Social geographies of race: connecting race and space

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Ethnic and Racial Studies

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Social geographies of race: connecting race andspace

Brooke Neely & Michelle Samura

To cite this article: Brooke Neely & Michelle Samura (2011) Social geographies ofrace: connecting race and space, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 34:11, 1933-1952, DOI:10.1080/01419870.2011.559262

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2011.559262

Published online: 01 Apr 2011.

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Social geographies of race: connecting race

and space

Brooke Neely and Michelle Samura

(First submission October 2009; First published April 2011)

AbstractThis article examines what it means to study race from a spatialperspective. In order to make explicit connections between spatial andracial processes, we present an interdisciplinary snapshot of the workbeing done under the banners of space and race, and offer a framework �a theory of racial space � for linking these concepts. We provide four keycharacteristics of space � contested, fluid and historical, interactional andrelational, and defined by inequality and difference � that overlap withprevalent theorizing on race and racialization. We suggest that aframework of racial space provides a language for explaining thepersistence of racial inequality in its varied, and often subtle, formstoday, and reveals a useful analytical and practical pathway forchallenging and changing the existing racial order.

Keywords: Race; space; place; inequality; difference; interdisciplinarity.

Introduction

What about race can we understand better through the lens of space?How is racial inequality organized spatially? How do spaces come tobe known and used in racialized terms? Over the past decade, agrowing number of scholars have begun to explore how spatial analysisof racial processes ‘teaches us things about race we cannot know byother means’ (Knowles 2003, p. 78). Empirical studies scattered acrossthe disciplinary landscape contribute to what could be considereda growing body of research into the links between race and space (e.g.Anderson 1995; Feld and Basso 1996; Pulido 2000; Delaney 2002;Razack 2002; Knowles 2003; Bullard 2007; Lipsitz 2007; Woods andMcKittrick 2007; Nelson 2008; Bullard and Wright 2009). Most of thework on race and space thus far, however, has remained clustered in

Ethnic and Racial Studies Vol. 34 No. 11 November 2011 pp. 1933�1952

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fields such as geography, education, anthropology, law and sociologywhich are not always in conversation with one another. After delvinginto these disparate literatures for our own research, we longed for areview piece that gathered the wide variety of works and tied themtogether in such a way that the relationship between race and spacewould become clearer and more analytically useful.

The emerging field of racial and spatial studies has highlighted forus the fact that the ways we (ourselves and the broader intellectualcommunity) think about and conceptualize space mirror the analyticswe use to study race. Both race and space vary across time andlocation, involve political contests over their meaning and emergefrom the interplay between materiality and culture. Also, racial andspatial processes can be seen as co-constitutive and dialectical innature. In other words, racial interactions and processes (e.g. identities,inequalities, conflicts and so on) are also about how we collectivelymake and remake, over time and through ongoing contestation, thespaces we inhabit. In turn, the making and remaking of space is alsoabout the making and remaking of race. What has become increas-ingly clear is how spatial theory offers racial theory a unique lens forexamining the complex processes by which racial difference andinequality are organized and enacted.1

The social links between race and space are not new phenomena.Most notably, there are long-standing historical roots of the race-spaceconnection in the process of imperialism � racializing bodies andgroups has always been linked to the theft of land and the control ofspace (Winant 2002). Indeed, domination itself, as Jennifer Nelsonrecently asserted, revolves around how ‘groups marked as raciallyinferior’ have been ‘defined, confined, regulated, and eradicated . . .through the control of space’ (2008, p. 28). While the intersection ofrace and space has a long history and is deeply socially embedded, wesee the need to clarify and assess this relationship in light of thepresent historical moment. At a time when the term ‘post-racial’ isused to signal a supposed decline in the significance of race, a spatialperspective can provide a particularly useful lens and language forlocating and understanding persistent racial processes.

Through this article, we demonstrate a framework for consideringhow social constructions of space illuminate social constructions ofrace and vice versa. We begin with an overview of the range of waysthat space has been conceptualized and defined, primarily bygeographers, over the last several decades. Drawing on spatial studies,we then propose a framework for linking race and space. We providefour key characteristics of space (i.e. contested, fluid and historical,interactional and relational, and defined by inequality and difference)that overlap with prevalent theorizing on race and racialization. Next,to illustrate the elements of a theory of racial space, we review

1934 Brooke Neely and Michelle Samura

literature that makes connections between race and space throughexaminations of issues such as segregation, (dis)placement, spatialcontestations and place attachments. In this section, we present aninterdisciplinary snapshot of the work being done under the bannersof race and space, with the hope of pushing this theoretical andempirical conversation forward.2 Rather than an exhaustive review, weoffer a targeted appraisal of relevant literatures to provide accesspoints for others to conduct further research of their own. Weconclude by suggesting additional questions to consider and directionsfor further inquiry.

