Emancipation/ Power &
Empowerment
Abstracts
New globalization
Toward the 21 st century international division of labor
□ in Samir Dasgupta, ed. Politics of Globalization. New Delhi, Sage, 2008
21 st century globalization: sociological perspectives
The 21 st century momentum of globalization is markedly different from twentieth century globalization and involves a new geography of trade, weaker hegemony and growing multipolarity. This presents major questions. Is the rise of East Asia, China and India just another episode in the rise and decline of nations, another reshuffling of capitalism, a relocation of accumulation centers without affecting the logics of accumulation? Does it advance, sustain or halt neoliberalism? The rise of Asia is codependent with neoliberal globalization and yet unfolds outside the neoliberal mold. What is the relationship between zones of accumulation and modes of regulation? What are the ramifications for global inequality? The first part of this paper discusses trends in trade, finance, international institutions, hegemony and inequality and social struggle. The second part discusses what the new trends mean for the emerging 21 st century international division of labor.
New trends in globalization
The twenty-first century momentum of globalization is markedly different from twentieth century globalization and involves a new geography of trade, weaker hegemony and growing multipolarity. This presents major questions. Is the rise of East Asia, China and India just another episode in the rise and decline of nations, another reshuffling of capitalism, a relocation of accumulation centers without affecting the logics of accumulation? Does it advance, sustain or halt neoliberalism? The rise of Asia is codependent with neoliberal globalization and yet unfolds outside the neoliberal mold. What is the relationship between zones of accumulation and modes of regulation? What are the ramifications for global inequality? The first part of this paper discusses trends in trade, finance, international institutions, hegemony and inequality and social struggle. The second part discusses what the new trends mean for the emerging twenty-first century international division of labor.
□ Sociological Analysis, 1, 1, 2007: 63-84
Globalization the next round: sociological perspectives
The twenty first century momentum of globalization is markedly different from twentieth century globalization (a new geography of trade, weaker hegemony, growing multipolarity) and presents major questions. Is the rise of East Asia, China and India just another episode in the rise and decline of nations, another reshuffling of capitalism, a relocation of accumulation centers without affecting the logics of accumulation? Does it advance, sustain or halt neoliberalism? The rise of Asia is codependent with neoliberal globalization and yet unfolds outside the neoliberal mold. What is the relationship between zones of accumulation and modes of regulation? What are the ramifications for the global inequality? What does sociology contribute to this question?
□ Futures, 2008
Globalization as hierarchical integration: The dollar economy and the rupee economy, with Anirudh Krishna (submitted)
Asia rising: emancipation or annexation?
About cutting edge globalization there are two big stories to tell. One is the rise of Asia and the accompanying growth of East-South trade, energy and security relations. Some of this story is being covered in the general media. The other story, which is being covered only in a patchy way, is that this combines with major social crises in agriculture and urban poverty. In China this is widely recognized and being addressed; in India public awareness is split between middle class hype and recognition of social problems, but there are no major policies in place to address the main problems.
□ Illinois International Review , 2007, 4: 4-5
Oriental globalization: past and present
Keywords: global history, Eurocentrism, world economy, Asian hegemony, East West binaries
I review the arguments of oriental globalization in the past and draw out some of their implications. The second section turns to contemporary oriental globalization and the ‘rise of Asia' and discusses the (dis)continuities between oriental globalization past and present.
□ In Gerard Delanty, ed. Europeand Asia beyond East and West: towards a new cosmopolitanism. London, Routledge, 2006, 61-73
Oriental Globalization
□ Theory Culture & Society , 23, 2-3, 2006: 391-94
Towards democratic globalization: To WTO or not to WTO?
Globalization
Globalization goes in circles: East-West hybridities
□ in Dominique Schirmer, Gernot Saalmann, Christl Kessler, eds. Hybridising East and West. Muenster, LIT Verlag, 2007, 19-30
Global inequality: bringing politics back in
Data on contemporary global inequality are dramatic, widely known and a new conventional backdrop. In research and policy, economists lead the way and the emphasis is on global poverty rather than inequality. Within nations poverty is a challenge while inequality is not; on a world scale, arguably it is the other way round. The international policy focus on poverty alleviation coexists with neoliberal policies that widen inequality domestically and internationally. A strategic question is where the data depart from the conventional wisdom. Thus a general assumption is that inequality within countries is largest in poor countries; the steepest inequality however is found within the US and UK. The conventional assumption is that neoliberal policies and free trade lift all tides; those countries and periods however where this policy has been most consistently implemented show the steepest increase in inequality. Global inequality helps sustain domestic privilege. The belief that the risks that global inequality poses can be contained in the global margins is contradicted by the crossborder effects of environmental degradation, migration, transnational crime and terrorism. In explaining global inequality, economic accounts ignore unequal relations of power. The combined policies of developmental discipline, global integration, and marginalization and containment may be viewed as part of a single process of hierarchical integration, which has turbulence built-in.
□ Third World Quarterly , 23, 6, 2002: 1023-46
Globalization at war: war on terrorism
9/11 tends to invite ad hoc reflection but raises questions about the shape of contemporary globalization. Since 9/11 public attention has shifted from ‘globalization' to the war on terrorism and to the battlegrounds of Palestine. The wider question is what agendas shape the ongoing war on terrorism. This reflection opens with a brief inventory of current perspectives on globalization, to serve as a yardstick to measure changes globalization. The next section interprets 9/11 as the ‘globalization of the globalizer'. Turning to the war on terrorism I argue that it should be understood in terms of long-term objectives of the United States and involves underlying contradictions. Further sections consider US foreign policy in conjunction with macroeconomic policy and neoliberalism and the implications of 9/11 for globalization-from-below movements. The closing section comes back to the dynamics shaping globalization.
