DEFINICIÓN DE LOS RESTAURANTES OBJETOS DE ESTUDIO

Neoliberal processes of political-economic restructuring have led to the fuller

commodification of water, providing a strong example of how capital needs to bring “nature to order” in such a way as to not only put it into production, but also to reproduce and expand circuits for capital accumulation (Henderson, 1998). In this sense, the commodification of water offers the means through which to reallocate and to create new forms of capital that are conducive to the logics of the capitalist mode of production that are premised on the

“necessity of accumulation” within a particular system of production, such as agriculture (Roberts & Emel, 1992, 262).

Capital investments in technological improvements, fixed infrastructure, and natural resources enhance production processes, and, “provide the capability to realize a surplus-value” (Roberts & Emel, 1992, 262). This simultaneously creates an environment for competition, instability, and uneven development, which, according to Harvey (1985), invariably generates periodic crises of capital due to the lack of opportunities for realizing surplus value from existing socio-spatial and socio-ecological arrangements of capitalist production. Such crises are often cause and consequence of the under-utilization or the over-accumulation of productive capital in the form of land and other natural resources (including water), machinery, housing stock, warehouses, transportation infrastructure, and labor power.

Harvey (1985) argues that these conditions can best be understood as a “crisis of

overaccumulation,” which must be resolved through a spatial-fix. This fix reallocates capital to other spaces that have a higher perceived exchange-value for the resource. As Harvey (1985) explains, a spatial-fix creates new spaces for capital investment. When capital moves from one space, or sector, to another, it alters the processes of production and consumption and further entrenches the nature-society, rural-urban divide. It does this by commodifying and reallocating natural resources, in this case water, and taking them out of production in one area and moving the resource through the circuits of capital to be invested, produced and consumed in another. These ideas inform my understanding of how the QSA water transfer enables the reallocation of capital in the form of water resources from the rural Imperial Valley to the urban landscape of San Diego. Later on in this paper my aim is to elaborate on how this process plays out.

The notion of the spatial-fix offers “analytical flexibility” such that it can be productively put to work, in both a theoretical and practical sense, in diverse

historical-geographical contexts (Jessop, 2006), and in ways that trace the crisis origins and dynamics of new forms of capitalist production and accumulation (Schoenberger, 2004). Cerny (2006) offers a sympathetic critique of Marxist analyses that examine the structural and economic imperatives of the spatial fix, calling for a more nuanced examination of how competing and conflicting relationships between different interests and actors are played out. In this way, he recommends engaging other theoretical perspectives through which to elaborate on the spatial-fix as a means to avoid the Marxist tendency to “privilege extra-economic factors,”

when the processes of state restructuring are far more complex (p. 693). In his study of Thailand’s recovery following the Asian financial crisis of 1997, Glassman (2009) emphasizes that each spatial-fix involves a different accumulation strategy that become articulated through and rely on the dynamic formation of political and social coalitions. He further argues that conflicts and tensions arising between and within these coalitions play a central role when deepening conditions of overaccumulation reach a crisis point, and how that crisis is resolved. In a similar vein, Herod (1997) examines the role of labor in shaping geographies of uneven development, showing how workers are not passive actors in the unfolding processes and dynamics of a spatial-fix, but active in “making space”. Focusing on real estate and housing markets, Jonas & Gibbs (2004) develop an analysis on how the restructuring of mortgage capital in the inner-city provides a spatial-fix for capital, while reinforcing cycles of poverty and racial-ethnic inequalities. Others such as Jessop (2008) and Schoenberger (2004) write on the development of Harvey’s concept itself and how it can be revisited and revised to offer new insights into the movement of capital through varied spaces.

While variable capital can be reallocated to new spaces, fixed capital is trapped within space (Harvey, 2003; Schoenberger, 2004; Smith, 2008). This means that while long-term capital investments, such as in the built environment, can temporally defer crises and create stability for a period of time, this potentially also creates obstacles for propelling new rounds of accumulation through a spatial-fix precisely because these investments are fixed in place. In other words, the spatial-fix is “expressed through the role of existing geographic structures” (Harvey, 2003), but is also limited by them. Such limits become articulated through concomitant processes of devaluation and displacement, which create enabling conditions for transforming existing geographies of production in line with new requirements of capital as they are shaped by historically and geographically specific political-economic and socio-ecological dynamics.

It is important to recognize that while the spatial-fix provides a temporary resolution to periodic crises of capital, the socio-spatial and socio-ecological processes and relations through which it becomes articulated re-produce and amplify the uneven character of capitalist development, which contributed to the formation of crisis in the first place. The uneven effects generated by the spatial reallocation and restructuring of capital results in the deepening fragmentation of different forms, sectors, and spaces of capital that cut across the urban-rural divide, creating an environment of constant change and instability (Roberts &

Emel, 1992). As Smith (2008, p. 121) argues, uneven development is “the concrete manifestation of the production of space,” and manifests itself most visibly in the uneven conditions and spaces of existence of marginalized social actors.

Conclusion

Studies on the production and commodification of water attempt to take into account the complex historical-geographical processes and their associated power relations through which water is produced, controlled, and managed, as well as the uneven environments that are generated as a result (Bakker, 2003; Budds, 2004; Kaika, 2006; Loftus, 2009; Mukherji, 2006; Waller, 1994; Zimmerer, 2000; Swyngedouw, Kaika, & Castro, 2002). They do so by analyzing material, symbolic, and discursive practices operating at a variety of scales, and illuminating ways in which they are mediated by unequal power relations amongst and between different social actors (Perreault, 2006). These complex processes and relations produce particular socio-spatial configurations that are constantly undergoing change across time and space (Leach & Fairhead, 2000). Political ecology recognizes the intricacy of these issues and seeks to apply the production of nature to water resources.

Political ecology is especially well equipped to deal with how water scarcity is both materially and discursively produced, as it questions the processes embedded in the

production of nature. The flow of water infiltrates vast networks and relationships at both material and theoretical levels. Water is controlled and diverted through infrastructure into cities, agriculture, industry, households, and finally expelled from all as wastewater that flows back into the infrastructure to repeat the process all over again. Political ecological analyses question this separation of human society and nature. They demonstrate how these relationships cannot be pulled apart, but rather mutually constitute one another.

In sum, a political ecology perspective will allow me to elaborate on key themes that will allow me to explore relationships of the production of water, urbanization of capital, and the spatial-fix within the context of Southern California. In the next chapter, I will provide a

historical overview of key features and trends that have characterized state water governance and management in California, and consider ways in which these have been shaped by the requirements of capital.

CHAPTER 3