To begin, we must situate contemporary scholarship on race andspace within the broader intellectual turn toward culture and identitysince the 1960s, a move that has paralleled, and in many cases beeninformed by, social movements and contestations of power around theworld. With the critique of positivist models for studying social andgeographic phenomena came a call for scholars to attend to issues ofpositionality, multiplicity and power. The rise of critical studies, post-structuralism and postmodernism provided increased attention to theentanglements of knowledge and power in the humanities and socialsciences as well as in newly formed interdisciplinary fields (i.e. feministstudies, ethnic studies, postcolonial studies). In the midst of all thesetheoretical shifts, scholars of space and race, often separately, wrestledwith how to re-conceptualize studies of geographic and racialphenomena. Before addressing these theoretical overlaps in moredetail, we first turn to a discussion of the rise of contemporary criticalspatial studies.

Critical spatial studies

A brief background

With the emergence of human geography in the 1970s, scholars beganto theorize the meanings embedded in social space (Tuan 1974, 1977;Relph 1976; Buttimer and Seamon 1980). They studied the wayshuman beings identify with and develop attachments to particularlocations. In this work, scholars wrestled with the theoretical defini-tions of space and place, often conceptualizing space as the generalenvironment of social life and place as the meaning and interactionapplied to or made in space. For Yi-Fu Tuan, the first majorgeographer to examine human engagement with space and place,‘undifferentiated space becomes place as we get to know it better andendow it with value’ (1977, p. 6).

Also in the 1970s, critical Marxist geographers began challenginghuman geographers to think about the underlying power relations thatinform the meanings and attachments people ascribe to particular

Social geographies of race 1935

places (see, for example, Harvey 1973, 1989, 1996; Lefebvre 1978,1991; Soja 1989, 1996; Massey 1993, 1994). Reflecting this generaltheoretical shift, Henri Lefebvre (1991) uses Marxist theory to developa framework for studying spatial processes that makes necessarylinkages between culture and political economy, with spatiality beingan important element of economic and social reproduction. He writes,‘One of the consistent ways to limit the economic and political rightsof groups has been to constrain social reproduction by limiting accessto space’ (1991, p. 22). In other words, relations of power intersectwith and may force the movement or placement of people; they alsoinform the knowledge produced within and about particular spaces.Similarly, Doreen Massey cautions against the de-politicization orneutralization of space by some scholars and contends that space is, infact, ‘a complex web of relations of domination and subordination, ofsolidarity and cooperation’ (1993, p. 81). These frameworks emphasizehow the workings of knowledge and power are key to understandingspatial processes.

Over time scholars have debated the early theoretical conceptions ofspace and place by arguing that space is actually the meaningfulembodiment of place (Casey 1996) or that place is ‘a particularconstellation of social relations’ in space (Massey 1994, p. 154). Othershave chosen to embrace the ambiguity of these terms (Harvey 1996).David Harvey emphasizes the benefits of ‘the multiple layers ofmeaning’ embedded in the concept of place, arguing that these layers‘reveal a great deal about social, political, and spatial practices ininterrelation with each other over time’ (1996, p. 208).3 In addition tospecific conceptual definitions, scholars grapple with what constitutesthe spatial realm. In the 1970s, while bringing power into theconversation on space, Marxist geographers also critiqued positivisticspatial theories that separated the ‘spatial’ realm from social processes.They argued these theories tended to explain spatial organization onlyin terms of spatial factors. Instead, critical scholars argued, ‘so-calledspatial relations and spatial processes were actually social relationstaking a particular geographical form . . . space is constituted throughsocial relations and material social practices’ (Massey 1993, p. 70).They embraced the aphorism ‘space is a social construct’. Then in the1980s, new ideas emerged about the relationship between the socialand the spatial, with some scholars arguing that space is more than asocial construct. They argued that space is not simply a setting, butrather it plays an active role in the construction and organization ofsocial life. The main point to take from these theoretical debates is thatsocial and spatial processes are deeply connected and continuallyinteract with and influence one another.