□ International Journal of Peace Studies , 7, 2, 2002: 75-93
Fault lines of transnationalism: borders matter
According to many accounts these are times of increasing borderlessness or breaking down of boundaries. This treatment argues that these are times of the redefinition and redrawing of borders. Examining transnationalism requires combining long-term and holistic views. The long-term view brings into question the newness of transnationalism. The holistic view signals that increasing transnationalism in communication, production, consumption and travel goes together with the emergence of new borders (as in rising restrictions on migration) and new politics of risk containment (as in relation to conflict areas). As some borders fade new ones and or internal boundaries emerge; besides the advantages of the erasure of boundaries are not evenly distributed. With globalization comes a new dialectics of borders. This can be understood as a process of hierarchical integration, in which integration (the spread of global capitalism and its political influence and cultural radius) fosters borderlessness while hierarchy imposes new boundaries and forms of stratification.
□ Bulletin of the Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies , 4, 2, 2002: 33-48.
Globalization as reworking borders: hierarchical integration and new border theory
Many accounts suggest that these are times of increasing borderlessness or breaking down of boundaries. This treatment argues that these are times of redrawing and redefining borders. With contemporary globalization comes a new dialectics of borders. Increasing transnationalism in communication, production, consumption and travel goes together with the emergence of new borders (as in rising restrictions on migration) and new politics of risk containment (as in relation to conflict areas). As some borders fade new ones and or internal boundaries emerge; besides the advantages of the erasure of boundaries are not evenly distributed. Contemporary globalization can be understood as a process of hierarchical integration in which integration (the spread of global capitalism and its political and cultural radius) fosters borderlessness while hierarchy imposes new boundaries and forms of stratification.
United States
Political and economic brinkmanship
According to liberal arguments for American hegemony a dangerous world needs American power. How does the liberal view hold up against the reality test of how political aims are interpreted and implemented by security professionals? I argue that this is embedded in strategies of political brinkmanship. The second part explores whether American economic policies too can be viewed as brinkmanship. This concerns the ramifications of ‘free market' policies for the United States at a time when exports become imports, the trade deficit deepens, income inequality widens and external deficits rise to unsustainable levels. The closing question concerns the effects of combined political and economic brinkmanship.
□ Review of International Political Economy, 14, 3, 2007: 467-86
The trouble with hegemony: hegemonic destabilization theory
This paper revisits hegemonic stability theory to examine whether hegemony, in terms of its major justifications, applies to the United States in the present period. The paper finds that over time, particularly since the end of the Cold War, the role of the United States has increasingly changed from hegemonic stabilization to destabilization. While hegemonic destabilization such as the unleashing of finance capital and military preparedness out of proportion to existing threats, has been noticeable since the Reagan period, recent American policies of aggressive unilateralism and deficit spending have been increasingly destabilizing. This holds implications for how we understand hegemony: should we replace hegemonic stability theory with a theory of hegemonic destabilization? If hegemonic stability made for a “relatively open and stable” global economy what kind of world does hegemonic destabilization create? This raises the question of hegemonic transition and the configurations emerging as hegemony unravels.
□ Asian Review , 16, 2004 : 69-90
Can the United States correct itself?
Is the balance of forces such that, short of undergoing a major economic and political crisis, the United States can chart a significantly different course? Domestically this would mean a return to New Deal politics and internationally a return to genuine constructive multilateralism. The answer is negative: growing social inequality, political and corporate unaccountability are structurally entrenched and public forums to address them hardly exist. A case in point is the military-industrial complex as a major source of distortion in the American economy and politics; privileging military contracts means that the US economy has become uncompetitive. Is the rapport de forces such that, short of undergoing a major economic and political crisis, the United States can chart a significantly different course? In brief, this would mean, domestically, a return to New Deal politics, and internationally a return to constructive multilateralism. The short answer is negative. Growing social inequality, political and corporate unaccountability are structurally entrenched and public forums to address them hardly exist.
□ Cultural Studies—Critical Methodologies, 4, 3, 2004: 350-56
Cosmopolitanism
Emancipatory cosmopolitanism: towards an agenda
This paper explores what, in outline, an agenda of emancipatory cosmopolitanism would consist of. The first step in this treatment is to scrutinize capitalist cosmopolitanism as the dominant variant of cosmopolitanism. Understanding its influence is crucial to the task of counterbalancing it. The second section concerns the strange double life of conventional cosmopolitanism, which, while claiming universality, reflects a regional, parochial order. This paper argues that if globalization is multipolar then cosmopolitanism too is multicentric and this involves overcoming West-centrism or monocultural cosmopolitanism. Third, important as the reflection on planetary ethics is, I think the tendency toward normative abstraction is problematic and bringing history back into cosmopolitanism is important as a counterpoint to monocultural cosmopolitanism.
□ Development and Change , 37, 6, 2006: 1245-55
Islam and cosmopolitanism
There is no cosmopolitanism without access to collective memory, collective history as the threshold to collective future. A cosmopolitanism that is informed from one part of the world only, that monopolizes the world by a single language, such as human rights, and a single cultural style, is not cosmopolitanism but hegemony. The first section discusses the cosmopolitan character of Islamic culture. How does this fare when the Islamic world loses its intercontinental middleman position during the era of European dominance? This is taken up in the second section. The third section focuses on contemporary political Islam and its codependence with American hegemony, and the closing section reflects on how clichés about ‘Islamic fundamentalism' translate into US national security perspectives on the Islamic world.
