This paper proposes a theory of urban dispossession as depotentiation. ‘Depotentiation’, as I employ the term, indicates the diminishment of imminent capacities, affects and potentialities. I propose this formulation to both complement and critique Harvey’s dominant notion of accumulation by dispossession as the commodification of the urban commons and to contribute to conceptual developments on the stratified and affective dimensions of eviction. The evictions in my study operate in liminal urban spaces where there are no ‘commons’, but rather incomplete and fragile processes of ‘commoning’ and high levels of mobility and precarity. This paper draws on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2011 and 2019 in inner-city Johannesburg in unlawful and other informal occupations, frequently termed ‘bad buildings’, ‘hijacked buildings’ or ‘dark buildings’ and other low-income accommodation. These are sites of extreme precarity and liminality, endurance and potentiality, where tens of thousands of inner-city residents, South African and foreign-national, live without essential services and subject to the constant threat of eviction or deportation. Dispossession of their residents operates not only through the commodification of an urban commons but also through the diminishment of urban potentiality.

本文提出了一种将城市剥夺作为权力剥夺的理论。“Depotentation”，正如我使用的术语，表示即将到来的能力、影响和潜力的减弱。我提出这个表述是为了补充和批评哈维的主要概念，即通过剥夺作为城市公地商品化的积累，并为驱逐的分层和情感维度的概念发展做出贡献。在我的研究中，驱逐发生在没有“公地”的限制性城市空间中，而是不完整和脆弱的“公地”过程以及高度流动性和不稳定的过程。本文借鉴了 2011 年至 2019 年在约翰内斯堡市中心从事非法和其他非正式职业（通常被称为“不良建筑”）的人种学实地调查，“被劫持的建筑物”或“黑暗的建筑物”和其他低收入住所。这些地方极其不稳定、极限、耐力和潜力巨大，数以万计的内城居民，包括南非人和外国人，生活在没有基本服务的情况下，并不断面临被驱逐或驱逐出境的威胁。对居民的剥夺不仅通过城市公地的商品化，而且通过城市潜力的减弱来实现。