Why we chose Travis Lupick’s Fighting for Space
I spotted this book in a library display of local topics. I thought Ash might find the topic relevant to her interests. I was also curious to learn more about the area which I worked adjacent to for the past year.
Fighting for Space tells the story of a grassroots group of drug users in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside who waged a political street fight for two decades to transform how the city treats its most marginalized citizens. Fighting for Space follows the lives of two women—Liz Evans, who founded the Portland Hotel Society, and Ann Livingston, who co-founded the Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users—and the extraordinary lengths they went to help their community weather a crisis. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, this group of residents from Canada’s poorest neighbourhood organized themselves in response to a growing number of overdose deaths and demanded that addicts be given the same rights as any other citizen. But just as their battle came to an end, fentanyl arrived and opioid deaths across North America reached an all-time high. It’s prompted many to rethink the war on drugs. Public opinion has slowly begun to turn against prohibition, and policy-makers are finally beginning to look at addiction as a health issue as opposed to one for the criminal justice system. The previous epidemic in Vancouver sparked government action. Twenty years later, as the same pattern plays out in other cities, there is much that advocates for reform can learn from Vancouver’s experience. Fighting for Space tells that story, with the same passionate fervor as the activists whose tireless work gave dignity to addicts and saved countless lives.
Description via Goodreads
Our Discussion
Ash: I like this book. Let it be known. I think it’s a very important book. I study criminology, so like Jenna said when she suggested this book, it’s pertinent to my interests. I’m a left-leaning person so the ideas of this book are kind of in line with how I think. Which is a good disclaimer to have at the beginning of this post: I have a very strong left bias so I like this book a lot because it’s also very left leaning.
Jenna: Let’s talk about that for a second, that you feel the need to put up a kind of political disclaimer before we get into this topic. Lupick describes recent addictions research, so it seems like a lot of the ideas int he book are so obvious. It’s similar to the discussion surrounding sex ed – you can’t just not give teens condoms and expect they therefore won’t have sex, right. Among some people that’s still a controversial idea, but harm reduction and drugs and in particular giving people clean needles for drug use can be very controversial even among the left.
Ash: Right, cos people can have sort of a tunnel vision. Drugs are bad so why would we enable people to use them? They don’t expand their view to consider “Yes, we’re enabling them to take drugs but to do so in a safe manner where they can be better protected than in alternative situations”. Lupick does try to stay very evidence based but as we know about how politics and view points work nowadays, science doesn’t mean a lot to certain people.
Jenna: While the book tries to address that a bit, that’s not really its purpose. The nature of the book feels like an oral history. It’s easy to read and accessible and you’re learning all about this organization, but because that’s the way the book is set up, it’s not necessarily trying to make the most compelling, convincing argument that these practices are good ideas. It’s more like the history of what this one group did. So if you’re not already inclined/open to these ideas, I think they could sound pretty ridiculous to you.
Ash: I like how it kept that historical vibe, including the map and photos to give faces to names. This book does have a lot of names and dates, but the flow works well. To be honest, I didn’t realize until I started reading that it basically start in the 80s. I thought it was going to be more present (my bad for not paying attention to the description) but I love historical books like this anyway. You can follow the changes over the decades. The org chart as well was incredibly helpful in understanding where the groups come from and where the oversight is. I flipped back to it a lot.
Jenna: Something I didn’t know was how rough the 90s were – and that seems pretty recent to me. I had a vague awareness of the PHS through my work, but I had no idea the founders were all outed in 2014. It was a surprise for me to read about. And the book doesn’t address that very well. Obviously, Lupick is talking to the people who were ‘fired’ and they’re not going to talk too much about it. We don’t hear from any of the ‘new management’ in this book. The book gives the impression that a bit of financial mismanagement (barely discussed) was used as an excuse for politicians to give them the boot because they didn’t like the activism that was taking place…But this all made me go “Hrmmmm, really?” I felt there were some pieces missing.
***
Ash: I liked the comparisons with other city’s experiences. You can always benefit from looking at other situations with similar circumstances, such as Miami’s needle exchange. These inserts were a bit short and disjointed, though. I liked the information but it interrupted the main narrative.
Jenna: Right, this isn’t a novel – it’s basically long form journalism. The short chapters helped it clip along.I read it in three days. I found it pretty compelling to read about a city I moved to recently and an area that I worked adjacent to. The last thing I want to talk about is – what’s Winnipeg problem? [Well, meth for one but I’m not typing up our discussion on that here] There’s a thing or two to learn here…
Ash: There is no one at a higher level who understands this and can make it happen. I don’t get how you can just not address this. I wonder if I have that opinion because I’m left-leaning and naturally inclined to support these ideas or because I’m simply accepting the evidence that’s been provided?
Jenna: And thus our discussion comes full circle! Even people who have a similar perspective and opinion of us could be just really focused on prevention. There can be this ideas of “No drugs, drugs are bad! We must stop people from using drugs”, like you mentioned before. Obviously it would be best if we could just do that and have effective prevention for everyone everywhere. But there may never be enough money or time or resources or political will to make that happen.
Final Thoughts
Overall, we both learnt a lot from the content of this book. While there were some gaps and awkward flows, Fighting for Space reads like an informative and engaging history of one neighborhood and the people and organizations who worked to transform it.
Leave a Reply