□ in Björn Hettne, ed. Culture, security and sustainable development. London, Palgrave, 2007
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism conflicts, multi-circuit identification
Multiculturalism is a global arena, yet most treatments still conceive of multiculturalism as a national arena. Muslim women's headscarves from Cairo and Istanbul to Tehran and Lyon display a wide register of meanings, but in the French national assembly have been signified in just one. Multiculturalism means global engagement. To engage with the world is to engage with its conflicts. Multiculturalism is not consensus. There is no consensus in Britain about the war in Iraq and there isn't among immigrants either. The ‘securitization' of migration confirms the interplay between multicultural and global frictions. This chapter develops three propositions. First, multiculturalism has gone global and migrants are increasingly part of ‘transnational societies'. I characterize this configuration as global multiculture and illustrate it with multiculturalism conflicts—the Danish cartoon episode and the murder of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam. Second, although multiculturalism is usually discussed within the framework of the nation state, it should be understood in transnational frameworks such as transnationalism, global sociology or nomadism and neo-medievalism. Third, embedded in transnational settings, migrants increasingly identify in multiple circuits. The closing section develops the themes of multi-circuit identification and flexible acculturation.
□ in A. de Ruyter and W. Pansters, eds. Inequality, pluralism and environment . Paris, unesco, 2008
Global multiculture, flexible acculturation
This paper develops two propositions: multiculturalism has gone global and identification has become flexible. Multiculturalism is a global arena, yet most treatments still conceive of multiculturalism as a national arena. In contemporary global multiculture far off conflicts become part of multiculturalism arenas; this is illustrated with a discussion of two multiculturalism conflicts, the Danish cartoon episode and the murder of Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam. Muslim women's headscarves from Istanbul and Cairo to Tehran and Lyon display a wide register of meanings, but in the French national assembly have been signified in just one. Multiculturalism means global engagement and to engage with the world is to engage with its conflicts. Multiculturalism is not no man's land. Multiculturalism is not consensus. There is no consensus in Britain about the war in Iraq and there isn't among immigrants either. The securitization of cultural difference confirms the interplay between global and multicultural frictions. Multiculturalism is one of the faces of globalization and globalization, at its Sunday best, is human history conscious of itself, which isn't always nice. Global multiculture represents a new phase of globalization.
□ Globalizations , 4, 1, 2007: 65-79
Global multiculture: cultures, transnational culture, deep culture
Through history the relations among cultures (ethnicities, nations, civilizations, religions) have been a major arena of strife, with greater attention for differences than commonalities. The commonalities we can term deep culture. During the past 200 years the influence of transnational culture has grown such that cultures increasingly articulate their local differences in terms of transnational culture. This builds on two meanings of the word “culture.” Culture in a general sense is human software and know-how, or all that is learned in the process of being human. Culture in the sense of “a culture” and “ cultures” refers to forms of emotional and cognitive learning that occur in specific social settings. The growing influence of transnational culture creates room for deep culture to come more to the foreground. These combined layers of culture—cultures, transnational culture, deep culture—I describe as global multiculture. I use this term in contrast to multiculturalism (which is national in conception), global multiculturalism (which would assume institutions of multiculturalism at the global level) and world culture (which suggests a single homogeneous field). The starting point of global multiculture is that the balance between cultures (sedentary) and culture (not place bound), between sedentary (multiculturalism, assimilation, integration) and mobile trends (flexible acculturation, transnational culture) is changing toward greater influence of mobility. The overall trend is towards more flows that permeate the boundaries of units and “marble” that cuts across strata.
The case of multiculturalism: kaleidoscopic and long-term views
That multiculturalism is multifaceted and complex is not simply an obstacle or handicap, it is also an asset for it reflects the many streams, past and present, that multiculturalism represents and is on the receiving end of. We need a complex, rich take on multiculturalism as a configuration of trends and a notion that is disputed and disputable. This reflection seeks to contribute to a wide-angle approach by developing kaleidoscopic and long-term views of multiculturalism. From a historical point of view, multiculturalism signifies a time of transition and represents a reworking of local, national, regional and worldwide identities and interrelations. To arrive at a multi-perspective view this treatment probes several vortexes around which multiculturalism takes shape—cultural flux, citizenship, everyday experience, politics of recognition, and political economy and class. Multiculturalism's 47 varieties address or fail to address these concerns in different ways. If the common variable is politics of difference, upon closer consideration difference itself turns out to host very different notions. The second part of this treatment considers the antecedents of conceptions of multiculturalism, which generally derive from several sources: colonial society; settlements of the Kulturkampf in Europe; combinations of both; experiences in settler societies such as the United States and Canada; and corporate marketing strategies. In conclusion I turn to the question whither multiculturalism. □ Social Identities, 7, 3, 2001: 393-407
Many doors to multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is a moving target. The term refers both to an ongoing cultural flux and to tenuous institutional arrangements. Institutional multiculturalism is typically criticized from diverse points of view—conservative (‘too much) and progressive (‘too little'). Diverse stakeholders either resent being ignored or being stereotyped. As an institutional arrangement multiculturalism is both a target of criticisms and a reform platform. Indeed t here are many doors to multiculturalism. From a historical point of view multiculturalism probably signifies a time of transition, which represents a reworking of local, national, regional and worldwide identities and interrelations. Whither multiculturalism implies the question which multiculturalism. One way to address the question is by probing the various vortexes around which multiculturalism takes shape—citizenship, cultural flux, everyday multiculturalism, politics of difference, questions of class and bottom-line multiculturalism. Multiculturalism comes in 47 varieties that address these concerns in different ways. Then we come back to the question whither multiculturalism.
