Of Mancessions and Hecoveries: Race, Gender, and the Political Construction of Economic Crises and Recoveries

Abstract

Through a discussion of the 2008 mortgage crisis and its similarities to the Great Depression of the 1930's and the Great Recession of 2007–09, I argue that the very notions of economic “crisis” and “recovery” are politically and ideologically constructed, and that conditions of vulnerability, often simply taken for granted as part of the normal social landscape when they affect marginalized populations, become regarded as crises when they affect dominant groups. Each of these crises, I argue, reveals different facets of the ways in which the power, normativity, and privilege of those perceived to be affected by economic hard times serve (1) to construct some economic troubles as “normal” and others as “crises;' (2) to prevent economic problems related to structural inequalities from being treated as crises by dominant political actors and institutions; and (3) to shape ideas about the ostensible solutions and ends to economic crises. By calling attention to these features of economic “crisis,” I aim to demonstrate the relevance of scholarship on race, class, gender, and intersectionality to the understanding of fundamental questions of contemporary political economy not often viewed from this perspective.