Key space scholarship

In order to better understand the infusion of knowledge and powerinto discussions of space and place, let us take a deeper look at thework of two prominent critical geographers � David Harvey andDoreen Massey � who each cast a critical global light on spatialtheory, focusing on the politics and inequalities imbued in the localand global processes of space and place. Harvey examines placethrough the lens of global materialism, in which places and placeattachments are continually influenced by the mobility of globalcapital. He focuses on ‘the political economy of place constructionunder capitalism’ (1996, p. 295), emphasizing how capitalism yieldsplaces riddled with inequality. Responding to postmodern assertionsthat the significance of place is waning,4 Harvey argues that theglobalized world has not necessarily obscured the meaning of place,but has actually pushed people to stake reactionary claims to place inexclusionary ways. Important in his conception of place is theopposition between fixed places (at least in the minds of inhabitants)and mobile capital. In the face of a global political economy, peoplework to ‘protect’ their place in the world. From Harvey’s perspective,place remains a dominant social construction, a reaction to globalcapitalism that reinforces global inequalities.

Building upon Harvey’s framework, Massey (1994) agrees thatglobal capital’s effect on place is significant, but she argues for a morecomprehensive understanding of the ways placement maintainsinequality, namely that places are raced and gendered (though shedoes more explicit theorizing on the gendering of place). Globalprocesses of racism and patriarchy also create an environment in whichsome people are able to move freely and others are forced to move orto stay put. Social power plays an important role in how people movein the world and how they connect to place. Unlike Harvey, Masseydoes not see all place identifications as reactionary. People mayactually need a sense of rootedness, she argues, and the globalmovement of the postmodern world does not necessarily instil anxiety.Advocating instead a progressive or global sense of place, Masseyasserts that, even though places often have exclusionary and proble-matic singular identities, historical narratives and clearly definedboundaries, they can be better understood as a point of meeting, aprocess of intersections with permeable boundaries, multiple andconflicted identities and distinctiveness forged through local andglobal social relations.

We can see in Harvey’s and Massey’s work the influence of post-1960s theories of culture and identity, with intensified focus on thehow space is entangled with processes of knowledge and power. Thiscritical turn in geography has also informed discussions of space and


place in other disciplines (Giddens 1984; Logan and Molotch 1987;Agnew and Duncan 1989; Blomley 1989, 1994; Friedland and Boden1994; Basso 1996; Gieryn 2000; Blomley, Delaney and Ford 2001; Lowand Lawrence-Zuniga 2003; Butler 2009). Recently, scholars inAmerican studies have engaged with this discussion over the con-temporary significance of place (Buell 2006; Deloria 2006; Halttunen2006), focusing both on the need for more spatialized studies withinthe humanities, particularly through a multi-centred, progressive andnarrative-based approach (Halttunen 2006) and on the need to thinkmore about how a progressive sense of place can be dismissive ofpeople’s experience of place loss, whether as a result of colonization,migration or natural disasters (Deloria 2006). This cross-disciplinarytheoretical dialogue speaks to a broader interest in and turn towardsspace and place.5 Indeed, a number of scholars engaged in racialresearch have also recognized and addressed the spatial dimensions ofrace and racism (e.g. Massey 1994; Feld and Basso 1996; Kobayashiand Peake 2000; Tickamyer 2000; Delaney 2002; Razack 2002;Knowles 2003; Lipsitz 2007; Dwyer and Bressey 2008). The degreeto which they engage explicitly with the links between space and racevaries, but their work provides a solid foundation for more explicittheorization of race-space connections.

Key characteristics of space

As a way to further distill the theoretical discussion above and toillustrate the connections between race and space more clearly, wedraw upon existing theoretical debates to outline specifically what wemean when we talk about space. Doreen Massey (1994) recommendsthat researchers be explicit in their reasons for using terms such as‘space’ or ‘spatial’ because meanings differ between authors even asthey often assume that their meaning of space is apparent anduncontested. In light of the definitions discussed above, we havedistilled four central characteristics of space. Space is 1) contested, 2)fluid and historical, 3) relational and interactional, and 4) infused withdifference and inequality (Figure 1).

