Remaking the socio-spatial fix: Actors, time and crisis in two iron ore towns
The ‘spatial fix’ has been central to economic geography for nearly 50 years, examining capitalist development through both stability and change. Harvey’s original conceptions of the fix prioritised capital’s capacity to fix space to accumulate and forestall crisis. We continue this by considering t...
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crsagepubl:10.1177/0308518x241247733 2024-05-19T07:43:29+00:00 Remaking the socio-spatial fix: Actors, time and crisis in two iron ore towns Barratt, Tom Sandström, Johan Ellem, Bradon Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship 2024 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0308518x241247733 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0308518X241247733 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/0308518X241247733 en eng SAGE Publications https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space ISSN 0308-518X 1472-3409 journal-article 2024 crsagepubl https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x241247733 2024-04-25T08:12:46Z The ‘spatial fix’ has been central to economic geography for nearly 50 years, examining capitalist development through both stability and change. Harvey’s original conceptions of the fix prioritised capital’s capacity to fix space to accumulate and forestall crisis. We continue this by considering the ‘ socio-spatial fix’, allowing closer investigation of who makes the landscapes of capitalism, and how actor choices and actor inter- and intra-relationships forestall crises of accumulation. We show how crisis, time and actors are central to making and re-making socio-spatial fixes and in turn to understanding both the socio-spatial dialectic and the spatial fix. Empirically, we compare two remote but globally networked mining towns, Kiruna, Sweden and Newman, Australia. Mining towns are rewarding case-studies because capital’s relative immobility and the dominance of a single industry make strikingly clear how both production and social reproduction are remade. We enrich general theorisations in three ways, by explaining: first, how crisis-threatening events require renegotiation of socio-spatial arrangements; second, how time and timing are critical in remaking fixes; third, how actor agency and heterogeneity are central because the actors who make fixes change over time and are in complex relationships with each other. Article in Journal/Newspaper Kiruna SAGE Publications Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space |
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English |
description |
The ‘spatial fix’ has been central to economic geography for nearly 50 years, examining capitalist development through both stability and change. Harvey’s original conceptions of the fix prioritised capital’s capacity to fix space to accumulate and forestall crisis. We continue this by considering the ‘ socio-spatial fix’, allowing closer investigation of who makes the landscapes of capitalism, and how actor choices and actor inter- and intra-relationships forestall crises of accumulation. We show how crisis, time and actors are central to making and re-making socio-spatial fixes and in turn to understanding both the socio-spatial dialectic and the spatial fix. Empirically, we compare two remote but globally networked mining towns, Kiruna, Sweden and Newman, Australia. Mining towns are rewarding case-studies because capital’s relative immobility and the dominance of a single industry make strikingly clear how both production and social reproduction are remade. We enrich general theorisations in three ways, by explaining: first, how crisis-threatening events require renegotiation of socio-spatial arrangements; second, how time and timing are critical in remaking fixes; third, how actor agency and heterogeneity are central because the actors who make fixes change over time and are in complex relationships with each other. |
author2 |
Australian Government Research Training Program (RTP) Scholarship |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Barratt, Tom Sandström, Johan Ellem, Bradon |
spellingShingle |
Barratt, Tom Sandström, Johan Ellem, Bradon Remaking the socio-spatial fix: Actors, time and crisis in two iron ore towns |
author_facet |
Barratt, Tom Sandström, Johan Ellem, Bradon |
author_sort |
Barratt, Tom |
title |
Remaking the socio-spatial fix: Actors, time and crisis in two iron ore towns |
title_short |
Remaking the socio-spatial fix: Actors, time and crisis in two iron ore towns |
title_full |
Remaking the socio-spatial fix: Actors, time and crisis in two iron ore towns |
title_fullStr |
Remaking the socio-spatial fix: Actors, time and crisis in two iron ore towns |
title_full_unstemmed |
Remaking the socio-spatial fix: Actors, time and crisis in two iron ore towns |
title_sort |
remaking the socio-spatial fix: actors, time and crisis in two iron ore towns |
publisher |
SAGE Publications |
publishDate |
2024 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0308518x241247733 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0308518X241247733 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full-xml/10.1177/0308518X241247733 |
genre |
Kiruna |
genre_facet |
Kiruna |
op_source |
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space ISSN 0308-518X 1472-3409 |
op_rights |
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0308518x241247733 |
container_title |
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space |
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1799483217797971968 |