April Biccum | The Australian National University (original) (raw)
Papers by April Biccum
Culture, Theory and Critique, 2002
This article examines the possibility of an engagement between the discourse of Development and p... more This article examines the possibility of an engagement between the
discourse of Development and postcolonial theory. To open up a space for this kind of engagement, the article proposes first that, while there is no singularity of project within the field of Postcolonial Studies, there is a productive set of debates; and second that the necessity of questioning Development as an idea springs out of these debates around the nature and existence of Postcoloniality itself. It attempts to show how the critiques which have currency within postcolonial theory can be used to deconstruct Development and expose the mechanisms and tropes of power which Development as a discourse has in common with colonial discourse and modernity as a project. The scope of this article is to lay the groundwork for a continued engagement of Postcolonial with Political Studies, and in particular with the discourse of Development.
Politics and culture, once considered separate, are now fusing in new and interesting ways. Polit... more Politics and culture, once considered separate, are now fusing in
new and interesting ways. Political activism is becoming popular, particularly through the expansion of a new kind of development advocacy made highly visible through celebrity involvement. Theorists of globalisation celebrate the democratisation of civil society made possible by new information and communications technology; critical theorists will note the various ways in which ICT ambivalently makes the contradictions in global capitalism more obvious and has become the means by which globalisation is contested. Some metropolitan governments have sought to capitalise on this new knowledge
economy by making knowledge for development part of their strategies to produce ‘global citizens’ necessary for the global economy. This paper examines the linkages between celebrity and government-funded development advocacy in Australia, which comprise the introduction of free market principles to form a marketing campaign for neoliberal globalisation.
This essay examines the 2007 British bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act as a mea... more This essay examines the 2007 British bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act as a means of remembering empire with a specific end. Trends within the disciplines of critical development and international relations are turning their attention to empires past and present. At the same time, metropolitan countries are beginning to make gestures for reconciliation for the injustices of empires, and one such example is the British commemoration of the abolition of slavery. This essay is a retrospective on the policy of development advocacy of the British Department for International Development (under New Labour) that situates these two sites of remembering empire alongside new types of
development advocacy (such as Make Poverty History and Live8) that, prior to the global financial crisis, had the production of ‘global citizens’ as their aim.
The essay then illustrates the way in which, in official communication, the
bicentenary for the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was utilized as a vehicle for
development communication, a means of advertising the UK Labour government
development agenda, which had as its aim the production among domestic
citizenry of a global citizen who advocates for development under neoliberal
terms
The aim of this paper is to bring into conversation two apparently disparate debates in the field... more The aim of this paper is to bring into conversation two apparently disparate debates in the fields of politics and International Relations. The first is a debate over Celebrity Humanitarianism that is divided between optimistic scholars which see in it an enhancement in democracy and pessimistic scholars which link it to capitalist imperialism or a throwback to older colonial tropes. The second is a debate over a (new) American Empire which has prompted scholars in IR to redress its historic elision of empire and offer new network theories of empire. This paper argues that these two debates each address the shortcomings in the other and offers a speculation of what Celebrity Humanitarianism might have to do with empire by bridging the connections between structuralist political theories of empire and the cultural accounts offered by post-colonial theory. URL: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ctwq E-mail: twq.admin@tandf.co.uk Third World Quarterly Abstract: The aim of this paper is to bring into conversation two apparently disparate debates in the fields of politics and International Relations. The first is a debate over Celebrity Humanitarianism that is divided between optimistic scholars which see in it an enhancement in democracy and pessimistic scholars which link it to capitalist imperialism or a throwback to older colonial tropes. The second is a debate over a (new) American Empire which has prompted scholars in IR to redress its historic elision of empire and offer new network theories of empire. This paper argues that these two debates each address the shortcomings in the other and offers a speculation of what Celebrity Humanitarianism might have to do with empire by bridging the connections between structuralist political theories of empire and the cultural accounts offered by post-colonial theory.