□ in Barbara Saunders and David Haljan, eds. Whither multiculturalism? A politics of dissensus. Louvain, Leuven University Press, 2003, 21-34
Multiculturalism and museums: discourse about others in the age of globalization
Museums and exhibitions present images of self (in history, art and science museums) and others (in ethnographic museums). How do globalization and the related changes of multiculturalism and postcolonialism affect the politics of display? While this paper focuses on representations of others, they cannot be separated from images of self. A conventional view is that representations of others tend to be either exoticizing (emphasizing difference) or assimilating (emphasizing similarities). Displaying ethnographic objects as art follows an assimilative approach while in situ exhibitions (reconstructing habitats) tend to be exoticizing and encyclopedic exhibitions follow mixed strategies. Display strategies are informed by philosophies of culture. Perspectives in anthropology such as evolutionism and cultural relativism reproduce Enlightenment gazes—universalist, emphasizing roads to modernity, and Romantic, cherishing difference. How these approaches are implemented in display strategies is affected by the rapport de forces in different settings, such as light or strong multiculturalism and those with a stable centre and those in flux. Accelerated globalization destabilizes the dichotomy between self and other. Enlightenment subjectivities (national, imperial, modern) are refracted in multiple identities, and ‘the other' becomes ‘others'—differentiated by ‘race', class, gender, and in many other ways. These transformations are articulated in various alternative display agendas, each of which raises its own questions. Pluralism—but is there still a centre? Dialogue—but who is in control? Self representation—but who speaks for indigenous and other communities? Hybridity—but what are the terms of mixture? Reflexive representation—zeroing in on the dilemmas of representation. The core dilemma is that of exhibiting power. Representation tends to keep out of view the power of representation. Thus, colonialism frames ethnographic exhibitions but is rarely addressed by it. Exhibitions fetishize power rather than interrogating the charisma of power. From sites of power, links in the chain reproduction of desire, museums can become laboratories of reflexivity and transformation.
□ Theory Culture & Society, 14, 4, 1997: 123-46
Words age with use: Multiculturalism
□ Third Text, 53, 2001: 91-92
Miraculous multiculturalism: Black Pete as Trickster
□ in Lulu Helder and Scotty Gravenberch, eds. Sinterklaasje, kom maar binnen zonder knecht. Berchem, EPO, 1998, 27-44 (Dutch)
Ethnicities
Social capital and migration: beyond ethnic economies
Keywords: Capitalism, multiculturalism, interethnic relations, crosscultural enterprise, grassroots transnational enterprise.
Intercultural traffic and mingling have been vital to economic innovation past and present, witness the role of travelers, migrants and diasporas as cultural brokers. While intercultural exchange is a prominent theme in cultural studies, studies of ethnicity have often been more occupied by group boundaries and antagonisms than by cross-group relations. In discussions of social capital, a central notion has been the ethnic economy. Here this notion is examined and rejected because it refers to national origin rather than ethnicity and diverts attention from social and economic relations across cultural differences and boundaries. While immigrant groups may play a large part in national and transnational enterprise, formal and informal, this is not conceivable without considerable and extensive crosscultural relations. This paper considers crosscultural and interethnic enterprise also in long-term perspective and with a view to policy. The shift of emphasis to crosscultural enterprise means taking into account the various types of social capital—bonding, bridging and linking social capital—within and across cultural boundaries.
□ Ethnicities , 3, 1, 2003: 5-34
Ethnicities and multiculturalisms: politics of boundaries
This treatment develops the notion of ethnicities in the plural, proposes a typology of ethnicity and twins the ethnicity discussion with the discussion on multiculturalism.Here four major varieties of ethnicity are spelled out and, given the salience of power relations, are considered from the point of view of domination and emancipation. Underlying varieties of ethnicity are different ways of drawing group boundaries. The key variable in different multiculturalisms, likewise, is understandings of group boundaries, including notions of identity, difference and intergroup relations. By juxtaposing ethnicities and multiculturalisms the limitations of some perspectives on multiculturalism can be made visible.
□ in Stephen May , Tariq Modood and Judith Squires, eds. Ethnicity, Nationalism and Minority Rights. Cambridge, Cambridge UP, 2003
Deconstructing/reconstructing ethnicity
Many discussions of ethnicity generalize as if there is only one type of ethnicity, but it is more realistic to think of ethnicity as a continuum varying widely in terms of salience, intensity and meaning. Besides, ethnic identification and positioning is relational. Along this spectrum several types of ethnicity can be distinguished. (1) Domination ethnicity—considering that the term ‘ethnicity' itself is a discourse of domination and that the distinction between nation and ethnicity is questionable, if the nation takes the form of monocultural control it may be regarded as a form of ethnicity, or ethnocracy. (2) Enclosure ethnicity—in varieties of dormant ethnicity, cultural confinement and inward-looking ethnicity. (3) Competition ethnicity—competing in relation to resources of the state and development. And (4) optional or low-intensity ethnicity, light, volitional and fluid, as in the case of ethnic entrepreneurs and symbolic ethnicity. Ethnicity is not static; it is a matter of ever-changing relational positioning. Thus, another consideration is the dynamics of ethnicity, shifting from one mode to another. A further dimension, the politics of ethnicity, is taken up here in terms of emancipation and domination. The changing meanings of ethnicity over time are another variable. The final question concerns the endgames of ethnicity, or the paths of change of different types of ethnicity, each of which relates to ethnic conflict regulation.
□ Nations and Nationalism, 3, 3, 1997: 1-31
Varieties of ethnic politics and ethnicity discourse
□ In E.N. Wilmsen and P. McAllister, eds. The politics of difference: ethnic premises in a world of power. University of Chicago Press, 1996, 25-44
Pants for an octopus: nation and diaspora
The conventional account treats the nation as a given, uses a conventional definition of globalization derived from the West, and adopts a narrow time frame. According to a Spanish proverb, it is difficult to put pants on an octopus. It is as difficult to understand the relationship between India and globalization, or between nation and diaspora, within the conventional framework of globalization. While the subcontinent is downsized to the nation and the nation in turn is shrunk to Hindu scale, the diaspora, in many accounts, is downsized to a Hindu diaspora. Thus, in addition, the pants being used are particularly tight.
□ Paper for Indianization of the Globe, Globalization of India, LSE, February 2003.
