Periphractic Space: Mapping Racial Construction in North American Urban Landscapes

In Razing Africville Jennifer Nelson (2008) describes actions taken by the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia to isolate the community of Africville – African-Nova Scotians forcibly relocated in the late 1960s. The city encircled Africville with land purchases used for an infectious disease hospital and city dump among other noxious services, creating a targeted space of neglect. This common activity in North American cities constructs ideas of race by penning-in communities. It geographically restricts their movement and access to services and isolates them in the civic imagination: a condition identified by Theo Goldberg in Racist Culture (1993) as periphractic space. Rather than separating populations, however, this circumference of isolation actually facilitates activities of transgression, defilement, and return by dominant groups: a pattern of asymmetric exchange. As communities and their borders evolve over time the response of insurgent groups for greater social and political incorporation challenges and weakens the conscriptions of the periphractic boundary.

Volume Editors
Amir Ameri & Rebecca O'Neal Dagg

ISBN
978-1-944214-14-2