Political Economy Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

A proposal for a progressive alliance, a multi-party non-Tory electoral pact, has been bouncing around the UK political discourse for the last few years. To some it’s an appealing idea whose time might come, just as it has in the past,... more

A proposal for a progressive alliance, a multi-party non-Tory electoral pact, has been bouncing around the UK political discourse for the last few years. To some it’s an appealing idea whose time might come, just as it has in the past, with the right political leadership, which at the moment is lacking. A more intriguing concept is the true progressive alliance, which relates to the existing political firmament viewed from an ecological stance. It points the way towards a transformational political re-alignment that might eventually emerge. I explain this in due course, but first a little about electoral pacts and the progressive alliance.

The dispossession at the core of the fur trade is barely perceptible, especially when recounted as part of the genesis narrative of British North American capitalism and state-formation. By focusing on the exploitation of Indigenous... more

The dispossession at the core of the fur trade is barely perceptible, especially when recounted as part of the genesis narrative of British North American capitalism and state-formation. By focusing on the exploitation of Indigenous peoples' labour by company traders, I make this dispossession more conspicuous, revealing it as neither a direct nor a uniform process, but rather fragmented and driven by a host of legal, economic, and geopolitical factors. To achieve this, dialectical materialism is the preferred mode of analysis. Such a perspective brings into relief the uneven and combined nature of legal and economic transformation, disclosing the inner dimensions of dispossession that are the principal legacy of the fur trade and British North American settler-colonialism alike. At stake in this study is not only a comprehensive account of the processes of dispossession, but also a commentary on the insidiousness of these processesthat is, an inside look at how customary reciprocity was distorted through exploitative practices that served of dispossession.

"""This chapter analyses the conditions under which the Surinamese State Oil Company (Staatsolie) has been consolidated, not only as a firm oriented at the production of oil, but also as a development agent. Staatsolie’s chances to... more

"""This chapter analyses the conditions under which the Surinamese State Oil Company (Staatsolie) has been consolidated, not only as a firm oriented at the production of oil, but also as a development agent. Staatsolie’s chances to success seemed rather slim at its creation in the beginning of the 1980s, mainly because of the non-developmental, patrimonial character of Surinamese politics and the nature of Suriname’s state, which has traditionally been oriented toward patronage and clientelism.
The chapter documents the origins of Staatsolie and focuses on its commitment to the acquisition and further development of technological and managerial expertise. It is argued that Staatsolie has become a true pocket of effectiveness: it ranks among the most successful companies in Suriname and its contributions to the economy of this small middle-income country are considerable.
The success of Staatsolie’s attempt to become a development agent is attributed, in particular, to the company’s double strategy. The internal part of this strategy, derived from the management vision and ideological commitment of the company’s leadership, was aimed at developing technological and management skills. The external part of the strategy was aimed at steering away from political influences on the company and playing out politically the formal-legal position of the firm in the petroleum sector. After more than 30 years of Staatsolie, it is argued that the factors that were responsible for the company’s success may turn out to be the main challenges for the years ahead.
"""

This paper outlines a classical-Marxian model of the antebellum US economy. The model assumes that the mobility of capital tended to equalize the rate of profit between North and South, whilst land rents were minimized by an expanding... more

This paper outlines a classical-Marxian model of the antebellum US economy. The model assumes that the mobility of capital tended to equalize the rate of profit between North and South, whilst land rents were minimized by an expanding frontier. Under these conditions slave prices are the capitalized present value of the excess surplus value produced by slaves. This excess surplus value arose because slaves could be forced to work harder at a lower standard of subsistence than wage laborers, who were free to move between individual employers and also between sectors by farming frontier lands. If the growth of the slave population saturated the land available for slave production, land rents would rise to capture the excess surplus value produced by slaves, and slave prices would collapse. We find the model predicts historical movements of slave prices, and is compatible with contemporaneous views of the impact of territorial restriction on the viability of slavery.