Development
Digital capitalism and development: The strange case of ICT4D
This discussion situates the application of information and communication technologies (ICT) in development policies in critical development studies and global political economy and argues that information-for-development is primarily driven by market expansion and market deepening. As the latest accumulation wave digital capitalism generates information technology boosterism and cyber utopianism with the digital divide as its refrain. This discussion criticizes the discourses and policies of bridging the digital divide and views information-for-development as part of a package deal in which cyber utopianism is associated, not exclusively but primarily, with marketing digital capitalism. The actual task of information-for-development is to disaggregate ICT4D. Less emphasis on the internet and more on telephone, radio and television would normalize and ground the discussion. I conclude by arguing that the ICT4D discussion should move away from development aid, NGOs and externally funded projects, to the central question of disembedding technology from capital.
□ in Geert Lovink and Soenke Zehle, eds. Incommunicado Reader. Amsterdam, Institute of Network Culture, 11-29 (www.incommunicado.info/reader)
Neoliberalism
Cultural politics of neoliberalism: desire, governmentality, confusion
Trends in marketing, design and politics suggest that marketing saturation succeeds in drilling the unconscious and producing passions and obsessions, but fails to overcome the major hurdles of boredom, product limitations, and economic constraints. Neoliberalism functions as a governmentality in which we are not just targets and consumers of assorted business models but participate in and internalize the script. Meandering through this is the question what actually is new and specific about neoliberalism, what is its time and place, and what do we learn about the nature of neoliberalism by examining its cultural politics. Neoliberalism emerges as a condition of organized obfuscation and chronic confusion, a society with an unusually and structurally high bogus factor. Neoliberalism as institutionalized fiction includes the illusion that neoliberalism derives from neoliberal theory rather than capitalist opportunism. Actual neoliberalism functions by virtue of paradoxes, claiming rationality and rational choice while accumulation and finance are irrational performances; claiming democracy though its leading institutions are undemocratic; claiming freedom while denying its affinity with power. Neoliberalism is a defeat disguised as triumph, a bull market within a structural downturn and a polarizing growth model with growing income inequality built-in. The closing section takes up the relationship between neoliberalism and power.
Cultural politics of neoliberalism
Trends in marketing (neuromarketing), design and politics suggest that marketing saturation succeeds in drilling the unconscious and producing passions and obsessions, but fails to overcome its major hurdles—boredom, product limitations, and economic constraints. The ultimate hurdle of neoliberal marketing is neoliberalism as deception and the gap between the exterior and the interior of neoliberalism. Market society induces chronic cognitive confusion. Neoliberalism as institutionalized fiction includes the illusion that neoliberalism derives from neoliberal theory rather than from capitalist opportunism. The origin of neoliberalism is a defeat disguised as triumph. Neoliberalism is falling apart as it is being constructed and represents a bull market within a structural downturn, a curve within a set of multiple trends, and a polarizing growth model with growing income inequality built-in. Neoliberalism owes its impact to timing, coming in a package deal together with information technologies, globalization, and American hegemony. By denying the affinity of freedom and power, free market buzz seeks to contain countervailing power. Cultural agency under neoliberalism is hegemonic coding and conditioning (by corporations, media, governments), subaltern decoding and deconditioning, and alternative recoding (consumer citizenship, ad busting, culture jamming).
Modernities
Modernities South: what's new?
In probing the theme of modernities this discussion presents a continuum of views from weak to strong arguments on modernities. Weak views don't dispute westerns claim to precedence and treat new modernities as add-ons to modernity, variations on the theme; a strong argument no longer privileges western modernity and deconstructs modernity and western claims. I discuss antecedents of the idea of modernities, how to frame new modernities in the global South, and the interaction of modernities. Various ways of framing new modernities reflect different angles on modernities; thus, ‘different but not really' is convergence theory plus variations; newness refers to pluralism in modernity, or modernities light; hybridity suggests plural sources of modernity; while distinctiveness implies radical pluralism or modernities in a strong sense. An implication of a strong argument on modernities is that western modernity becomes a modernity among others and loses its model status; thus western complexes reveal historical particularities that are not necessarily intrinsic to modernity per se.
□ American Sociological Association, San Francisco, 2004
Hybrid modernities: mélange modernities in Asia
Themes: Patterns of hybridity, bricolage, emulating or re-making modernity, memories of modernity, modernity as post feudalism, particularistic modernities, different capitalism but not really.
For some time I have been interested in the new modernities that have been emerging in the South and Eastern Europe. This paper is part of a wider reflection which involves several components: discussions of modernity/ modernities, of different modernities (in which I try to define what is new or different about modernities in the East) and particularist modernities (specifically, a comparison of Japan and Indonesia). This also involves a critique of western conceptions of modernity as modernity-without-windows, in which—as usual in western conceptions—South-North and South-South (or East-West and East-East) flows and influences are either ignored or underestimated. Part of this critique of modernization-as-westernization is a concern with Easternization, which concerns Japanese management practices, East Asian development models and Asian diasporas. This paper focuses on the mixed character of the new modernities in the East and seeks to contribute to the sociology of hybridity.
□ Sociological Analysis, 1, 3, 1998: 75-86.
Cf. Mélange modernities in the East: modernization and globalization
□ Annals of the International Institute of Sociology, 5, Trieste, 1996: 91-106
Emancipation/ Power & Empowerment
Metamorphoses of power: from coercion to cooperation?
In probing metamorphoses and changing understandings of power over time this treatment examines the question whether there is a general trend from coercive towards cooperative and consensual forms of power over time. This reflection unpacks power in its various dimensions, considers the contributions of Gramsci and Foucault, and then examines the hypothesis of a growing trend towards cooperative forms of power in domestic politics and civil society, and in international politics.
