The space that time forgot: Temporal narratives of racially integrated neighborhoods

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper offers an initial theoretical examination of the discourse surrounding racially-mixed neighborhoods. Using scholarly work on time, space, and power as its foundation, this study develops the concept of residential time, or the perception and experience of a neighborhood’s demographic and cultural lifespan, and traces its deployment in narratives surrounding racially-integrated neighborhoods. I draw on both the academic literature concerning race and space as well as select news articles on neighborhoods in New Orleans, Louisiana, as examples of the discursive relegation of racially-mixed neighborhoods, demonstrating how public discourse characterizes them as unstable and fleeting. I argue that this temporal relegation ultimately serves white spatial politics, or the differential construction of residential time in a manner that propels the aims of racial capitalism. The implications of such a widespread characterization of residential time in mixed-race neighborhoods are similarly discussed.