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Who Belongs Here? Homelessness, Care, and the Struggle Over Place

A Social Justice Week 2026 Featured Event with Terrence Wooten, PhD

Terrance Wooten is Associate Professor of Africana Studies at Davidson College. His interdisciplinary research examines structural inequality through sites such as homelessness, law, and higher education. Rooted in Black queer and feminist scholarship, his work explores how institutions govern poverty, vulnerability, and displacement through racialized forms of social control. He is the author of Registered: Homelessness, Sex Offense, and Carceral Sexuality (forthcoming, University of California Press), and his scholarship has appeared in differences, Feminist Formations, The Black Scholar, QED, American Psychologist, and Kalfou.

Public conversations about homelessness often center on emergency responses, yet these responses frequently operate through systems of surveillance, regulation, and displacement that leave underlying conditions unchanged. In this keynote, I draw on my research on homelessness, race, and carceral governance to examine how contemporary responses to homelessness are shaped by broader logics of policing, safety, and social control. I invite participants to think with me about how communities, nonprofits, students, neighbors, and local institutions might engage more intentionally with people experiencing homelessness in the places they share. Rather than treating homelessness as something that exists outside the university, I reflect on how housing insecurity runs through campus life itself and that colleges and universities actively shape the housing landscapes around them. Together, we will consider what kinds of placemaking practices might expand access, deepen care, and shift how communities collectively respond to homelessness.

Related campus initiatives

Transformational education

When

  • 10 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 8

Where

3310 Student Union

UWL campus map for building location and nearby parking lots.

University of Wisconsin - La Crosse Student Union

If you go

  • Free, no registration needed

Contact

For questions about this event or to request disability accommodations , contact Caleb Colon-Rivera at 608.785.5095 or ccolon-rivera@uwlax.edu.

Parking

Payment may be required. No permit?
Use Passport Parking.

Additional parking info
Website for Parking | Email for Parking | Call for Parking

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