Week 6: Political Economy of Space and Place

     Continuing on with Gina Ulysse's Downtown Ladies, she carries on by describing ICIs as suspicious beings.  She states that, "Eventually, I realized their reluctance to introduce me to others was symptomatic of their own suspicion of strangers" (158).  And so we are introduced to the role of the stranger, whose interaction with others (natives) is much like Kincaid's "ugly" tourist.  Both try to immerse themselves within cultures that have suffered at the hands of the stranger or tourist's nation.  Although Ulysse might be Haitian, she presents in a very American way, thereby making her a very unwelcome stranger.  Furthermore, Ulysse proceeds to situate us within the geographic and socioeconomic landscape of Jamaica and the downtown space that ICIs inhabit.  But what constitutes "space?"  Who owns it or can lay claim to it?  Is space only held for the privileged who in turn "give" part of their space to those who are underprivileged?  In this context, would the poor native of the naive stranger be the privileged entity?  Nevertheless, Ulysse defines space as not being "a 'flat,' static surface but as a moment in the intersection of configured social relations that is dynamic because the social relations that create it are themselves dynamic" (159).  In regards to the space of downtown, Ulysse associates that domain with the masculine and in particular she claims that the socioeconomic dynamic of downtown is due to the "masculinization of poverty."  For clarification, she explains that this poverty is masculine because men were expected to be the breadwinners and the methods they employed to overcome unemployment were distinctly "masculine," such as trafficking drugs.  What are the similaries between these masculine traffickers and ICIs?  Indeed, both turned to their trade in order to overcome poverty, so why is one more acceptable than the other, or is it?  Something that interested me was the persona of Jamaican women (ICIs and others) assume.  Females must be strong and confrontational if they do not want to be taken advantage of.  Indeed, "Whereas masculinity is realized through the gun, female tuffness is expressed through the embodiment of protective shields" (182).  But are these shields nothing more than a performance?  Indeed, according to Judith Butler, these women's personas is nothing more than "a compulsory repetition of prior and subjectiviating norms" (22).  These norms being the expression of female "tuffness" because of the normalization and sometimes violent threat of domination.
     Power and control is also evident in Massey's "A Global Sense of Place."  Her main focus is on "time-space compression."  Her first point is that most people believe that this compression is due to the power and influence of capitalism.  She partly disagrees.  Massey believes that other forces are at work in time-space compression such as race, class, and gender.  Time-space compression is relative.  Indeed, "the time-space compression of some groups can determine the power of others" and "there are differences in the degree of movement and communication but also in the degree of control and initiation."  These degrees of control are relative to ICIs and strangers such as Ulysse in particular in that the ICIs exercised a degree of control over her in denying her introductions to other ICIs meaning that ICIs have a greater sense of control in relation to Ulysse acting the stranger.