Reimagining the unimagined subjects of racial capitalism

Abstract

Marxian and Foucauldian models of power fail to fully imagine all subjects of domination, in particular, water. In this commentary, I use a brief historical sketch of turn twentieth-century Skid Row in Los Angeles, California to reveal the possible hidden history obscured by our assessment of “neglected” land. This commentary explores how the flow of water and water infrastructure influenced the trajectory of private land enclosure. I argue that historic water flows of the Los Angeles River and the prior construction of communal water irrigation infrastructure provided the opportunity for the accumulation of communal land use, attenuating the total enclosure of private property as an urban subdivision. The sketch calls on critical housing studies scholars to reimagine the possible unimagined subjects of racial capitalism.