□ in A. K. Giri, ed. Modern prince and modern sage: rethinking power and freedom. New Delhi, Sage, 2006
Empowerment: snakes and ladders
Is it possible to penetrate the aura of vagueness surrounding ‘empowerment' to arrive at a critical core? The term empowerment is now so widely used that this itself can be taken as a sign of the times. Then, empowerment should not offhand be approached as a lesser form of emancipation, emancipation-minus, but as an approach in its own right. Empowerment implies or suggests a particular angle on power and politics. Capturing this involves exploring the relationship between power and empowerment. This line of inquiry suggests that the keynote of empowerment is capacitation, which is essentially a learning process. Empowerment also serves as an umbrella term and thus relates to wider forms of collective action. This line of inquiry tries to situate empowerment in relation to different forms and understandings of collective action, under the heading of the rhizome of empowerment.
□ in K.K. Bhavnani, J. Foran and P. Kurian, eds. Women, culture and development: tracing a field. London, Zed, 2003
Participatory democratization reconceived
Keywords: Democratization, participatory democracy, decentralization, governance.
Since the 1970s participatory democracy has been a catchword for genuine, popular or progressive democratization. Since then the general climate has changed, so h ow is participatory democracy now being conceived and reconceived? To contextualize this question I first consider ongoing discussions of democracy and democratization generally and then zero in on participatory democracy and its various current meanings. Participatory democracy is now usually thought of, rather than as wholesale system change, in partial reforms, particularly decentralization and empowerment. I conclude by offering dark and light scenarios of the future significance of participatory democratization.
□ Futures, 33, 4, 2001: 407-22
Globalization and collective action: theories and prospects
The emphasis is on forms of collective action that seek to shape or influence globalization. Two kinds of theories and futures interact in this argument, with regard to collective action and globalization. Prominent scenarios of globalization are (1) global apartheid, (2) Triad or G7 world management, (3) regional blocs, (4) asymmetric multilateralism, (5) symmetric multilateralism, (6) global democratization (‘cosmopolitan democracy'). The most likely scenario is asymmetric multilateralism and the challenge is to what extent this can be transformed in the direction of symmetric multilateralism. At issue is countervailing power at the global level. To what extent are international institutions such as the WTO, IMF and World Bank conducive to collective actions that seek to steer them toward a more symmetric direction? NGOs are playing a growing role and are also subject to questioning—as to legitimacy, internal structures, accountability. They are viewed both as the great hope for the future and as a form of subpolitics, the institutionalization of which could lead to a re-feudalization of politics. Their role varies according to issues (environment, development, human rights, peace, security, women's rights), mode of organization, methods of intervention (media, lobbying), willingness of government organizations and international institutions to cooperate, and North South relations. Other relevant social forces are professional organizations (epistemic communities) and media.
□ in Pierre Hamel, Henri Lustiger-Thaler, Jan Nederveen Pieterse and Sasha Roseneil, eds. Globalization and social movements. London, Palgrave, 2001, 21-40
Emancipation and regulation: Twin pillars of modernity?
□ European Journal of Social Theory, 4, 3, 2001: 297-300
Power and empowerment over time: the rhizome of empowerment
What is the relationship between transformations of power over time and changing understandings of power? Is there a general trend over time in the forms and exercise of power from coercive towards consensual forms of power? How do changing forms and understandings of power affect forms and understandings of empowerment? Thus it is also a reflection on power and empowerment.
□ Vision ( J of TMAM Research and Orientation Centre, Kottayam, Kerala), 2000: 5-27
Globalization and emancipation: f rom local empowerment to global reform
Looking back at earlier arenas of empire and emancipation confirms that emancipation is not simply about resistance but about transformation. Nowadays resistance to globalization is a prominent trend in civil society activism in Africa, Asia and the Americas, but it is necessary to move from opposition to proposition. In addition what is at issue is not only local empowerment but global empowerment. Localism—one of the reactions to globalization—can be outward looking, and local empowerment can connect with efforts towards democratization at wider levels of governance. What is needed is building bridges between local empowerment and global reform. The point is not to create new radical postures but to set forth a global politics of inclusion in which market dynamics serve human and social development.
□ in Barry K Gills, ed. Globalization and the politics of resistance. London, Palgrave, 2000, 189-206
Islam
Cosmopolitanism and Islam
As the world's bridging civilization during formative centuries the Islamic world has acted as an intercultural go-between. But ‘cosmopolitanism' continues to bear a Eurocentric stamp and, though much work has been done, the contributions of the Islamic world to the global interplay of cultures and the making of modernity and cosmopolitanism are still widely underestimated. This treatment focuses on the role of the Islamic world in relation to modernity and capitalism, in two steps. First, in relation to early modernity and capitalism—disputing Orientalist views (cf. Frank's Re-Orient, Abu-Lughod); and second, in relation to contemporary capitalism (e.g. Mitchell, ‘McJihad') and the intertwining of particular forms of Islam, capitalism and hegemony. Amid shifting geo-economics, geopolitics and geo-culture, the Islamic world is being turned again into an East and West frontier and battleground. An analytical backdrop of this inquiry is the notion of modernities and capitalisms in the plural. This treatment is part of a wider inquiry into the diverse lineages of global culture.
□ UC Berkeley, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Islamizing the Cosmopolis, April 2004
Islam under the shadow of the World Trade Centre: An alternative globalism
The attacks of 9/11 have provoked wide discussion of the politics of Jihad, much of which recycles well-worn stereotypes of Islam. To avoid this kind of stereotyping this reflection seeks to place radical Islamism in the wider context of Islam as an alternative globalism. This involves, like globalisms originating in the West, many and diverse social actors, among which radical political Islam is but one. To understand the various strands and layers of Islamic globalism we must consider the historical legacies of Islam as a precursor of modern globalization, the complex interdependence of the Muslim world and capitalism, and the contemporary Muslim diaspora. This treatment opens with diversity within Islam and then turns to the relationship between Islam and capitalism, globalism in the Muslim world, and Islam and migration.
