Dispossessing Urbanization: Urban Marxism in the Face of the Problem of Primitive Accumulation

• Main Author: Piotr Juskowiak
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Adam Mickiewicz University 2015-04-01
• Series: Praktyka Teoretyczna
• Subjects: akumulacja pierwotna; akumulacja przez wywłaszczenie; miejski marksizm; wywłaszczająca urbanizacja; neoliberalizm; Marks; Harvey
• Online Access: http://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/prt/article/view/5394

The article is a complex attempt to present the achievements of the broadly understood urban Marxism in the field of reinterpretation of the classic concept from the cards of <em>Capital </em>– “primitive accumulation”. Drawing on theories of such scholars as David Harvey (“accumulation by dispossession”) or Saskia Sassen (“expulsions”), the author points to the possible ways to operationalize the concept of “dispossessing urbanization”. Inspired by the theorizations of autonomist Marxists (Antonio Negri, Sandro Mezzadra, Massimo De Angelis), he proposes to see it as a relatively new and increasingly important dispostif that allows not only to improve traditional methods of enclosures and construct entirely new ones, but also to instrumentalize urban cultures which seems unlikely for the historical versions of primitive accumulation. This theoretical inspiration leads him also to highlight another gap in the accumulation by dispossession theory, namely the lack of sufficient reflection on the production of subjectivity processes which seem constitutive for the broad set of dispossessing practices.