Fatal Couplings of Power and Difference: Notes on Racism and Geography

Abstract

To study the complexities of race and geography, research and analysis should center on the fatally dynamic coupling of power and difference signified by racism. The author considers briefly the theoretical and methodological implications of key frameworks geographers used during the past century to account for racialized power differentials. To illustrate the political, economic, and cultural capacities that historical materialist geographical inquiry ought to consider, the author outlines the background for a new project-a case study of the U.S. during a period of unusually intense state-building in the mid-twentieth century. The article concludes that the political geography of race consists of space, place, and location as shaped simultaneously by gender, class, and scale.

“Turn on the radio, bust out a song”: the experience of driving to work

“…In this sense, gender influences commuting because it is a ''constitutive element of social relationships'' and a ''symbolic code by which items and activities are imbued with meaning.'' (Law 1999, 575) If gender is indeed such a complicating factor, then the rationale behind why an individual woman makes a decision about commuting may not have yet entered the researcher's standard bank of survey questions (Cao and Mokhtarian 2005a;Crane 2007;Dyck 1990;Gilbert 1998;Gilmore 2002). Understanding future commute behavior may demand a very different set of queries, and a much more active engagement with the cultural side of transportation (Auge 2002;Law 1999).…”

“Blind passes” and the production of green security through violence on the Guatemalan border

“…While the definitions and implicit meanings of difference change over time and place, deep-seated fears lead people, institutions, and armies to act in violence as a matter of their own security against the unknown Other that is too close for comfort. For those of us seeking to understand where criminalization and brute violence come from, we must look to the ''security gaze,'' to the ''moral panics'' that serve to rationalize states of exception and presumptively criminalize whole peoples (Hall et al, 1978;Gilmore, 2002;Ferradás, 2004). To the extent that security is also read as ''the ability to protect oneself'' (Burrell, 2010, 96), it begs the questions: Whose security is at stake when we speak about security (Mutimer, 1999, 418)?…”

Embedded Empire: Structural Violence and the Pursuit of Justice in East Timor

“…The processes of violence, as Gilmore (2002aGilmore ( , 2002b and Hall (1992) contend in relation to racism, are borne of the union of difference and power, which they characterize as a "fatal coupling" that profoundly informs the collective life and death chances of a particular (racialized) group, shaping its access to resources, power, and rights.…”