□ An earlier version in A. Karam, ed. Transnational political Islam. London, Pluto, 2003
Traveling Islam: mosques without minarets
How does Islam change when traveling? The deterritorialization of Islam is considered first in relation to internal migration within Muslim countries, and second, in relation to overseas migration. If urbanization is largely occasioned by countries being integrated into world capitalism, overseas migration means traveling into the heartlands of world capitalism, to seek a place under the shadow of the World Trade Centres. If the experience of urbanization is shaped by the local vortex of rural/ urban cohabitation, immigration is shaped by the vortex of intercultural cohabitation, the historical pattern of dealing with cultural difference within societies and its contemporary political translation, and by the mix of crosscultural influences which is specific to each locality. These dimensions are considered in the case of Muslims in the Netherlands, especially in the major cities. The rise and decline of the way boundaries are constructed between Muslims and non-Muslims indicates the fluidity of Muslim identities.
□ in Ayse Öncü and Petra Weyland, eds. Space, culture and power. London, Zed, 1997, 177-200
Europe
Europe, traveling light: Europeanization and globalization
Europeanization is part of globalization and in this context the European Union is propelled by wider forces of technological, economic, financial and political change. Cultural identity is discussed against this backdrop. If there is a surfeit of national and ethnic identity talk, evoked from parochial perspectives, there is a deficit of European identity and reflexivity in terms of political economy and the social capitalism which Rhineland Europe used to represent. An open, casual definition of European identity is appropriate on historical grounds in view of the multicultural antecedents of European cultures; on theoretical grounds, considering that culture is open-ended; on political grounds, in view of postnationalist definitions of citizenship, and it is welcome medicine for Euro chauvinism. It may also be pragmatic in relation to ongoing technological and economic changes. In view of the split between disciplines and sensibilities it would be important to attempt to combine cultural, political and economic analyses and to arrive at a forward-looking combination of agendas.
□ The European Legacy , 4, 3, 1999: 3-17
Europe and its others
This sprawling theme involves a variety of historically changing boundaries that share an element of ‘difference'. ‘Europe' can be taken in two ways: within Europe, i.e. within what is now considered Europe, and in relation to Europe, i.e. problematizing the identity of Europe. Both are considered here. While ‘ Europe' is an old concept it did not gain currency until the seventeenth century and by and large only became an active boundary in the course of the nineteenth century and particularly from the turn of the century. This treatment opens with a discussion of the different meanings of otherness in relation to Europe over time, including the role of Islam, and concludes with a brief theoretical reflection on otherness.
□ in David Theo Goldberg and John Solomos, eds. Blackwell companion to racial and ethnic studies. Oxford, Blackwell, 2002
Others
□ in Ellis Cashmore, ed. Encyclopedia of Race and Ethnic Relations. London, Routledge, 2003
Fictions of Europe
Walk in any street of any European city and ask yourself—is this ‘European culture'? Is this ‘ Greece - Rome - and Judeo-Christianity'? Ask contemporary citizens of Europe about their ancestors, their origins—how many of you hail from non-European worlds? Or, to use 19th century racist language, how many of you are half-caste? Or, how many of you were never represented in this elite European culture in the first place—in the working class or the countryside, or in regional cultures such as the ‘Celtic fringe'? What is being recycled as ‘European culture' is 19 th century elite imperial myth-formation. Is it not high time then to open up the imperial façade of European culture, to place it under an X ray and ask, what here is really Europe and what is not?
□ in A. Gray and J. McGuigan, eds. Studying culture. London, Edward Arnold, 1993, 225-32; Race & Class, 32, 3, 1991: 3-10
Unpacking the West: how European is Europe?
Several non-European influences in European culture are on record as so many ‘fashions' in European culture such as turquerie, Ethiopianism, chinoiserie, Egyptianism, orientalism, Japonisme, l'art nègre, primitivism. While reviewing each of these episodes I reinterpret them as the tips of icebergs extending deep below the surface. The influence of the ‘South' in the ‘North' cannot be separated from the changing perceptions of non-European cultures in the West. Many of these influences concern arts and crafts: ‘In the field of art, especially the visual arts, western avant gardes treated non-western cultures entirely as equals' (Hobsbawm). In art history, in many of the better sources, there has been little inhibition to crediting non-European inspirations and much work has been done to uncover such connections, while in general history this is much rarer.
□ in A. Rattansi and S. Westwood, eds. Racism, modernity, identity: on the Western front. Cambridge, Polity, 1994, 129-49
Europe among other things: closure, culture, identity
Arguably the present form of globalization is regionalization and European regionalization is part of the global regionalist turn. It represents a market drive toward wider corporate and financial cooperation primarily as a function of the imperatives of global competition. Euroland implies a financial regime in line with bankers' conservatism, in other words the structural adjustment of the EU. At the same time the EU also represents a particular take on regionalism. It is the deepest form of regional integration and a regional embodiment of Rhineland capitalism—which is itself being reworked in the context of globalization, and which diverges from Atlantic capitalism, represented within the EU through Britain. Globalization is a polycentric field of tension of different modernities and different capitalisms. An EU on the basis of reformed Rhineland capitalism can serve an important global function in demonstrating that capitalism can be social (as against the Anglo-American model) and democratic (as against the Asian model). Cultural identity is discussed against this backdrop. If presently there is a surfeit of national and ethnic identity talk, evoked from parochial perspectives, there is a deficit of European identity and reflexivity in terms of politics, political economy and the social capitalism which Rhineland Europe used to represent. An open, casual definition of European identity may be appropriate on historical grounds, in view of the multicultural antecedents of European cultures; on theoretical grounds, considering that culture is open-ended; on political grounds, in view of postnationalist definitions of citizenship. It may be welcome medicine for Euro chauvinism. It may also be pragmatic in relation to ongoing technological, economic and demographic changes.
