A case for arts-integrative research on reparative spatial justice: Learning from Boston Chinatown

Urban studies and planning researchers are increasingly investigating questions of reparative justice related to redressing racial harms of city making and creating more just urban futures. This critical commentary suggests community-based arts and cultural organizing as avenues for reparative justice research that moves away from damage-centered narratives toward desire-based accounts that emphasize people’s creative practices and illuminate processes of healing, reimagining, and remaking. Revisiting the history of Asian American reparations advocacy and drawing on urban studies and planning research by participatory researchers and artist activists embedded in Chinatown’s multigenerational social justice and cultural ecosystem, the article examines the emergence and role of arts practices within three community-led initiatives for reparative spatial justice. The analysis considers the role of key actors and groups involved with community-based art and cultural organizing efforts, different and overlapping functions of arts practices within community-based reparative justice work along with their facilitating factors and surrounding conditions. The concluding discussion reflects on how Chinatown reparative justice struggles can help reveal shared challenges with other reparations and reparative justice initiatives and generate mutual insights to address interrelated injustices.