On the Shoulders of Grandmothers won the 2020 Mirra Komavrsky Book Award from the Eastern Sociological Society (ESS). Through in-depth interviews and ethnographic work with migrant grandmothers caring for the elderly in Italy and... more

On the Shoulders of Grandmothers won the 2020 Mirra Komavrsky Book Award from the Eastern Sociological Society (ESS). Through in-depth interviews and ethnographic work with migrant grandmothers caring for the elderly in Italy and California and their adult children in Ukraine, On the Shoulders of Grandmothers investigates how migrant grandmothers built the “new” Ukraine from the outside in through transnational networks. By comparing the experiences of individual migrants in two different migration patterns—one a post-Soviet “exile” of individual women to Italy and the other an “exodus” of families to the United States—Dr. Solari exposes the production of new gendered capitalist economics and nationalisms that precariously place Ukraine between Europe and Russia with implications for the global world order. This global ethnography explains the larger context of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

This article traces the conception, planning, and execution of the 1931 Arab Exhibition in Jerusalem, followed by a Second Exhibition in 1932. The two Jerusalem exhibitions were held during a critical political period, as several Arab... more

This article traces the conception, planning, and execution of the 1931 Arab Exhibition in Jerusalem, followed by a Second Exhibition in 1932. The two Jerusalem exhibitions were held during a critical political period, as several Arab countries were at the height of their struggle against British and French colonial rule. In Palestine the timing was all the more acute. Executed between the two major Palestinian revolts of 1929 and1936, the exhibitions were held at a time of direct and violent Arab confrontation with the Zionists and the British, but also at a formative moment when Palestinians were articulating their national identity and making real attempts to establish national institutions.
The two Jerusalem exhibitions were events of profound importance for both Palestine and the Arab region. Drawing on historical Arabic newspapers, memoirs, and photographs, this article shows that the exhibitions were intended to demonstrate that Arab countries were witnessing remarkable innovations in the industrial and agricultural sectors despite, and not because of, European colonization. Further, the pan-Arab nature of the exhibitions facilitated an exceptional opportunity for the exchange of knowledge and expertise among the Arab countries in the face of their geopolitical division following the Great War.

A partir dos usos necropolíticos da memória escrava no Brasil pós-abolição, este ensaio analisa a figura do escravo como um ponto de singularização e acúmulo de uma série de tecnologias de poder (soberanas, pré, proto e... more

A partir dos usos necropolíticos da memória escrava no Brasil pós-abolição, este ensaio analisa a figura do escravo como um ponto de singularização e acúmulo de uma série de tecnologias de poder (soberanas, pré, proto e ultradisciplinares, bio e necropolíticas) que poderiam oferecer uma grade de inteligibilidade para compreender a governamentalidade colonial e suas relações paradoxais com a abolição e a liberdade. Convocando as relações entre memória, história e intempestivo, e por meio da articulação entre textos do pensamento político ocidental antigo, moderno e contemporâneo, propomos descrever de forma interdisciplinar as relações entre o escravo e o fundamento da autoridade política como lógica de necropoder subterrânea que atravessa as figuras aparentemente díspares do escravo, do imigrante europeu, do trabalhador livre e do empresário de si neoliberal. Conclui-se que o desaparecimento da forma-escravo antiga e colonial não determina o fim da lógica escravista, mas sua difusão generalizada na figura de um escravo informe a que os trabalhadores livres, empresários de si mesmos e imigrantes dão consistência hoje.

Kinderarmut in Deutschland - arm dran in einem reichen Land.

Inspired by the commercial desires of global brands and retailers to access the lucrative green consumer market, carbon is increasingly being counted and made knowable at the mundane sites of everyday production and consumption, from the... more

Inspired by the commercial desires of global brands and retailers to access the lucrative green consumer market, carbon is increasingly being counted and made knowable at the mundane sites of everyday production and consumption, from the carbon footprint of a plastic kitchen fork to that of an online bank account. Despite the challenges of counting and making commensurable the global warming impact of a myriad of biophysical and societal activities, this desire to communicate a product or service's carbon footprint has sparked complicated carbon calculative practices and enrolled actors at literally every node of multi-scaled and vastly complex global supply chains. Against this landscape, this paper critically analyses the counting practices that create the 'e' in 'CO2e'. It is shown that, central to these practices are a series of tools, models and databases which, in building upon previous work (Eden 2012; Star and Griesemer 1989) we conceptualize here as 'boundary objects'. By enrolling everyday actors from farmers to consumers, these objects abstract and stabilize greenhouse gas emissions from their messy material and social contexts into units of CO2e which can then be translated along a product's supply chain, thereby establishing a new currency of 'everyday supply chain carbon'. However, in making all greenhouse gas-related practices commensurable in enrolling and stabilizing the transfer of information between multiple actors these objects oversee a process of simplification reliant upon, and subject to, a multiplicity of approximations, assumptions, errors, discrepancies and/or omissions. Further the outcomes of these tools are subject to the politicized and commercial agendas of the worlds they attempt to link, with each boundary actor inscribing different meanings to a product’s carbon footprint in accordance with their specific subjectivities, commercial desires and epistemic framings. It is therefore shown that how a boundary object transforms greenhouse gas emissions into units of CO2e, the outcome is of distinct ideologies regarding ‘what’ a product's carbon footprint is and how it should be made legible. These politicized decisions, in turn inform specific reduction activities and ultimately advance distinct, specific and increasingly durable transition pathways to a low carbon society.

