The Ambivalence of the Arbitrary: A supplement to Ash Amin’s ‘Remainders of Race

In the multiplying uncertainties of urban life, entrenched, mediated positions are increasingly difficult to sustain — a dynamic which simultaneously intensifies and counters a racialized biopolitics. In such contexts, is it possible for racial significations to become ironic instruments in the everyday experimentations of residents trying to figure out new ways of both engaging and retreating from each other, of trying to figure out new calibrations of collectivity that enhance the value of differences, not only as markers of navigation, but as a means of curtailing the increased urban emphasis on individual competence and eligibility?