This document discusses structural convergence beneath ideological differences, multiple spaces of immigration, and the making of inequality and expulsions. It notes that beneath political distances, there are structural approximations between security apparatuses and citizens. There are diverse spaces that produce migrant subjects, including professionals, contract workers, business visa holders, and more. Inequality is actively made through varying economic systems and government regulations. Cities are growing due in part to expulsions from land grabs and mining that displace people to urban slums.

1. Saskia Sassen
Columbia University
Integrating Cities 2012 Amsterdam
BENEATH THE HATREDS AND
RACISMS…STRUCTURAL
CONVERGENCE

2. Unstable Meanings
 Structural approximation beneath
ideological and political distance
 Two emergent cross-border spaces:
The security apparatus and we the citizens (the
new colonials?)
Inequality and expulsions

3. The making of histories
 An analysis that seeks to recover how a
condition, a system, a subject, were made.
 The diverse elements that got assembled
to make that condition or that subject.

4. . Analytic Tactics
Destabilizing stable meanings
 In the shadows of powerful explanations
 When territory exits conventional framings:
it becomes institutionally mobile, nomadic
and can alter the meaning of nation-state
membership: Today’s large diverse cities

5. MULTIPLE IMMIGRATION SPACES
The spaces (institutional, ideational, tactical) for
producing the migrant subject can be very diverse
- the new transnational class of professionals
- the contract-labor worker entering for seasonal
work under specific short-term conditions
- the business-visa immigrant
- the family-dependent immigrant
- the green card immigrant
- the high-tech visa worker

6. Top 20 remittance-recipient countries, 2006 (US$ billions)
Billions Billions
of dollars of dollars
1. India 21.7 11. Serbia 4.1
2. China 21.3 12. Pakistan 3.9
3. Mexico 18.1 13. Brazil 3.6
4. France 12.7 14. Bangladesh 3.4
5. Philippines 11.6 15. Egypt, Arab Rep. 3.3
6. Spain 6.9 16. Portugal 3.2
7. Belgium 6.8 17. Vietnam 3.2
8. Germany 6.5 18. Colombia 3.2
9. United Kingdom 6.4 19. United States 3
10. Morocco 4.2 20. Nigeria 2.8
Source: Author’s Calculations Based on IMF BoP Yearbook, 2004, and World Bank Staff estimates.

7. Security regimes
 1,271 government organizations and 1,931
private companies work on programs related
to counterterrorism, homeland security and
intelligence in about 10,000 locations across
the US

 An estimated 854,000 people – nearly 1.5 times
as many people as live in Washington, D.C. –
hold top-secret security clearances


8. .
 Of the estimated 265,000 private
companies doing intelligence work, 1,931
do work at the top-secret level.
 Out of 854,000 people with top-secret
clearance, an estimated 265,000 are
private contractors

9. MAP OF GOVERNMENT AND PRIVATE
SECURITY AGENCIES IN THE US
Source: Washington Post. 2010. “Top Secret America,” Interactive Maps. Washington
Post, July 2010. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/map/

10. MAP OF COUNTER-TERRORISM
ORGANIZATIONS IN THE US
Source: Washington Post. 2010. “Top Secret America,” Interactive Maps. Washington
Post, July 2010. http://projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-america/map/

11. INEQUALITY IS MADE
 The aims of economic systems can vary
greatly
 The modes in which governments regulate
economies

12. Income % of top 10% earners 1917-2005
*Income is defined as market income but excludes capital gains
Source: Mishel, L. 2004. “Unfettered Markets, Income Inequality, and Religious Values.” Viewpoints. May 19, 2004.
Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved July 26, 2008 [
www.epi.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_viewpoints_moral_markets_presentation.]

13. % Growth in After-Tax Income,
USA 1979-2007

14. Who are the top 1% and the
rest--2010
 Income: wages, gov transfers, capital gains,
dividends, other investment income, etc.
 Top 1% of US households had a mininum income
of $516,633
 Bottom 60% earned a max of $59,154
 bottom 40 %: max of $33,870
 bottom 20%: max of $16,961.
 See
http://taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.
cfm?Docid=3047

15. Expulsions: Foreclosures
 2006 : 1.2 million foreclosures, up 42% from
2005. This is: One in every 92 U.S. households
 2007: 2.2 million forecls, up 75% from 06
 2008: 3.1 million, up 81% from 07
 2009: 3.9 million (or 1 in 45 US hholds)
 (From 2007 to 2009: 120% increase in forecls)
 2010: 2.9 mill forecls. (2006-2010: total 14.2 mil)
 Source: RealtyTrac 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010;
Blomquist 2011

16. DEAD CITIES

17. In the shadows of
“urbanization”
 In all the talk about the growth of urban
populations there is never mention of what
processes are feeding this growth.
 One set of processes consists of expulsions –
of people from their land due to “landgrabs”
or mining.
 Where do they go? To cities, where they will
add to the homeless and to the slums.

18. One instance
From 2006 to 2010: 70million hectares of land in
Afri ,LatAm, Cambodia, Ukraine
bought/leased by rich govts,firms,fin firms
 The land is now more valued than the people
or activities on it
 The active making of surplus populations
 Novel assemblages of
Territory/Authority/Rights