First, spatial theorists emphasize how the meanings and uses ofspace are not neutral or universal, and argue that social actors engagein political struggles over how to define and use spaces. Low andLawrence-Zuniga offer a useful definition for thinking about thepolitics of space. They describe contested spaces as ‘geographiclocations where conflicts in the form of opposition, confrontation,subversion, and/or resistance engage actors whose social positions aredefined by differential control of resources and access to power’ (2003,


p. 18). Second, these contestations, in turn, cause the meanings anduses of spaces to change over time. Space has come to be seen not as afixed cultural thing, but rather as a multi-vocal, fluid process (Rodman1992; Massey 1994; Lippard 1997). Spaces are always changing andcontested (Seamon 1980; de Certeau 1984; Pred 1984; Soja 1989), andthey are largely created and maintained through performative,embodied experience (Thrift 1996; Rose 1999). Third, the fluidity ofspace plays out through relational and interactional processes. It iscomprised of interlocked, ‘stretched-out social relations’ (Massey1994) and possesses ‘the simultaneous coexistence of social interrela-tions and interactions at all spatial scales, from the most local level tothe most global’ (Massey 1993, p. 80). This also involves social actors(individuals, groups, institutions) who create, disrupt and recreatespatial meanings through interaction with one another. Finally, thepolitical struggles over space play out through structures of differenceand inequality that define and organize spaces according to dominantinterests (see, for example, Harvey 1996; Tickamyer 2000). Themeanings and uses of space have much to do with defining whodoes and who does not have the power to define and control space.These characteristics reflect current intellectual understandings ofspace across the disciplines, and, in our view, provide a usefulframework with which to engage the overlaps between spatial andracial studies.

Figure 1. Key characteristics of space

SPACE

- Contested - Fluid and historical - Relational and interactional - Difference and inequality


Connecting space and race

With these spatial characteristics in mind, we believe critical spatialtheory has a lot to offer racial studies. One of the strengths of criticalspatial theory is how it addresses power on individual and structurallevels. Massey argues that, ‘since social relations are bearers of power,what is at issue is a geography of power relations in which spatial form isan important element in the constitution of power itself ’ (Massey 1994,p. 22). While a number of spatial theorists address socially constructedcategories of difference and oppression, they focus primarily on classstructures and the intersections of economic and political power. Morespecifically, these scholars focus on the inequality of material resourcesand the subsequent social inequalities that play out in everydayinteractions as well as at larger structural levels. Their work on theways that spaces reinforce power structures is useful for analysing thecurrent racial order because it provides a way to address social relationsand social structures in their material and intangible forms. Usingspatial frameworks, we can see space as one element of the creation andmaintenance of social inequality. Space is also often a more tangiblemanifestation of systemic racial inequalities � think of residentialsegregation, global displacement and land theft.

Perhaps the most explicit theorization of race-space connections todate has been done by Caroline Knowles. In her work on the socialanalysis of race, Knowles argues that an adequate study of race andracism must attend to ‘the spatial dimensions of race-making’ (2003,p. 78) � a spatial analysis of racial processes ‘teaches us things aboutrace we cannot know by other means’ (p. 78). In fact, Knowlescontributes a particularly insightful definition of space relatedspecifically to race-making. She writes:

Space is an active archive of the social processes and socialrelationships composing racial orders. Active because it is not justa monument, accumulated through a racial past and present �although it is also that � it is active in the sense that it interactswith people and their activities as an ongoing set of possibilities inwhich race is fabricated. (Knowles 2003, p. 80)

Similar to the work of spatial scholars like Doreen Massey (1994) andLucy Lippard (1997) who discuss the layers or hybridity of places,Knowles’ active archive attends to the sociality and the historyenmeshed in space. This concept also recognizes the dialectical processof space and race-making, in which multiple actors with collective andconflicting narratives and interests create racialized spaces, just asspace and race act (through people) back upon identity and socialformations.


Knowles outlines four ways through which racial and spatialprocesses intersect: 1) the contestations over our built environment;2) the everyday embodied and performed social lives of people; 3) themovement (placement and displacement) of people; and 4) the socialrelationships engaged in by individuals and groups. Her frameworkallows us to understand how race and space interact in the architectureof the social world, in the lived experience of people, and inthe structures and institutions that shape social life. We build uponthese connections between race and space, along with the othersdiscussed in previous sections, to develop a framework � a theory ofracial space � that may help us better understand and more clearlyarticulate the ways in which race and space operate.

