I never thought that there’d be a place with local personalities to rival Adelaide’s own Johnny Haysman. However 6 months or so of living in the vicinity of King Street, Newtown has led me to the conclusion that Johnny has some stiff competitors. They include:
1. Dave. Needs no introduction. Often accompanied by his chilhuahua.
2. Bird Man. My personal favourite King Street personality. He makes amazingly accurate bird noises with which he often charms small children. Their parents usually don’t seem to understand that he means no harm - this is probably because he is generally swigging from a longneck and trying to fish food out of his beard whilst performing said bird noises.
3. Raving Electric Scooter Guy. When RESG is in full flight, he can be heard screaming abuse at any random and playing either death metal or Wagner at top volume, whilst riding his electric scooter (like the ones that are usually found in shopping malls attached to grandmas). He has many muscles, many tattoos and dresses exclusively in black. On a mellow day, RESG can be found in the town square with his chums, one of whom is …
4. Newtown Pirate. This guy seems like your average shuffling King Street pedestrian. Until he sticks his face about 0.5 cm from yours and lets forth with, ‘Arrrrr! ye beauty! Arr!!’ and then keeps walking.
5. Cane Man. CM can usually be seen executing fancy footwork tricks with the aid of a walking stick (i.e. a cane). There has been recent speculation that CM is trying to out-personality the other King Street personalities by adopting all of their characteristics. He has been seen walking the street with a small dog, and on another occasion he was witnessed making bird noises.
I’m trying to find a more accurate and respectful way of talking about ‘poor’ locales in relation to ‘rich’ locales, globally speaking. Traditionally one would say ‘Third World’ and ‘First World’, or ‘developed’ and ‘developing’. They’re both very powerful and very problematic. The first pair is politically very out-dated. The second is slightly less out-dated, but has more explicit overtones - it sets up the ‘rich’ world as having a standard that the ‘poor’ world do not reach. Whilst it acknowledges inequality, it is also this sort of mentality that perpetuates the ‘Third World’ debt cycle (e.g. through ’structural adjustment’ programs which attach harsh conditions to aid money).
And of course, people and their circumstances do not divide neatly into two groups … particularly when they don’t define *themselves* as Third World or rich or whatever.
I’m essentially talking about the different material conditions people live in, and how they can be compared. I want to be clear that, yes, certain places are poor. People in them do not have food, water, health care or education. In comparison, others places are rich. They have food, water, health care and education in abundance. So I wonder if referring to “materially poor” locales and “materially rich” locales is one way of going about it …
Last week I met with this guy who is working with Shack Dwellers International. He suggested I include them somehow in my thesis. Here are some thoughts about this:
SDI are a bigger social movement that the MST that started around the same time, but they don’t get the same level of attention in the global North/First World … SDI are international whereas MST is Brazilian, though it is strongly connected to Via Campesina, the global network of small-scale producers, rural workers and indigenous communities … The MST, being largely based on the struggle for self-determined land for farming, is a social movement that is heavily romanticised in the North … SDI, on the other hand, inhabit a ‘de-romanticised’ space (I guess it’s harder to romanticise life in a place like Smoky Mountain in the Philippines than on land that’s been won from ruling-class landowners in Brazil) …
…. Interestingly, both SDI and MST are primarily responses to rapid urbanisation in the South, which has pushed people off land and out of work. However, where MST are encouraging people ‘back’ to living and working off the land, SDI fights for a better life in slums and shanty towns.
Also,
Both movements look out for people’s dignity and self-worth as well as improving their material conditions … both movements are also made up of people who have been displaced by neo-liberal globalisation (the growth of the city, the globalisation of industry, the co-optation of the state etc) … both are directly made up of the people for whom they act … both are organised more loosely and horizontally than tightly and vertically … and to an extent, both identify as part of the global justice movement.