Book review for Cannibal Capitalism: How our System is Devouring Democracy, Care, and the Planet and What We Can Do About It
December 2024
In the words of Nancy Fraser, “capitalism is back!” The primary aim of Fraser’s 2023 book Cannibal Capitalism: How our system is devouring democracy, care, and the planet--and what we can do about it is to call attention to a specific mechanism (what she describes as “cannibalism”) within our contemporary regime of capitalism, and propose how this cycle of crisis might be interrupted via a new vision of socialism that centers care and social reproduction. Though Fraser’s book is timely and in keeping with a new era of intellectual productivity around crisis, capitalism, and social reproduction, care is just one theme of the book. Unlike the new crop of titles published since 2020, (such as The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence by The Care Collective published 2020, The Politics of Care: From COVID-19 to Black Lives Matter, edited by the Boston Review and published in 2020, Emily Dowling’s The Care Crisis: What Caused It and How Can We End It? published in 2021, Philosophy of Care by Boris Groys published in 2022, and Lean on Me: A Politics of Radical Care by Lynne Segal, published in 2023) Fraser’s book does not actually center care, opting instead to provide a 1000-foot view of the inherent cannibalistic structures that fuel and refuel crises across history. In order to eventually move beyond theory and begin mobilizing for the expanded socialism that Fraser calls for in her closing chapter, this text works best when paired with other books that employ a more contextually grounded, ethnographic lens.
Ultimately, however, Fraser juxtaposes care and crisis in compelling ways, provoking new questions about the radical potential of care work, and the role of care in fostering the social transformation necessary to interrupt endless cycles of economic, political, and ecological crisis. This review also discusses other contemporary monographs on care economies, and seeks to understand the difference between socially reproductive labor, as traditionally understood by feminist Marxists, and care work, as an emerging fronteir of politics.
Finding the state on state street: fortification and flattening in chicago's downtown
MAY 2023
In March of 2022, the General Services Administration (a seemingly obscure and innocuous name for the federal agency that acquires, develops, manages, and leases federal properties across the United States), suddenly procured $52 million to demolish two century-old skyscrapers in the middle of Chicago’s downtown. The agency had held them vacant and in disrepair for almost 20 years, citing concerns that the buildings posed a security threat to the Everett M. Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, a massive 1974 modernist structure designed by Mies van der Rohe- and one of the largest federal courthouses in the United States.
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Far from an obtuse, absurd, surprise decision by a neglectful federal landlord agency- this sequence of events can be framed as a calculated strategy, decades in the making.
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Beyond the loss of architectural heritage, vibrant urban street life, or general environmental concern, this flattening signifies a simultaneous disinvestment from the private sector in Chicago’s urban core, as well as federal investment through fortification. Furthermore, the Century and Consumer buildings demolition is an investment in empty space- not an investment that seeks to fill an empty space, but rather, to create and maintain emptiness. Like federally funded public housing towers that once occupied a significant portion of Chicago’s urban landscape, this demolition reflects the state’s capacity and tendency to create large fortresses surrounded by large voids of empty space in high-value, high-visibility urban areas.
push, pull, and play factors: Tracing the development history and theory behind chicago's skate parks
april 2022
The purpose of this paper is to analytically trace the history of skate park and public space development in Chicago. Skateboarding, from a city policing perspective, is a heavily criminalized popular practice that often runs directly counter to regulatory urban policies aimed at controlling access and manipulating behavior in increasingly privatized public spaces. Examining skateboarding as a spatial practice illuminates new ways of thinking about public space policy and design.
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Tracing the history, politics, and planning theory behind the development of Chicago’s skate parks not only adds nuance to Chicago’s planning legacy of “civic boosterism” and City Beautiful-era infrastructure, but also contributes to existing literatures on skate park development in other cities like Seattle, New York, and Philadelphia. By spotlighting the Logan Square Boulevard Skate Park, this study explores skate park development from the past twenty years up to present day. With renderings for a $1.5 million renovation of the Logan Square Skate Park being released in February of 2022, local community groups and skate collectives are actively fundraising and organizing for park maintenance and improvement, adding focus, urgency, and momentum to this analysis.
Space, sweat, and security: Examining the sand economy in Accra, Ghana
November 2021
Sand extraction is a recent but already well-traversed discourse in critical urban geography and city-building literatures. It’s estimated that worldwide, two-thirds of buildings are made of reinforced concrete, and reinforced concrete itself is composed of about two-thirds sand, making sand a a critical ingredient in the building-blocks of cities today. From “sand mafias” linked to the construction industry in India, to Singapore’s covert land reclamation projects, to new concrete towers reaching dizzying heights on artificial islands in Dubai, sand is a critical material for urbanization processes, especially for rapidly expanding cities in Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa.
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As one of the fastest growing economies of the world, with one of the most rapidly growing populations in Sub-Saharan Africa and an expanding yet fragmented spatial pattern, Accra, Ghana provides insight into possible futures of these global “cities of sand.”
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As with all natural resources, there should be a cycle to the urbanization of sand. By remaking new urban forms from the sandpit and recycling construction rubble, Accra has an opportunity to create a closed loop sand economy. The region is uniquely positioned to explore the possibilities of a circular sand economy, as its sand extraction process is localized and responsive to the complex land-tenure politics of Accra. With innovations in recycled construction materials already occurring, sustainable, stabilizing city-building practices could occur in the near future.
Everyone's Shangri-La:
using games to transform borders into interfaces
May 2018
This paper critically examines the discourse surrounding interactive mobile games as solutions to structural community issues. The paper also outlines a proposal for a place-based mobile game to inform players about the history of the Anacostia River in Washington DC as a physical and social barrier between communities- while actively seeking to reverse this legacy.
Support and subversion:
Examining the biopolitics of public art in Columbia Heights, DC
December 2017
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This 15-page paper examines public art in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of Washington, DC through Foucault's framework of biopolitics, with photos and descriptions of several different public artworks.
Construyendo un Conocimiento de los Campamentos:
Una investigación sobre capacidades y asentamientos informales en Chile
November 2016
Isobel Araujo y Bennett DiDonna
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This 23-page paper is about informal housing settlements in la Región Metropolitana de Chile. It was written in Spanish with another American student for a class at Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago. Please feel free to contact me for a rough translation in English.
This 23-page paper is about informal housing settlements in la Región Metropolitana de Chile. It was written in Spanish with another American student for a class at Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago. Please feel free to contact me for a rough translation in English.
Hot Topic in a Cold Climate:
Examining Urbanization in the Arctic Circle
April 2016
This 19-page paper explores theories and definitions of urbanization in the context of the Arctic Circle. It was written for a graduate-level class on the politics, policy, and ecology in the Arctic.