Background check: Spatiality and relationality in Nancy Fraser's expanded conception of capitalism

Abstract

Nancy Fraser's recent work on the hidden abodes of capitalism has quickly become a critical point of reference for those concerned with the racialized, gendered, and ecological conditions of capitalist reproduction. With that in view, this article seeks to extend Fraser's conceptualization through a sympathetic critique of her approach to capitalism's foreground/background nexus. After situating Fraser's project in relation to Marx (and his own engagement with capitalism's background conditions of possibility), it argues that (1) Fraser fails to adequately theorize how capitalist crisis is produced and resolved in space and (2) that Fraser obscures the relational-dialectical constitution of her own hidden abodes. This article then develops an alternative theoretical approach to capitalism's foreground/background relationship, based on a synthetic reading of Fraser's framework and the work of geographer Jason W. Moore. Finally, it closes with some brief reflections on the implications of this theorization for contemporary socialist politics.