□ in K. von Benda-Beckmann and M. Verkuyten, eds. Nationalism, ethnicity and cultural identity in Europe. Utrecht University, Comparative studies in migration and ethnic relations, 1995, 71-88
Aesthetics and Politics
Colonialism and representation: the parade of the vanquished
In 1800 Europeans controlled 35 percent of the earth surface; in 1878 this had increased to 67 percent and between 1878 and 1914, the period of the ‘new imperialism', European control expanded over 84.4 percent of the earth surface. The expansion took place mainly in Africa. So Africa is fresh in Europe's colonial memory. The question which occupies us here is: what light does European popular culture shed on the era of imperialism? Through most of the nineteenth century the general climate of opinion in Europe was anticolonial. Africa could be taken advantage of commercially without conquest and colonization being necessary. On the African coasts European traders made further and further inroads on the trading monopolies of African kings and appealed again and again for military assistance from their home governments. This gunboat diplomacy led to several incidents but not much more than that. There were earlier European excursions into Africa south of the Sahara but the first colonial operations were the French conquests of Gabon (1843-44) and Senegal (1854-65), the British war against the Ashanti (1863-64), and the Abyssinian campaign (1867). A combination of circumstances in the 1870s and 1880s however started a new imperialist era.
□ African Societies , 4, 2003, http://www.africansocieties.org
Aesthetics of power: time and body politics
In sociology, in the footsteps of Weber, power has been primarily understood in terms of domination, repression, coercion, Herrschaft. Over time attention has shifted to the exercise of power through persuasion, as in the concern with ideology, propaganda, indoctrination and, more widely, Gramscian hegemony and Habermas' concern with legitimation. With Foucault and the ‘linguistic turn', attention has shifted to the deeper level of power as discourse, knowledge, truth. Still what these perspectives share is a focus on the cerebral, mental avenues through which power-as-persuasion operates and what is by and large being left out are the emotional, sensory and sensual dimensions of power, or how power plays upon desire. Thus the influence exercised by market forces upon consumers operates through seduction. But political forces operate along these lines as well. This is a matter then of viewing power and influence in terms of seduction aimed at the emotions, the heart, the subliminal, the unconscious, or the sensory and, to an extent, nondiscursive features of power. This partly operates at the symbolic level (still within the realm of the discursive) and partly on the level of the imaginary (in Lacan's sense). Power as spectacle and the ritual aspects of power refer primarily to the reproduction and legitimation of power as ‘tradition', but also novel constellations of power and subtle shifts and adjustments in alignments of power may find expression through forms that are aimed at the senses. Here this is captured under the heading of aesthetics of power. This reflection on aesthetics and politics, image and influence in relation to time and the body, takes its examples from, among other places, Israel.
□ Third Text, 22, 1993: 33-43 (illustr.)
Architectures of power, urban modernities
Architecture is where power manifests, declares itself, shows its imprint. Historically architecture has been a profound gauge of power, of the intentions and the kitsch of power. If we consider today's architecture what do we learn about the contours of contemporary power? The pinnacles of contemporary architecture are the corporate towers in the North as well as in the emerging markets that display in-your-face capitalism. They tower above mélange modernities, hybrid cultures and social practices like international finance and stock values tower over economies.
□ Unpublished paper
Manufacture of charisma, aesthetics of politics
Weber's charisma is a perspective that has gotten stuck in questions of charismatic leadership but that should be widened to cover ‘methodologies of charisma', or the manufacture of charisma - possibly more significant that the classic ‘manufacture of consent', which remains too cerebral. Here this is captured under the heading of aesthetics, in the general sense of manipulation of imagery and symbolism, seeking effects and using methods comparable to art, as distinct from or opposed to ethics, which is concerned with the moral aims and methods of power. Opposition movements are often concerned with ethics; because good/ bad is what motivates them they also use that to mobilize others. But for the powers that be this may only be camouflage, a moral posture, and opposition movements may be outmaneuvered by reactionary or conservative forces who operate on a different plane altogether by using astute aesthetics which move people directly and subliminally. In the words of Nietzsche: ‘An anti-metaphysical view of the world - yes, but an artistic one.'
□ Unpublished paper
Apes imagined: the political ecology of animal symbolism
Animals are encountered, imagined, thought of, represented and related to as part of larger situations or ecological fields. The array of fields, measured in terms of human development, includes the Paleolithic, Neolithic, industrial and postindustrial/ biotechnology eras. Each constitutes a different field of animal/human rapports de forces and accordingly the political ecology of representing animals varies widely across the spectrum. The status of hybrid and in-between beings is a marker of instability and contingency over time, of the fluidity of categories and boundaries across fields - from the giants of the Book of Enoch to the cyborgs of Terminator I, II and III. Apes, authoritatively acknowledged as nearest kin to humans since the mid nineteenth century, have been a particularly sensitive barometer of political ecology in flux. This paper is a reflection on imagining apes in the context of ecopolitics in motion. Considering this over a long stretch of time, one issue that emerges is that the time of hunter/gatherers was an era when boundaries between species - gods, animals, plants, humans - were vague and fluid, while presently, in the postindustrial era, some of these boundaries are again becoming relatively fluid. Another boundary preoccupation to emerge and take on special sensitivity is that between humans/machines, as in bio-science and cyborgs. If there is some validity to this broad parallel, what does this tell us in terms of similarities or affinities between the Paleolithic and postindustrial eras? And perhaps more important, what does this yield in terms of our perspective on the Neolithic and industrial periods? Both epochs have been deeply preoccupied with questions of boundaries and territory (as in imperialism, colonialism), and accordingly, with classification, order, and hierarchy. In Neolithic production systems particularly intensive agriculture has been marked by intense preoccupation with land boundaries, while in industrialism borders have been jealously guarded and territories claimed with a view to supply lines and markets. Both have been epochs of profound boundary anxiety which have left deep imprints in cultural politics and continue to exercise an ongoing impact - for these epochs are not behind us but coexist alongside other ecopolitics.
□ in R. Corbey and B. Theunissen, eds. Ape, man, apeman: changing views since 1600. Leiden University, 1995, 341-54 (illustr.)
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