The welfare state continues to be eroded in the Global North. In Canada and the U.S., food banks are now one of the only systems of relief available. But in both countries, critics have accused food banks of being apolitical and thus... more

The welfare state continues to be eroded in the Global North. In Canada and the U.S., food banks are now one of the only systems of relief available. But in both countries, critics have accused food banks of being apolitical and thus taking away government responsibility to address inequality. The rise of food banks has been linked to the decline of the welfare state, leading to an assumption that an increase in public assistance can end the need for food banks. Yet little research exists that examines how other institutions such as the food industry drove food bank growth, or how food banks are politically active. The history of food banks in Canada presents an informative case study because the state was not directly involved in establishing food banks, thus allowing greater insight into the role of industry in the institutionalization of food banks and their political activity. Using environmental institutions and political ecology frameworks we conducted a literature review and interviews of experts, as well as a case study of one food bank. Our findings suggest that the factors leading to the existence of food banks cannot only be linked to cuts in welfare; rather, the influence of industrial decline and centralization of the food industry must also be taken into account, as well as social movements and the policy gap around food waste. Food banks can be political, using available resources as ‘fuel’ to challenge government failure. The case of Canadian food banks indicates that, to address inequality and food insecurity in the Global North, researchers and policy-makers should not only focus on welfare but need to tackle the cost-shifting practices of the food industry and work toward joined-up and nested food policy institutions. Further, food banks, or organizations that look like them, can help address rising food insecurity if they are provided with sufficient legal, political, and financial support.

Not-guilty verdicts, mistrials, and impunity for the Bundy family and many of their supporters in the armed confrontations over public land use in Nevada and Oregon. Expanded access for private oil, gas, mining, and logging industries and... more

Not-guilty verdicts, mistrials, and impunity for the Bundy family and many of their supporters in the armed confrontations over public land use in Nevada and Oregon. Expanded access for private oil, gas, mining, and logging industries and the downsizing of national monuments such as Bears Ears lead by Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke. A number of highly contentious debates and sensationalized events have again focused attention on land held in the public domain by the United States. This essay argues that federal land policy as a form of colonial administration has been constitutive for the logic of expectation as property in what is now the United States. From the state land cessions negotiated on behalf of the Articles of Confederation to the preemption acts (1830–1841) to the homestead acts (1862–1916) to present-day demands for land transfer, the acquisition and disposal of the so-called public domain have been central to westward colonization, the consolidation of the nation-state, and the promise of land ownership as the ostensible foundation of individual liberty. These dynamics are evident in contemporary conflicts over public lands and arguments for the transfer of public lands to either state or private ownership. Approaching the Bundy occupations as flashpoints that illuminate competing interpretations and claims to land within the history of westward colonization, this essay seeks to demonstrate the ways in which expectation emerges from particular economies of dispossession of indigenous peoples that have historically worked through and across the division of public and private property.

This essay introduces and theorizes the central concerns of this special issue, “Economies of Dispossession: Indigeneity, Race, Capitalism.” Financialization, debt, and the accelerated concentration of wealth today work through social... more

This essay introduces and theorizes the central concerns of this special issue, “Economies of Dispossession: Indigeneity, Race, Capitalism.” Financialization, debt, and the accelerated concentration of wealth today work through social relations already configured and disposed by imperial conquest and racial capitalism. In the Americas broadly and the United States specifically, colonization and transatlantic slavery set in motion the dynamics and differential racialized valuations that continue to underwrite particular forms of subjection, property, commerce, and territoriality. The conception of economies of dispossession introduced in this essay draws attention to the overriding importance of rationalities of abstraction and commensurability for racial capitalism. The essay problematizes the ways in which dispossession is conventionally treated as a self-evident and circumscribed practice of unjust taking and subtractive action. Instead, working across the lethal confluences of imperial conquest and racial capitalist predation, this essay critically situates the logic of propriation that organizes and underwrites predatory value in the historical present. Against the commensurabilities and rationalities of debt and finance capitalism, conditioned through the proprietary logics of settler colonialism and racial capitalism, the essay gestures toward alternative frameworks for building collective capacities for what the authors describe as a grounded relationality.

