DissertationMy dissertation The Politics of Property: Property Markets and Urban Fragmentation in Mexico City, uses historical, ethnographic, and interview data to explore the emergence, consolidation, and social organizing functions of property markets in southern Mexico City. Engaging the scholarship on urban political economy, which sees property markets as the principal force driving urban organization, my research examines how markets in land and property emerge, why they take particular forms, and how they organize urban life both through and beyond their operation as markets.
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First, I trace the emergence of a modern market in land and property in southern Mexico City from the colonial period to the present. I examine the evolving role of land distribution and property regulation in the governance strategies imposed on this area of Mexico City throughout this period. I make two arguments based on the reconstruction of this history. First, that durable precarity—in large part produced by the state—has marked residents’ experience of property more profoundly than the categories of formality/informality. Second, that property regulation, as a channel through which residents make themselves visible to the state as deserving citizens and the state demonstrates its moral authority and capacity to rule, functions as a key site of citizenship.
Second, I explore how property relations organize society beyond the market. I examine the political and ideological dimensions of property regulation and the role of property in the livelihood strategies of residents. I show how the home and neighborhood function as the primary sites of production and social reproduction for residents and argue that the state-owner relation, rather than the capitalist-worker relation, is the primary class relation in these neighborhoods. Struggles over value manifest as struggles to embed or erase the history of class conflict from the landscape.
Third, I examine the social cleavages that emerge from the creation and consolidation of a real estate market in the region. I demonstrate how the experience of property regulation and regularization contributed to the consolidation and emplacement of two distinct identities (“natives” and “invaders”) and two types of claims to urban space (property as patrimony, or property as the product of labor). Despite a similar reliance on property for survival and a similar opposition to new urban development over fears of displacement, these cleavages have made it impossible for residents of these neighborhoods to unite in their struggle against the urban development that threatens to undermine their livelihood strategies and displace them from their neighborhoods.
Second, I explore how property relations organize society beyond the market. I examine the political and ideological dimensions of property regulation and the role of property in the livelihood strategies of residents. I show how the home and neighborhood function as the primary sites of production and social reproduction for residents and argue that the state-owner relation, rather than the capitalist-worker relation, is the primary class relation in these neighborhoods. Struggles over value manifest as struggles to embed or erase the history of class conflict from the landscape.
Third, I examine the social cleavages that emerge from the creation and consolidation of a real estate market in the region. I demonstrate how the experience of property regulation and regularization contributed to the consolidation and emplacement of two distinct identities (“natives” and “invaders”) and two types of claims to urban space (property as patrimony, or property as the product of labor). Despite a similar reliance on property for survival and a similar opposition to new urban development over fears of displacement, these cleavages have made it impossible for residents of these neighborhoods to unite in their struggle against the urban development that threatens to undermine their livelihood strategies and displace them from their neighborhoods.
Other Projects |
Neighborhood Improvement Districts (NIDs) in Milwaukee, WI
In this project, I examine the racialized politics of property through the case of Neighborhood Improvement Districts (NIDs) in Milwaukee. Through analysis of NID policy documents, local historical records, and interviews with NID property owners and policymakers, I ask: As struggling municipal governments implement place-based policies to encourage local development, how are they interpreted and implemented differently across neighborhoods given the divergent local experiences of property markets? What implications do these differences have for neighborhood inequality? I find that homeowners have successfully used NIDs to harness the coercive power of the state to address one of two concerns: 1) absentee landlordism and 2) a reluctance among residents to invest in the maintenance of collective property. However, my findings suggest that NIDs amplify and sediment social differences along lines of homeownership, which is itself racially organized within and across neighborhoods.
Historical Mexico-U.S. Immigration Data
In a another project, my co-authors and I constructed a novel dataset of U.S.-Mexico border crossers (1919-1952) by linking data from administrative records to individual-level U.S. Census records. In a paper in preparation using this dataset, I examine how the housing markets into which immigrants arrived, as well as their entry into homeownership, contributed to their likelihood of acquiring U.S. citizenship. A second, co-authored paper leverages a unique measure of complexion—as determined by border agents—to examine the divergent labor market outcomes of immigrants according to skin color. Examining the geographical variability of this association, we find that complexion was a stronger predictor of economic outcomes in the Southwest than in other regions of the country.
In this project, I examine the racialized politics of property through the case of Neighborhood Improvement Districts (NIDs) in Milwaukee. Through analysis of NID policy documents, local historical records, and interviews with NID property owners and policymakers, I ask: As struggling municipal governments implement place-based policies to encourage local development, how are they interpreted and implemented differently across neighborhoods given the divergent local experiences of property markets? What implications do these differences have for neighborhood inequality? I find that homeowners have successfully used NIDs to harness the coercive power of the state to address one of two concerns: 1) absentee landlordism and 2) a reluctance among residents to invest in the maintenance of collective property. However, my findings suggest that NIDs amplify and sediment social differences along lines of homeownership, which is itself racially organized within and across neighborhoods.
Historical Mexico-U.S. Immigration Data
In a another project, my co-authors and I constructed a novel dataset of U.S.-Mexico border crossers (1919-1952) by linking data from administrative records to individual-level U.S. Census records. In a paper in preparation using this dataset, I examine how the housing markets into which immigrants arrived, as well as their entry into homeownership, contributed to their likelihood of acquiring U.S. citizenship. A second, co-authored paper leverages a unique measure of complexion—as determined by border agents—to examine the divergent labor market outcomes of immigrants according to skin color. Examining the geographical variability of this association, we find that complexion was a stronger predictor of economic outcomes in the Southwest than in other regions of the country.
