Rethinking geographies of race and austerity urbanism

Abstract

Austerity has become a key consideration for studying ongoing state restructuring of the urban since the economic crisis of 2008. However, academic debates have yet to fully interrogate the role of race in this process. This article reviews geographic literature on race and austerity. It outlines the emergence of austerity urbanism, and the geographic, sociological, and political science literatures from which it draws its origins from. Focusing on the interplay between race/racialization and austerity, this article engages with critical theories of race to better understand the “raced” nature of austerity, and how these processes shape cities. Critical theories of race have been influential in linking race to forms of state power and governance in geography, while also exploring racism as a material and discursive formation that is connected across space and time by capital. Austerity urbanism literature has yet to develop a sophisticated analysis of the racialized dimensions of austerity in the U.S. context. Rather, scholarship up to date theorizes race through fixed categories, where racialized groups are seen and mapped onto austerity policy outcomes. In this paper, I propose that critical theories of race can provide an analytical framework for geographers to better understand the relations between race and austerity through the lens of racial capitalism by revealing how periods of neoliberalization are organized along racial lines and operate through and upon terrains of racial domination and empire. This means framing race and racism as a process (i.e., racialization) that is inextricably embedded in the logic of the neoliberal project. This paper concludes with commentary on possible future directions, both empirical and conceptual, that engagements with racial capitalism can offer to the literature on austerity urbanism to interrogate race, power, and justice across the Global North and South.

Philanthropy to the rescue? Detroit’s schools and urban policymaking under austerity

“…Rather than work through democratic systems, both elite coalitions blended their political and philanthropic influence to fund research, parental groups, and lobbyists that advanced their agenda while bypassing democratic systems. This highlights both the influence of philanthropists and how they interact with what Phinney (2020: 1) calls “historically and geographically distinctive terrains of racial domination,” Both sets of philanthropists were able to their advance their chosen market-based policies in ways that may not have been possible without racialized system of emergency management imposed on this majority-Black community.…”

“…Indeed, the removal of decision-making power from democratic systems and its transfer to private actors is widely described as a central feature of austerity urbanism (see Peck, 2014; Ponder and Omstedt, 2019; Soederberg, 2019). Yet, as Phinney (2020: 6) describes, the precise mechanisms through which these informal networks shape policy remains an area in need of research that can “examine how the current postcrisis moment allowed for the development of new discourses and policy practices that reinforce and justify processes of exclusion via state restructuring and austerity cuts.” By drawing on the work of Pulido (2016) and Ranganathan (2016) on the Flint water crisis, Phinney (2020: 1) further argues that we need to pay particular attention to how austerity regimes are not uniform but rather “operate on historically and geographically distinctive terrains of racial domination and empire.”…”

“…The influence of these philanthropists, and the debates between them, are analyzed in this paper as a means of examining the realities of policymaking under ‘austerity urbanism,’ defined as the functioning of cities under severe fiscal constraints (Peck, 2014; Phinney, 2020; Soederberg, 2019). A key aspect of urban policymaking under austerity has been a shift in power from democratic systems towards networks of private actors, with philanthropists playing a central role in this process.…”

The sensor desert quandary: What does it mean (not) to count in the smart city?

“…This is evident in Safransky's exploration of algorithmic violence, defined as “a repetitive and standardised form of violence that contributes to the racialization of space and the spatialization of poverty” (2019, p. 200). Here, algorithms that help city officials to make decisions about which neighbourhoods will receive investment have enhanced highly racialised processes of austerity urbanism (Phinney, 2020), further entrenching existing patterns of racialised segregation generated by historical “redlining” policies in US cities.…”

Winners of the 2019 Jim Lewis Prize

“…Today, energy justice and inequality considerations occupy a much more central policy and scientific space on the European agenda compared to the period when I started and undertook this research. There is also a much richer body of work on austerity itself, with an emergent line of scholarship starting to interrogate the socio-technical embeddedness of austerity, and its rendering through distinct practices of infrastructural governance (Hall, 2019; Phinney, 2020; Silver, 2019). I hope that the Jim Lewis prize for my paper will inspire and motivate younger researchers on this topic from across the world.…”