Uneven redevelopment and low-wage worker organizing in post-Katrina New Orleans

This thesis examines how low-wage workers and worker organizers in New Orleans have responded to the labor geographies of uneven redevelopment in the decade since Hurricane Katrina. I examine how post-Katrina redevelopment reinscribes racial and economic inequalities in the landscape and how low-wage workers and worker organizers in a highly collaborative economic justice movement challenge the goals of redevelopment and the racialized conditions of life in New Orleans. This research is based on field work conducted in New Orleans with four labor and economic justice organizations: Unite Here Local 2262, Stand with Dignity, Show Me $15, and Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC-NOLA). I engaged in service research based on a methodological approach that included feminist methodologies and scholar-activism.