Racial Capitalisms, Spatial Productions

Space is both a physical and social product. Political, cultural and economic processes produce space and, in turn, shape human action. Taken together, these processes create different spaces for capitalist accumulation and map the relational production of extraction and value. In other words, spatializing practices are coterminous with the production of racial and ethnic difference.

Spatial productions are not limited to the extraction of value. They differ according to the scale (global, local, regional, etc.) of action. For example, at the local level, a variety of informal and illegal practices seek to wrest control over housing from local authorities. Groups form and reshape their memberships, but their practices are nonetheless grounded in localized, situated experiences of spatial struggle. Their struggles are informed by and simultaneously seek to shape extra-local entanglements that compete for control over spatial production.

In this panel, scholars endeavor to explain how dominant, subordinate, legal and illegal practices produce space as an object of value and exchange. Panelists elucidate how spatial production simultaneously generates value and/or disadvantage. Topics include, but not limited to, policies that target already marginalized and vulnerable groups and enforcement practices that seem colorblind, but nonetheless produce racial/ethnic disadvantage. Other forms of producing space promote control over some groups while facilitating the mobility of others. Spatial productions also generate new forms of value through, for instance, changing tax structures, ticketing practices and municipal finance strategies.