 What is root shock? People who have been displaced experience "root shock." Root shock is the traumatic stress reaction to the loss of some or all of one's emotional ecosystem. Root shock can follow natural disaster, development-induced displacement, war, and changes that play out slowly such as those that accompany gentrification. (Photo by Richard Saunders, Pittsburgh Photographic Project) The concept of "root shock" was adapted from gardening by Dr. Mindy Fullilove. She learned about root shock from people who had been displaced by urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s. Her research was published in the book Root Shock: How Tearing Up City Neighborhoods Hurts America and What We Can Do About It.
Aggravating problems through repeated upheaval
While visiting Roanoke, Virginia, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and other cities, Mindy Fullilove learned other stories of displacement caused by disinvestment, gentrification, HOPE VI, mass incarceration and natural disaster. She worked with physicist/ecologist Rodrick Wallace to concepturalize the effects of multiple displacements on the city. They gave this process the name "serial displacement."
The New York Academy of Medicine has established a "Working Group on Serial Displacement and Health." Headed by leading scholars in this area, including Fullilove and Wallace, the Working Group is organizing a conference as its first activity. This conference, on Housing, Health and Serial Displacement, was held on April 8th. Reports from the conference will be posted in June 2009.
Main Street, NJ Dr. Mindy Fullilove is now studying community upheaval through the lens of Main Street. You can follow her visits to Main Streets in New Jersey and around the US and in other countries by visiting her blog, Main Street NJ. Many community groups are fighting one or another form of displacement. All of these efforts are important for creating the stability that people need to have healthy lives and create economic prosperity. The idea of "root shock" has helped people conceptualize both the prevention of displacement and its recovery. The concept of root shock was used by the Indian Red Cross after the Southeast Asian Tsunami. Schoolchildren in India helped to make this video about root shock and recovery.
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