Race, Space, and Nature: An Introduction and Critique

Abstract

In this essay we put forth nested arguments about the way that racialization remains a powerful force in contemporary society, contending that intersections with space and nature offer important lessons about the (de)construction of race. We argue that the pernicious character traits of racial constructs develop through spatial practices and intersect with ideas about “nature” and belonging. We trace these concepts through recent conversations in geography and environmental studies, and we call for a persistent, critical, and prominent engagement with racialization in the spatial social sciences. Finally, we introduce the papers that constitute this symposium, which engages these questions from a range of perspectives and across a variety of landscapes. We hope to spur the conversation about “race and geography”, broadly conceived, beyond studies conceptualized around race alone. We are hopeful that this work, and the larger body of work it contributes to, travels beyond academic conversations to engage broader social justice debates about the “nature” of racial inequality—to ultimately participate in its dismantlement.

Toxic Space and Time: Slow Violence, Necropolitics, and Petrochemical Pollution

“…Although slow violence entails a postponement of harm, it is often also predicated by an entrenchment of long-standing social inequalities, rendering some groups more vulnerable to pollution than others. As geographers and environmental justice scholars have repeatedly demonstrated (Pulido 2000;Bullard et al 2008;Walker 2012;Brahinsky et al 2014), the distribution of pollution has a highly racialized dimension, which fits with Mbembe's postcolonial framing.…”

An environmental justice assessment of public beach access in Miami, Florida

“…In contrast, Mexicans' limited beach access is a concern because they exhibit social vulnerability based on their strong positive correlations with both economic insecurity and instability. Historical processes of racialized poverty confine Mexican immigrants in the U.S. primarily to agricultural work (Brahinsky et al, 2014), and this mitigates their exposure to cancer risks from on-road air pollution (Grineski et al, 2013) but it hampers their access to public beaches. Additionally, those who are socioeconomically vulnerable based on neighborhood economic insecurity have relatively difficult access to public beaches; while those characterized by higher neighborhood instability have better access to beaches.…”

“…Pulido (2000Pulido ( , 2015 asserts that understanding racism requires unpacking the complementary notion of white privilege. Race and place are mutually constitutive; and desirable places such as parks and beaches are racially coded based on conceptions of environmental privilege (Brahinsky, Sasser, & Minkoff-Zern, 2014;Hankins, Cochran, & Derickson, 2012;Park & Pellow, 2011). Structural racism and white privilege have created landscapes such as Miami Beach in which white tourists are served by immigrants and racial/ethnic minorities, while it is extremely rare that racial/ethnic minority tourists are served by white workers.…”

Esclavitud, género y racialización en Alicante: la colonización de los cuerpos femeninos (ss. XVII-XVIII)

“…Dicha diferenciación, finalmente, se inscribe sobre los cuerpos, es decir, se corporaliza (Brahinsky, Sasser, & Minkoff-Zern, 2014), de manera que, sobre mi objeto de estudio (las mujeres negro africanas) "los cuerpos de las mujeres negras son construcciones sociales, políticas y raciales" (Moharam, 1999, p. 45).…”