Reynoso, an SOS site coordinator, describes how the people she calls “street kids” look out for one another, sometimes in ways that are implied. She shares two memories of being followed and an attempted assault: “Both of the times that had happened to me, somebody else jumped in, grabbed me and helped me get away … . You know we were always looking out for each other but when it comes to the women especially like I think a lot of the males on the streets look out for us without us even knowing.” For Reynoso, the streets are a place where she could be both attacked and protected from these attacks. Helena Reynoso, “Oral History of Helena Reynoso,” interview by author, August 19, 2021, SOS Oral History Project, History Colorado Online Collection, transcript, p. 2, https://5008.sydneyplus.com/HistoryColorado_ArgusNet_Final/Portal.aspx?lang=en-US&g_AAFC=HistoryColorado_ArgusNet_Final+%7cObject+%7c%25SsearAtta+%3d+%272022.47.1%27&d=d.

^35. Andrew C., interview by author, August 18, 2021, SOS Oral History Project, transcript, p. 4, https://www.alisonturnercomposing.com/sos-oral-history-project.

^36. Andrew C. interview, transcript, p. 6.

^37. Nick interview, transcript, p. 11.

^38. Anna Sheftel and Stacey Zembrzycki, “Slowing Down to Listen in the Digital Age: How New Technology Is Changing Oral History Practice,” Oral History Review 44, no. 1 (2017): 97–98; Brown and Beam, “Toward an Ethos of Trans Care in Trans Oral History”; Elizabeth N. Agnew, “On (Not) ‘Humanizing’ Muslims: Challenge and Opportunity in an Oral History Project with American Muslims,” Oral History Review 49, no. 2 (2022): 178–98.

^39. Sheftel and Zembrzycki, “Slowing Down to Listen in the Digital Age.”

^40. A nation-wide study by the UCLA Williams Institute found that 8 percent of transgender adults experienced homelessness in the year prior to the 2020 survey, versus 3 percent of cisgender and genderqueer respondents and 1 percent of cisgender straight adults. “Homelessness Among LGBT Adults in the US,” Williams Institute, University of California, Los Angeles, May 2020, https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/lgbt-homelessness-us/.

^41. Brown and Beam, “Toward an Ethos of Trans Care in Trans Oral History,” 29. They also cautioned that oral history making among trans communities without this attention to care has the potential to “endange[r] the most marginalized of trans people” via “surveillance and neoliberal representational politics.”

^42. Brown and Beam, “Toward an Ethos of Trans Care in Trans Oral History,” 35.

^43. Research in other contexts confirms what Montoya knows. In a pilot paper for a forthcoming study on peer support among people who identify as experiencing “alcohol or drug problems,” Tessa Parkes et al. found that peer staff are an “essential element of harm reduction services.” In another project, Michael Mancini studied qualitative interviews with twenty-three “certified peer specialists” in the US Midwest supporting patients in mental health facilities and programs; he proposes that peer navigators use “strategic storytelling” to do their job. These observations from Parkes and Mancini signal a growing understanding of the importance of storytelling and story listening in clinical settings. Tessa Parkes et al., “Supporting Harm Reduction through Peer Support (SHARPS): Testing the Feasibility and Acceptability of a Peer-Delivered, Relational Intervention for People with Problem Substance Use Who Are Homeless, to Improve Health Outcomes, Quality of Life and Social Functioning and Reduce Harms; Study Protocol,” Pilot and Feasibility Studies 5 (2019): 7, 3, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40814-019-0447-0; Michael A. Mancini, “Strategic Storytelling: An Exploration of the Professional Practices of Mental Health Peer Providers,” Qualitative Health Research 29, no. 9 (July 2019): 1267–78, https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732318821689.

^44. Montoya interview, transcript, p. 19.

^45. Reynoso interview, transcript, p. 5.

^46. Montoya interview, transcript, p. 12.

^47. Montoya interview, transcript, p. 12.

^48. Montoya interview, transcript, p. 8.

^49. Not all SOS residents are fans of the peer navigator model. Tyrone, who was born and raised in upstate New York and had lived in Colorado for seven years at the time of his interview, observed some possible challenges in the peer navigator model. Citing an experience of being barred from several shelters connected to the same system, he reflects, “Once again, you’re giving power to a bunch of, trying to say this nice, a bunch of … hurt people hurt people. This dream that you have of a hurt person being healed helping hurt people is ludicrous. It has never worked.” It is notable that he does not discuss being barred from SOS sites or SOS staff, but from staff with lived experience in other shelter systems. Tyrone, interview by author, August 17, 2021 SOS Oral History Project, transcript, p. 3, https://www.alisonturnercomposing.com/sos-oral-history-project.

^50. Nick interview, transcript, p. 6.

^51. Nick interview, transcript, p. 7.

^52. Reynoso interview, transcript, p. 6.

^53. Montoya interview, transcript, pp. 28–29.

^54. Frisch, A Shared Authority: Essays on the Craft and Meaning of Oral and Public History, 26.

^55. Starecheski, “Introduction to Using Oral History for Research,” workshop, September 30, 2022.

^56. Reynoso interview, transcript, pp. 4–5.

^57. Caswell et al., “To Be Able to Imagine Otherwise,” 2.

^58. Caswell et al., “To Be Able to Imagine Otherwise,” 16.

^59. Montoya interview, transcript, p. 23.

^60. Montoya interview, transcript, p. 23.

^61. D. interview, transcript, p. 13.

^62. D. interview, transcript, p. 13.

^63. Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes, “Building Partnerships between Oral History and Memory Studies,” introduction to Oral History and Public Memories, ed. Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2008), vii.

^64. D. interview, transcript, p. 10.

^65. D. interview, transcript, p. 11.

^66. Agnew, “On (Not) ‘Humanizing’ Muslims,” 179. Further, Agnew suggested that this kind of repair heals the “ethical loneliness”—a concept she borrowed from Jill Stauffer—that occurs among communities who are “being treated unjustly and dehumanized by people and political structures, compounded by the failure to be properly heard about what one has experienced.”

^67. Agnew, “On (Not) ‘Humanizing’ Muslims,” 189.

^68. D. interview, transcript, p. 4.

^69. D. interview, transcript, p. 9.

^70. D. interview, transcript, p. 13.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alison Turner

Alison Turner is a 2022–2024 American Council of Learned Societies Leading Edge Postdoctoral Fellow in Jackson, Mississippi, where she coordinates a community-based oral history project. She is on the editorial collective for Coda, the creative writing section in Community Literacy Journal, and her critical work appears or is forthcoming in Western American Literature, Archivaria, Reflections, American Archivist, and American Indian Quarterly. She facilitates creative writing groups in shelters and prisons and has collaborated on several zine and journal publications featuring the work of writers living in these spaces.