The early broadcast era and our current platform era bear some striking resemblances, but one parallel looms large: In the 1940s, we lost a key battle to build a potentially liberating and wondrous medium—and we are on the cusp of doing... more

The early broadcast era and our current platform era bear some striking resemblances, but one parallel looms large: In the 1940s, we lost a key battle to build a potentially liberating and wondrous medium—and we are on the cusp of doing so again. Then as now, commercial operators defined the terms by which we could use our core communication and information infrastructures. While reaping tremendous profits from the public airwaves, a few corporate firms became the sole providers for much of the nation’s media.

Josiah Tucker, who was the Anglican dean of Gloucester from 1758 until his death in 1799, is best known today as a controversialist, a political economist and a lesser contemporary of Adam Smith. Little attention has been paid, however,... more

Josiah Tucker, who was the Anglican dean of Gloucester from 1758 until his death in 1799, is best known today as a controversialist, a political economist and a lesser contemporary of Adam Smith. Little attention has been paid, however, to the important relationship between his religious writings and his wider economic thought. This article addresses this lack of attention in two ways: first by demonstrating the link between Tucker's conception of civil and religious liberty and his "science" of political economy, and second by drawing sustained attention to his economic adaptation and reformulation of the moral philosophy of Bishop Joseph Butler, Tucker's ecclesiastical mentor from 1739 to 1752. Emphasizing Butler and Tucker's views on the traditional Christian virtue of charity, and the moral duty of the rich towards the poor, the article suggests that both clergymen were proponents of a sociability-based, neo-Stoic conception of human nature, which was not only compatible with, but also dependent upon, the established Anglican Church and state and the predominantly Whig commercial order. In consequence, Tucker's political economy was premised on the unavoidability of social subordination and economic inequality as necessary hallmarks of modern commercial society. Accordingly, the article closes with a brief discussion of Tucker's "Butlerian" assessment and rejection of the "anti-social" doctrine of individual natural rights, associated with the popular radicalism of the American and French Revolutions in the latter half of the eighteenth century.

The disadvantages of over-reliance on the private car become more apparent as congestion increases and transportation emissions rise. The literature suggests that cycling may support the development of sustainable cities, and needs to be... more

The disadvantages of over-reliance on the private car become more apparent as congestion increases and transportation emissions rise. The literature suggests that cycling may support the development of sustainable cities, and needs to be more vigorously promoted as a widespread form of contemporary urban transport than currently evident. This research project will interrogate cycling policy and its practice in Western Australia. The original empirical contribution will utilise a primarily qualitative approach. The proposed methodology for this study consists of; 1) content analysis of key cycling policy documents; 2) case studies of local cycling implementation, and 3) focus groups with participants from a variety of transport mode preferences. The research will develop a broad theoretical framework informed by critical political economy and the cycling-related mobility, anthropology, public health, planning, and transportation literature. I review the regime of automobility (the private car and the infrastructure that supports it). Thirdly, I discuss aspects of cycling, and the politicisation of transportation choice. Overall, the proposed research will investigate variations in, and understandings of cycling culture, with a specific focus on the barriers to, and opportunities for increased cycling in Perth.

This special issue brings together scholars who are working on new aspects of the intersection and implications of globalization, privatization, and marginalization. While globalization's relationship to education has been of great... more

This special issue brings together scholars who are working on new aspects of the intersection and implications of globalization, privatization, and marginalization. While globalization's relationship to education has been of great interest to scholars (e.g., Dale, 1999; Green, 1997; Rizvi & Lingard, 2009; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004; Verger, Novelli, & Kosar-Altinyelken, 2018). While the relationship between globalization and various forms of privatization has received significant attention (e.g., Adamson, Astrand, & Darling-Hammond, 2016; Ball, 2009, 2012; Carnoy, 1999; Mohamed & Morris, 2019; Robertson, Mundy, Verger, & Menashy, 2012; Verger, Lubienski, & Steiner-Khamsi, 2016), we seek to extend scholarship in these areas by examining the current connections and continuing consequences of both globalization and privatization for marginalization in/through education, as well as the ways in which the latter (marginalization) creates opportunities for the former (globalization and privatization). Exploring the relationships among globalization, privatization, and marginalization is vitally important for scholars not only because they are related in multiple yet, we argue, insufficiently understood ways, but also because their relations have real consequences for education policy and practice and for the exacerbation of marginalization itself in and through education. As the introductory essay for the special issue, this article (a) presents a framework for understanding the connections among globalization, privatization, and marginalization in relation to education; (b) distills, visually presents, and expands upon the dialectical connections evident “in” and “through” the cases that make up the special issue; and (c) emphasizes a number of lessons for the globalization-privatization-marginalization nexus.