Australian Journal of International Affairs, 2015
Since the 1990s, governments of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ... more Since the 1990s, governments of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have begun to promote their foreign aid politics domestically via global education. This policy remit has its origins in civil society and has been combined with a stated aim on the part of governments to prepare populations for globalisation, but also to convince populations of the need for increased aid spending in the context of various challenges, including calls for aid effectiveness, large-scale protest by the metropolitan left and rising parochialisms that diminish cosmopolitan world views. In the context of the apparent spontaneity of political mobilisation globally, this article seeks to qualify the optimism of the political sociology and social movements literature on the network society by comparing two OECD government remits for global/development education in the UK and Australia, which are attempts to manage or socially engineer civic activism and engagement. The problem which this article addresses is that, on the face of it, state funding of ‘global education’ appears to be a success of the activism of educators combined with the networked advocacy efforts of development non-governmental organisations, except that it has
occurred in tension with international drivers to use education to further
global economic competitiveness and governments’ desire to promote their own foreign aid spending in a climate of falling legitimacy. This phenomenon of state funding for global education might be considered an elaboration of network politics, but this article argues that it must equally be read, via Gramsci, as a hegemonic contest in the struggle for subject production appropriate to the global knowledge economy.
This chapter is a theoretical exposition into the connection between social change and the politi... more This chapter is a theoretical exposition into the connection between social change and the political subject via transformative education, and a critique of the current paradigm for development being marshalled in the World Development Report for 2015 Mind Society Behaviour. WDR calls for a redesign of development policy at a time when it has come under sustained critique from a variety of quarters and at face value appears to be a departure from the economistic paradigm of human behaviour –Rational Choice Theory-which has dominated political science and development economics. The chapter points out the significance of framing the WDR as a departure from RCT because it deploys some of the assumptions about the political power of discourse and ideas utilised by both critical social sciences and its activist counterparts in various social movements and adjectival educations. The chapter demonstrates that in fact no such departure has taken place and makes a vital distinction between the kinds of transformative developmental and educational interventions proposed by the report which aims for subjective transformation toward a specific end, and the aim of transformative education to produce critically thinking political subjects which has implications for the social order which are more open ended.
Culture, Theory and Critique, 2002
This article examines the possibility of an engagement between the discourse of Development and p... more This article examines the possibility of an engagement between the
discourse of Development and postcolonial theory. To open up a space for this kind of engagement, the article proposes first that, while there is no singularity of project within the field of Postcolonial Studies, there is a productive set of debates; and second that the necessity of questioning Development as an idea springs out of these debates around the nature and existence of Postcoloniality itself. It attempts to show how the critiques which have currency within postcolonial theory can be used to deconstruct Development and expose the mechanisms and tropes of power which Development as a discourse has in common with colonial discourse and modernity as a project. The scope of this article is to lay the groundwork for a continued engagement of Postcolonial with Political Studies, and in particular with the discourse of Development.
Politics and culture, once considered separate, are now fusing in new and interesting ways. Polit... more Politics and culture, once considered separate, are now fusing in
new and interesting ways. Political activism is becoming popular, particularly through the expansion of a new kind of development advocacy made highly visible through celebrity involvement. Theorists of globalisation celebrate the democratisation of civil society made possible by new information and communications technology; critical theorists will note the various ways in which ICT ambivalently makes the contradictions in global capitalism more obvious and has become the means by which globalisation is contested. Some metropolitan governments have sought to capitalise on this new knowledge
economy by making knowledge for development part of their strategies to produce ‘global citizens’ necessary for the global economy. This paper examines the linkages between celebrity and government-funded development advocacy in Australia, which comprise the introduction of free market principles to form a marketing campaign for neoliberal globalisation.
This essay examines the 2007 British bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act as a mea... more This essay examines the 2007 British bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act as a means of remembering empire with a specific end. Trends within the disciplines of critical development and international relations are turning their attention to empires past and present. At the same time, metropolitan countries are beginning to make gestures for reconciliation for the injustices of empires, and one such example is the British commemoration of the abolition of slavery. This essay is a retrospective on the policy of development advocacy of the British Department for International Development (under New Labour) that situates these two sites of remembering empire alongside new types of
development advocacy (such as Make Poverty History and Live8) that, prior to the global financial crisis, had the production of ‘global citizens’ as their aim.