Toward a theory of racial space

With their theory of racial formation, Omi and Winant (1994 [1986])call attention to the shifting meanings of race across time and spaceand to the political and state ‘projects’ that define what race meansand determine how race is used to control and exploit humans beings.Similar to conceptualizations in spatial theories, the theory of racialformation engages with the contested, historical and interactionalprocesses that make and remake race. While race may be a durableconcept in society, it must be understood not as a fixed thing, but as afluid and contested ‘complex of social meanings’ that have tangiblematerial effects (Omi and Winant 1994 [1986], p. 55). Racial formationtheory connects the ideological realm to the social and political realms,and it posits that these connections are on-going historical, politicaland dialectical processes between materiality and culture. Recognizingthe analytical overlaps between spatial theories and racial theoriesallows us to think more clearly about the spatialization of race and theracialization of space (Lipsitz 2007). As a way to make connectionsboth visually and conceptually between space and race, we offerFigure 2.

We suggest that a spatial approach to examining issues of race isparticularly useful since the primary characteristics of space are sharedby the primary characteristics of race. Building on race-spaceconnections being made by Knowles and the work of others on whichwe will elaborate in this section, we have distilled four characteristicsof space that possess crucial analytical overlaps with conceptualiza-tions of race.

First, both race and space involve political struggles over theirmeanings. Conflicts over resources and access to space, that is, how aparticular space should be known and used, may play out as conflictsalong racial lines. For example, we can see racialized political strug-gles over space in New Orleans which the redevelopment projects and


environmental justice concerns post-Hurricane Katrina (Bullard andWright 2009; Woods 2009) and the oppositional place-makingpractices of local residents in the Ninth Ward (Breunlin and Regis2006). We can see contestations over both space and race in a numberof other conflicts over housing and urban space as well as in strugglesover land and its development, particularly surrounding people’s senseof belonging, entitlement and ownership. For example, in JenniferNelson’s (2008) study of Africville, Nova Scotia, she charts theevolving use of this space � from slum to razed community to publicpark to protest site � and illustrates the crucial connections betweenracism and the contestation of this space. A similar example can befound in the history of wilderness preservation in the United States, apractice that has run into opposition from Native nations, who weredisplaced as a result of the development of national parks and forestsand who argue against the idea of carving out particular areas of landfor ‘preservation’ (Spence 1999). And Clyde Woods and KatherineMcKittrick (2007) highlight the radical possibilities of black geogra-phies, specifically the oppositional place-making imaginaries andpractices employed by subaltern actors.

Racialized contestations over space also occur frequently in therealm of education. For example, students’ sense of belonging indifferent campus spaces may be closely related to the racial make-up ofthe student population or even to practices that maintain andreproduce certain relations of power (Samura 2010). In a multi-campus study of racial diversity, Duster and colleagues explored howstudents engage in inter- and intra-racial interactions by mappingareas of campus in which there were ‘clear demarcations of racial and

Figure 2. Racial space

SPACE

- Contested - Fluid and historical - Relational and interactional - Difference and inequality

RACE


ethnic ‘‘spaces,’’ areas where one or another group dominates in termsof who ‘‘hangs out there’’ or where other groups ‘‘vote with their feet’’regarding spatial domination’ (1991, p. 7). They concluded that itwould be useful for future research to explore, to a much greaterextent, where these explicitly racial spaces are and how they arecreated and maintained.

In addition to being contested, race and space are also fluid andhistorical. Their meanings shift and change over time and withindifferent contexts. Knowles’ (2003) idea of space as an active archive isparticularly useful for thinking about the fluidity of spatial and racialmeanings. Highlighting the complexities of spaces, Knowles provides astriking example of an instance in which layers of meaning accumulateover time. She discusses the site of a nightclub that, years ago, wasused to hold slaves before they were transported out of Africa, andasks how we should understand a location that is simultaneouslya place of entertainment and a former slave castle. Similarly, a varietyof social institutions (e.g. education and military) with a history ofracial exclusion are now commonly understood to be key spaces forupward mobility of racial minorities. These examples illustrate howthe meanings and uses of race and space change across time. Such anapproach to space unpacks the multiple layers of meanings embeddedin what may be considered a fixed location.

