World-making, desire, and the future

Abstract

In this commentary responding to Sutherland's paper, I insist that human geographers must be explicit about the geographies we theorize from so as to avoid universalizing narratives. Engaging the work of Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betsamosake Simpson, I consider what forms of world-making are unaccounted for when post-capitalism is the sole analytic employed to envision the future. Then, I engage with Sutherland's explorations of hauntology and the atmospheric to consider how capitalism is haunted by colonial histories and how social movements evolve over time. Lastly, I respond to Sutherland's attention to desire, culture, and capitalism in his piece, drawing on the work of Brandi Summers to illustrate how capitalism's reliance on the ‘fungibility of people/place’ is also a deeply racialized logic. In sum, I question if post-capitalism is expansive enough to hold our collective imaginings of the future.