The essay then illustrates the way in which, in official communication, the
bicentenary for the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was utilized as a vehicle for
development communication, a means of advertising the UK Labour government
development agenda, which had as its aim the production among domestic
citizenry of a global citizen who advocates for development under neoliberal
terms
The aim of this paper is to bring into conversation two apparently disparate debates in the field... more The aim of this paper is to bring into conversation two apparently disparate debates in the fields of politics and International Relations. The first is a debate over Celebrity Humanitarianism that is divided between optimistic scholars which see in it an enhancement in democracy and pessimistic scholars which link it to capitalist imperialism or a throwback to older colonial tropes. The second is a debate over a (new) American Empire which has prompted scholars in IR to redress its historic elision of empire and offer new network theories of empire. This paper argues that these two debates each address the shortcomings in the other and offers a speculation of what Celebrity Humanitarianism might have to do with empire by bridging the connections between structuralist political theories of empire and the cultural accounts offered by post-colonial theory. URL: https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/ctwq E-mail: twq.admin@tandf.co.uk Third World Quarterly Abstract: The aim of this paper is to bring into conversation two apparently disparate debates in the fields of politics and International Relations. The first is a debate over Celebrity Humanitarianism that is divided between optimistic scholars which see in it an enhancement in democracy and pessimistic scholars which link it to capitalist imperialism or a throwback to older colonial tropes. The second is a debate over a (new) American Empire which has prompted scholars in IR to redress its historic elision of empire and offer new network theories of empire. This paper argues that these two debates each address the shortcomings in the other and offers a speculation of what Celebrity Humanitarianism might have to do with empire by bridging the connections between structuralist political theories of empire and the cultural accounts offered by post-colonial theory.
Australian Journal of International Affairs, 2015
Since the 1990s, governments of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ... more Since the 1990s, governments of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have begun to promote their foreign aid politics domestically via global education. This policy remit has its origins in civil society and has been combined with a stated aim on the part of governments to prepare populations for globalisation, but also to convince populations of the need for increased aid spending in the context of various challenges, including calls for aid effectiveness, large-scale protest by the metropolitan left and rising parochialisms that diminish cosmopolitan world views. In the context of the apparent spontaneity of political mobilisation globally, this article seeks to qualify the optimism of the political sociology and social movements literature on the network society by comparing two OECD government remits for global/development education in the UK and Australia, which are attempts to manage or socially engineer civic activism and engagement. The problem which this article addresses is that, on the face of it, state funding of ‘global education’ appears to be a success of the activism of educators combined with the networked advocacy efforts of development non-governmental organisations, except that it has
occurred in tension with international drivers to use education to further
global economic competitiveness and governments’ desire to promote their own foreign aid spending in a climate of falling legitimacy. This phenomenon of state funding for global education might be considered an elaboration of network politics, but this article argues that it must equally be read, via Gramsci, as a hegemonic contest in the struggle for subject production appropriate to the global knowledge economy.
This chapter is a theoretical exposition into the connection between social change and the politi... more This chapter is a theoretical exposition into the connection between social change and the political subject via transformative education, and a critique of the current paradigm for development being marshalled in the World Development Report for 2015 Mind Society Behaviour. WDR calls for a redesign of development policy at a time when it has come under sustained critique from a variety of quarters and at face value appears to be a departure from the economistic paradigm of human behaviour –Rational Choice Theory-which has dominated political science and development economics. The chapter points out the significance of framing the WDR as a departure from RCT because it deploys some of the assumptions about the political power of discourse and ideas utilised by both critical social sciences and its activist counterparts in various social movements and adjectival educations. The chapter demonstrates that in fact no such departure has taken place and makes a vital distinction between the kinds of transformative developmental and educational interventions proposed by the report which aims for subjective transformation toward a specific end, and the aim of transformative education to produce critically thinking political subjects which has implications for the social order which are more open ended.