This part of my dissertation examines property valuation an embodied material-semiotic practice: people read signs embedded in the landscape — litter, landscaping, noise, bodies — as indicators of safety or danger, risk or reward. These sensory cues are linked to narratives of crime and disorder, transforming concentrated poverty into a legible signal and making the distribution of property value appear natural. Through these practices of differentiation and ranking (Ferry 2013), everyday acts of valuation become technologies of racial capitalism, reinscribing historical patterns of segregation and disinvestment into present landscapes. What buyers describe as a “nice, quiet neighborhood” is less a neutral preference than part of what linguistic anthropologists call an "avoidance register" — a patterned discourse that encodes avoidance of poverty and its embodied signs, reproducing race not as a thing in itself but rather, as a socio-spatial technology that organizes people and space in service of capital.
In the videos below-- all of which are used in my academic presentations-- audiences can experience the sights and sounds with which buyers, realtors, and activists valuate (or differentiate and rank) residential properties. I argue that these are the materials with which we enact race as a socio-spatial technology of civic belonging.
This multimodal archive works to help audiences experience the substance of a claim that counters our normative learning:
Race not is not a thing in itself (let alone one which residents 'inside' the body) . Rather, it is a socio-spatial TECHNOLOGY (a tool or process of MAKING) with and through which we collectively remake capitalism by reconfiguring the social and spatial boundaries of civic belonging.
During a "drive around," Berto — a lifelong resident of the city’s South End — narrated what he saw as we passed through different neighborhoods in the City of Hartford. He had never before been to the space man call the "West End" and when I told him many call it a part of "Hartford," he quickly resisted, citing reasons like the "nice cars," "fresh air" and "QUIET" as key evidence that we were no longer in "Hartford"--or at least no longer in his "Hartford."
In the clip, you don’t see the residents who are speaking — only the streetscape where the conversation took place in Hartford’s Asylum Hill neighborhood. These residents warn against moving to the area, citing frequent gun violence as the reason, and instead valorize the Town of West Hartford. They describe West Hartford as “quiet” and safer — a contrast that encodes safety, danger, and civic worth into spatial categories.
In multimodal surveys, nearly all participants -- including those who did and did not want to move to a "space like this"-- described the area depicted as "nice and quiet" and as "safe." Note:participants were not provided with the names of streets or municipalities, only the above video.
In multimodal surveys, nearly all participants -- including those who did and did not want to move to a "space like this"-- described it as "urban." Unlike with other clips, participants did not mention "safety" or "unsafety" nearly as much. Note: participants were not provided with the names of streets or municipalities, only the above video.
In participant observation, multimodal surveys and interviews, nearly all participants -- including those who lived in this area and those who didn't- described it as "not quiet" and "not safe." Note: participants were not provided with the names of streets or municipalities, only the above video.
In multimodal surveys, nearly all participants -- including those who did and did not want to move to a "space like this"-- described it as "urban." Those who did not want to live there called it "unsafe." Note: participants were not provided with the names of streets or municipalities, only the above video.
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