In addition to the shifting meanings of race and space, we can alsotrace the trajectory of their relationship over time. Douglass Masseyand Nancy Denton (1993) highlight the long history of racism andspatial organization with their study of racialized residential segrega-tion. By charting the rise of the black ghetto in US cities during thefirst half of the twentieth century, they detail the ways blackAmericans have been isolated spatially into urban ghettos over time.Similarly, Sherene Razack discusses the spatial dimensions of what sheterms ‘white settler societies’ (2002), or nations developed throughcolonial settlement. She argues that studying the history andcontemporary conditions of white settler societies requires thatwe consider the connections between racial and spatial processes,especially since ‘legal and social practices . . . reproduce racial hierar-chies’ (p. 17) through space. Clyde Woods’ (1998) work on theMississippi Delta also calls our attention to the spatial dimensionsof historical inequality and injustice. Mapping the socio-historicalcritique embedded within the blues, he illuminates the resistancestrategies employed by African Americans against the plantationsystem, and explains how the theft of Native nations land and blackpeople’s labour created a lasting socio-spatial structure in theMississippi Delta. Woods and others illustrate the fluidity of meaningin and historical development of racialized spaces.


Third, space and race are interactional and relational. Meanings ofspace and race are continuously made and remade through interac-tions between groups and individuals at both the macro- and micro-levels. Moreover, meanings of race and space are always created andrecreated in relationship to an ‘other’ (Said 1979). Said’s concept of‘imagined geographies’ helps us understand the spatial dimensions ofimperialism more specifically. Within Said’s framework, the imperialcentre maps a body of racialized discourses onto the periphery in waysthat maintain geographic and social hierarchies. Here we can see howspace and race involve ‘other-ing’ processes that establish andmaintain particular racial and spatial positioning.

Implicitly engaging with the connections between race and space,Cheryl Harris (1993) highlights the relational nature of race and spacewhen she uses the notion of property to explain the benefits ofwhiteness. Within Harris’s framework, whiteness carries a privilegedsense of belonging and entitlement to space and is fundamentallydefined by exclusion and subjugation. The places whites controlmaterially and symbolically require the unjust (dis)placement ofpeople of colour � the reservation system and urban ghettoizationare just two examples of this. Therefore, the maintenance of whiteproperty and the sense of entitlement that accompanies white identitycannot be divorced from the historically systemic exclusion of peopleof colour. From this perspective, white supremacy relies on (dis)place-ment, on both an abstract and a concrete level.

Also offering an important look at the relationality of race andspace, Kay Anderson (1995) traces the development and changes inVancouver’s Chinatown, highlighting the ways Chinatowns haveoperated as a tool of the state in the service of European hegemony.She argues that we cannot disentangle the ideological formations ofrace from the material production and practices of space. In fact,spatial manifestations of racial ideas often serve to naturalize racialinequalities. She writes, ‘The idea of a Chinese race became objectifiedin space . . . and through that nexus it was given a local referent in theminds of Europeans, became a social fact, and aided its ownreproduction’ (p. 31).

Within the fields of urban planning, rural studies and evenlandscape architecture scholars reveal how racial identities becomeclosely linked to particular spaces. Eric Heikkila (2001) argues thatspaces such as ‘the ghetto’ and ‘the inner city’ are spatial manifesta-tions of a racial phenomenon because they are spatial forms of racialother-ing. And, while urban spaces have been more explicitly markedand studied as racial spaces, rural spaces have remained under-studiedas far as race is concerned. Some scholars argue that this is becauserural space is associated with whiteness, and is therefore unmarkedracial space (Hoelscher 2003; McCarthy and Hague 2004; Vanderbeck


2006). They show, for example, how representations of whiteness inVermont serve to maintain white privilege (Vanderbeck 2006), andhow the collective narratives of the West reinforce white supremacy(Hoelscher 2003; McCarthy and Hague 2004). All these studiesillustrate the relational nature of race and space.

Finally, space and race are defined by inequality and difference. Infact, power relations are often inscribed into material spaces andplayed out through racial interactions. Kevin Durrheim and JonDixon’s (2001) study of race and space in South Africa provides atelling example of this. They illustrate how rhetoric about beach spaceswas used in South Africa as a tool of racial exclusion after apartheidended. Other examples of racial inequality and difference playing outthrough space include environmental racism, disputes over citizenshipstatus, neighbourhood racial segregation and even decolonizationprojects and new forms of colonialism that stem from outsourcing orinternational trade.

