Marginalized Places and Populations

This book is about the forces and processes that continue to sustain pervasive inequalities in modern capitalist societies. It centers around the rise of structuration theory in geography and how this approach may be applied in order to comprehend the deepening chasms between classes, races, ethnic groups, and individuals in North America today. Inner city urban neighborhood decay, growing poverty, widening wealth gaps, and sustained racial and gender discrimination in the workplace all have spatial components. Structuration theory, originally expounded by Anthony Giddens, seeks to confront the relation between agency and structure in the social sciences. The centerpiece of structuration theory is duality of structure, the force that produces and reproduces the fabric of everyday life. The chapters in this volume successfully apply Giddens's theory to a number of specific institutions and locales where unequal access to basic resources is notably pronounced.