James Tracy is an author and organizer based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
His articles on social movements and urban studies have appeared in Race, Poverty and the Environment, Left Turn, AREA Chicago, Shelterforce, Dollars and Sense, Z, Processed World, and the Contemporary Justice Review. He co-founded the Eviction Defense Network during the nineties and serves currently on the Board Of Directors of the San Francisco Community Land Trust.
Areas of Expertise
Through my work with the San Francisco Community Land Trust, I have developed and understanding of the need for Land Reform in the United States. Our systems of land use and private property have failed-producing foreclosures, displacement, while further degrading environmental and labor standards. But if the system isn't working-what might?
The dangers and opportunities of the present moment are enormous, which is why contemporary social movements-the ways in which everyday people respond to crisis-are a focus in my writing. I've covered the Global Justice Movement as well as local mobilizations for the right to housing, economic and racial justice. I'm currently turning my attention to the study of Religious Left and the Right-Wing of the anti-globalization movement.
In order to understand where we are going, we have to understand where we have been. Unfortunately, dominant histories of the 1960's and 1970's often offer simplistic and sensationalistic depictions of the era, and focus on well-known activist "super-stars". My work looks at some of the people whose activism might not have made the front page news but were important none-the-less.
I've written dozens of Book and Culture reviews-ranging from Fox New's action thriller "24" to documentaries such as "Boom, the Sound of Eviction" and Kari Lydersen's "Out of the Sea and Into the Fire."