David Delaney suggests we look at the ‘local geographies of race’(2001) when addressing racial segregation in the United States. Heargues we must consider both the legal and the spatial processes atwork. These frameworks may be applied more generally to under-standing how groups of colour are systematically spatially organizedin ways that undermine their well-being. For example, Laura Pulido(2000) finds racial inequalities and the maintenance of white privilegein the management of toxic waste in Los Angeles, and Susan Smith(1993) uncovers the racialization of urban neighbourhoods in London.All these scholars engage with the ways in which race and racism areembedded in the social geographies we inhabit.

In a special issue of The Professional Geographer, a group ofgeographers recently wrote about the intersection of racial and spatialprocesses, calling on geographers to engage with the whiteness of theirdiscipline and the racialization of the spaces they study (see, forexample, Delaney 2002; Gilmore 2002; Pulido 2002). These scholarsemphasize the dominance of white spatial imaginaries (Dwyer 1997;Kobayashi and Peake 2000; Pulido 2000; Lipsitz 2007), and theychallenge geographers’ complicity in the privileging of whiteness(McGuinness 2000; Pulido 2000, 2002; Delaney 2002; Gilmore2002). They help us to see the symbolic and material ways in whichracism is embedded in the spatiality of social life, and within thecontested places in which we live. In other words, they highlight theways the analytics of race and space help us to see things we might nototherwise see.

In this section, we have outlined four characteristics for makingsense of the relationship between race and space, highlighting howrace and space are defined by 1) contestation, 2) fluidity andhistoricity, 3) interactions and relationality and 4) difference and


inequality. Obviously these four characteristics are not mutuallyexclusive. There is significant overlap among them, and often allfour characteristics are simultaneously occurring. Additionally, weshould give attention to both explicitly racial spaces, that is spaces inwhich we would expect to see racial processes occurring, and lessexpected racial spaces. In doing so, we check and challenge ourassumptions about how racialization and racism currently operate.

Today, race continues to matter but in ways different from any othertime. Although overt forms of racial discrimination that were once legalare no longer commonly accepted, racial inequality remains a definingfeature of social life in the twenty-first century. In this supposedly ‘post-racial’ moment, locating processes of racialization and even talkingabout how race and racism continue to operate can be tricky. Forexample, how can we understand the continued, even increased, racialsegregation in schools in the United States more than fifty years afterthe formal discriminatory practices were deemed unconstitutional(Brown v. Board of Education, 1955)? In response to dilemmas suchas these, we can, as Lipsitz argues, ‘disassemble the fatal links thatconnect race, place, and power’ (2007, p. 5), by envisioning andemploying ‘new kinds of spaces and spatial imaginaries’ (p. 11). Ourframework for racial space offers an effective way of thinking andtalking about the critical connections among power, space and race.

A theory of racial space posits that space matters to race because, asthe four characteristics are shared by both space and race, what isviewed as purely a matter of space is also a matter of race. Integratingthese concepts theoretically allows us to see how contested racialprocesses are enacted through claims to, and organization of, socialspace. Linking race and space explicitly helps us understand how thefluid and historical nature of racial formation plays out around on-going negotiations over the meanings and uses of space. Thisconceptual marriage highlights how the definitions and meanings ofrace and space are enacted and embodied social processes. A race-space framework also illustrates how the processes of difference andinequality converge around the organization of both race and space.

Implications of racial space and directions for future research

If, as Massey suggests, ‘social change and spatial change are integralto each other’ (Massey 1994, p. 23), then thinking about race throughthe lens of space not only helps us locate and understand racialprocesses, it also allows us to recognize possibilities for changingexisting power structures and see how people are already engaged inthese resistance activities. Looking at racial phenomena through aspatial lens allows us to take a step back and consider the larger,structural workings at hand. This lens enables us to explore the less


visible and un-articulated links between race and space at the micro-and macro-levels as well as in discursive practices. We can see howracial positioning, access, achievement and engagement are all aboutracial politics and the struggles to maintain or resist the existent racialhierarchies. Racial space also provides a language with which bothresearchers and lay people can talk about the discrete ways race stilloperates in everyday interactions as well as the subtle forms of racismthat are overlooked or ignored because many people consider race lessimportant today. Put simply, we argue that a spatial perspective revealsanother analytical and practical pathway through which the racialorder can shift and be changed.

