RACE, SPACE, AND POWER - THE SURVIVAL STRATEGIES OF WORKING POOR WOMEN

Feminist geographers have documented that the spatial entrapment of ma ny women negatively affects their economic opportunities. The experien ces of many African-American women, however, suggest that the spatial- entrapment thesis requires refinement. I argue that the spatial-entrap ment thesis is based on a problematic conceptualization of the links b etween space and power in people's daily lives, one that equates immob ility with powerlessness and mobility with power. The thesis not only theorizes power as unidirectional (i.e., more power, more mobility), i t also masks important differences among women by undertheorizing mobi lity and immobility relative to social relations other than gender, su ch as ''race.'' I argue that, depending on the constellation of power relations, the spatial boundedness of women's lives is a potential res ource for, as well as a constraint on, their economic security. The ut ility of this reconceptualization of the links between space and power for examining the opportunities for and barriers to women's economic security is demonstrated through an analysis of the role of place-base d personal networks in the survival strategies of working poor African -American and white women with children in Worcester, Massachusetts. I first evaluate these women's experiences in terms of the spatial-entr apment thesis. Then I examine whether women's use of spatial rootednes s in the construction of their survival strategies can be enabling as well as constraining. The results confirm that the spatial boundedness of women's daily lives and their survival strategies are mutually con stituted; that is, place-based personal networks are an important comp onent of survival strategies, and can be both enabling and constrainin g, depending on how racism structures women's experiences.