Edward J. "Ned" Taaffe Colloquium speaker Nik Heynen University of Georgia
Abolition Ecology and
Racializing the Commons
Thinkers like Marx, Polanyi and Thompson have dominated the intellectual foundations of understanding acts of enclosure and the commons. However, emergent efforts at decentering these Eurocentric logics and opening up generative new theoretical possibilities have been underway for some time. This paper builds upon several specific insights from W.E.B. DuBois and Clyde Woods to think through the racialization of the abolitionist commons. Reframing efforts aimed at understanding the abolitionist commons through DuBois and Woods helps further illustrate historical-geographical materialist ways through which racial capitalism has long led to the proliferation of uneven racial development. I will use this discussion to analyze the upheaval in property relations in Atlanta, anchoring the discussion in several key moments across property relations in Georgia and ending in the contemporary property politics related to the ongoing development of the Fulton County / City of Atlanta Land Bank Authority.