The author takes a social argument—that spaces can be racialized—and asks whether the directionality of the association between space and race reflects a limitation of extant scholarship and an underlaying commitment to race as a social terminus. In response to David Delany’s 2002 articulation of how race constructs space, the author offers an inversion of this line of thinking. The author argues that the dominant view among social scientists is that space takes the position of a dependent variable whose constitution is predicted on a series of independent variables, including race. An intellectual commitment to questioning the ontological status of race requires, however, a purposeful flip in the typical causal assumptions about the relationship between race and space. Informed by racial formation theory and Henri Lefebvre’s conceptualization of spatial practice, representations of space, and representational space, the author argues that racialization is tightly tethered to the production of knowledge about space. Instead of asking how race creates space, the author questions the ontological status of race itself by providing a theoretical argument that racialization is predicated upon understandings of space. Specifically, the author presents theoretical scaffolding that may be used by future researchers to explore how space creates race and racial categories.

作者接受了一个社会论点（即空间可以种族化），并询问空间与种族之间联系的方向性是否反映了现有学术的局限性以及对种族作为社会终点站的承诺。为了回应戴维·德拉尼（David Delany）在2002年提出的关于种族如何构造空间的表述，作者提出了这种思路的倒置。作者认为，社会科学家的主要观点是，空间占据了因变量的位置，因变量的构成是根据一系列独立变量（包括种族）进行预测的。但是，要想对种族的本体论状态提出质疑，就必须做出有意识的承诺，即有意识地改变关于种族与空间之间关系的典型因果假设。受到种族形成理论和亨利·勒夫弗尔（Henri Lefebvre）对空间实践，空间表征和表征空间的概念化的了解，作者认为，种族化与空间知识的产生紧密相关。作者没有提出种族是如何创造空间的，而是通过提供一种理论论点来质疑种族本身的本体论地位，即种族化是基于对空间的理解。具体来说，作者提出了理论上的脚手架，可以被未来的研究人员用来探索空间如何创造种族和种族类别。作者通过提供一个理论论点来质疑种族本身的本体论地位，即种族化是基于对空间的理解。具体来说，作者提出了理论上的脚手架，可以被未来的研究人员用来探索空间如何创造种族和种族类别。作者通过提供一种理论论点来质疑种族本身的本体论地位，即种族化是基于对空间的理解。具体来说，作者提出了理论上的脚手架，可以被未来的研究人员用来探索空间如何创造种族和种族类别。