We began this article by arguing for more explicit articulations ofthe relationship between race and space. With the goal of highlightingkey analytical overlaps between racial and spatial work, we traced thetheoretical contributions to race-space research through disciplinessuch as geography, American studies, ethnic studies, sociology andeducation. We explored the ways some scholars have drawn on aspatial perspective to explore issues of race. And we offered a theory ofracial space for making sense of the connections between race andspace. Now, where should we as race scholars go from here? What arethe avenues for further research? While this article pushes theconversation forward, we now need more empirical and theoreticalwork that fleshes out both the on-the-ground processes of and theanalytical overlaps between race and space. We see many possibledirections for this work.

To begin, we see great potential in revisiting existing work on raceand space through the lens of racial space. For scholars of space,incorporating racial studies may help uncover particular powerdynamics or processes of inequality. Alternatively, for scholars ofrace, drawing on a spatial lens may reveal another dimension throughwhich race is organized and enacted. Looking forward, we seepossibilities for new empirical work that takes as its starting point thesignificant intersections between racial and spatial processes. Whetherthis work addresses contemporary urban racial displacement, historicalanalyses of racial exclusion, boundary negotiation in postcolonialspaces or any other pressing racial issues, we believe the characteristicsof racial space help illuminate social processes that would otherwiseremain less visible. We can also imagine studies that ask broaderquestions such as: What social relations and social identities are beingre/produced in and through social and physical spaces? How do socialrelations and spatial processes affect one another?

This framework for racial space can also be mapped onto analysesof other lines of difference and inequality. Thinking about inter-sectionality with respect to spatial relationships may help us see themultiple and complicated social processes at work. Other identities


and social locations (e.g. gender and class formations) are negotiatedin and through space, as well as in and through race. Finally, we hopethis article spurs further discussion and research, and we look forwardto seeing what transpires from this theoretical conversation.

Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful for the generous support and feedback fromHoward Winant, Eve Darian-Smith, and George Lipsitz as wedeveloped our ideas on how race and space are connected and whythese connections matter. We would also like to thank Annalise Glauz-Todrank and members of UC Santa Barbara’s Law and Societygraduate student seminar who offered candid feedback on our drafts.

Notes

1. Likewise, the analytics of space can be mapped onto a range of other social concepts �e.g. gender, sexuality, class and so on � as some feminist scholars have done (Massey 1994;

McDowell 1999; Domash and Seager 2001).

2. Because we offer this essay primarily to an audience of race scholars, we have chosen to

limit our discussion of how we are conceptualizing race. We do, however, want to state

upfront that we draw primarily on Omi and Winant’s (1994 [1986] theory of ‘racial

formation’ to understand and examine multi-level, shifting meanings of race and the

centrality of power in theories of race. Our work is also informed by scholars who make the

case that race and racism remain enduring features of the socio-political landscape in

the United States and argue that a sustained, critical scholarship on the material and

symbolic dimensions of race is needed (Omi and Winant 1994 [1986]; Lipsitz 1998; Feagin

2000, 2006; Bonilla-Silva 2003).

3. Scholars do not always clearly distinguish between the terms ‘space’ and ‘place,’ and we

do not intend to resolve the ambiguity of this distinction in this article. However, as David

Harvey suggests (1996), the tricky and confounding nature of these concepts may actually

allow for further theoretical possibilities. For more discussion of the distinction between

space and place, see Keith and Pile (1993), Knowles (2003) and Cresswell (2004).

4. Another realm of spatial studies emerged with the rise of postmodern theory, with

many scholars arguing that the significance of place has dwindled in the face of

contemporary global capitalism and its attendant time-space compressions, e.g. strip malls,

airports, Disneyland. For more on this, see, for example, Harvey (1989) and Soja (1989).

5. This broader turn also includes spatial approaches, such as mathematical modelling, to

examine concrete usage of physical environments. While we do not cover them in this article,

we believe these approaches have the potential to significantly inform efforts to critically link

race and space. For example, GIS can be a useful tool for analysing environmental hazards,

racial segregation and so on.

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BROOKE NEELY* is a doctoral candidate in the Department ofSociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.ADDRESS: Department of Sociology, University of California, SantaBarbara, CA 93106, USA. Email: [email protected]


MICHELLE SAMURA,* PhD, is Academic Coordinator for theUniversity of California Center for New Racial Studies and a researchfellow in the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center at the University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara.ADDRESS: 2201 North Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara,CA 93106-2150, USA.Email: [email protected]

* The authors contributed equally to this article.


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Social geographies of race: connecting race and space