Based on an original definition of modern populism as “democratic illiberalism” and many years of meticulous research, Takis Pappas marshals extraordinary empirical evidence from Argentina, Greece, Peru, Italy, Venezuela, Ecuador,... more

and political mongrel. The significance of its politico-philosophical synthesis, as it relates to social and economic policy, is perhaps best understood in terms of its consequences. Laissez-faire economics had become largely relegated to... more

and political mongrel. The significance of its politico-philosophical synthesis, as it relates to social and economic policy, is perhaps best understood in terms of its consequences. Laissez-faire economics had become largely relegated to a semantic instrument employed in the service of preserving the social order and class structure. This process was initiated by the New Right and it appropriated the anti-New Dealism and anti-statism of the American Old Right.

This thesis analyses the idea of central bank independence, how it shaped the creation of the European Central Bank (ECB) and its management of the Euro Crisis. Based on a genealogical analysis, the thesis identifies the central normative... more

This thesis analyses the idea of central bank independence, how it shaped the creation of the European Central Bank (ECB) and its management of the Euro Crisis. Based on a genealogical analysis, the thesis identifies the central normative commitments undergirding the insulation of monetary policy from ordinary democratic politics. It argues that central bank independence is an institutional response to the ‘problem of politics’ in relation to money: the problem that money is simultaneously founded on political authority and fundamentally threatened by the ordinary exercise of this authority. Central bank independence, then, constitutes a way of grounding the value of money politically while at the same time depoliticising its government. The form that central bank independence takes in practice, however, differs substantially, reflecting different ways of wedding the idea to broader constitutional imaginaries. Drawing comparisons to other major central banks, the thesis details the ECB’s form of independence and argues that the creation of the ECB not as a government agency (as the Fed) or a societal power on a par with the government (as the Bundesbank), but as a sovereign representative on a par with the Member States altered the constitutional make-up of the Eurozone. As the existential crisis of the euro shows, general tensions within central bank independence become irresolvable contradictions in this constitutional construct. Without institutional mechanisms for resolving them through ordinary politics, the emergency politics of the Euro Crisis placed the ECB centre-stage, engaged in the ‘higher lawmaking’ of changing the Eurozone’s constitution in order to save it. In doing so, however, the ECB redefined the meaning of its independence and reignited ‘the problem of politics’ by undermining its underlying social contract.

En zengin 62 kişinin, dünyanın %50’sine tekabül eden 3,6 milyar insan ile eşit mal varlığına sahip olduğu bir dünyada yaşıyoruz. En zengin 20 ülkenin geliri, en fakir 20 ülke gelirinin tam 46 katı daha fazla. Küresel adaletsizliğin bu... more

En zengin 62 kişinin, dünyanın
%50’sine tekabül eden 3,6 milyar
insan ile eşit mal varlığına sahip olduğu
bir dünyada yaşıyoruz. En zengin
20 ülkenin geliri, en fakir 20 ülke
gelirinin tam 46 katı daha fazla. Küresel
adaletsizliğin bu kadar rahatsız
edici boyutlarda olması ve servetin
bu kadar adaletsiz paylaşımı, yoksulluk
gibi ciddi sosyal problemlerin
ortaya çıkmasına neden olmaktadır.
Bu durumun daha iyi anlaşılabilmesi
adına bu çalışmada, eşitsizliğin
hangi sebeplerden kaynaklandığı, sonuçlarının
ne olduğu ve önümüzdeki
yıllarda daha vahim bir tablonun ortaya
çıkmaması için neler yapılması
gerektiği ele alınacaktır.
Bu bağlamda, raporun ilk kısmında
yoksulluk ve eşitsizlik kavramlarına
değinilecektir. İkinci kısmında Dünya
Bankası, Birleşmiş Milletler (BM)
gibi uluslararası resmî kurumların
yayınladıkları veriler incelenecektir.
Sonrasında yoksulluk ve eşitsizliğin
ortaya çıkmasının nedenleri ele alınacak
olup, son kısımda uluslararası
literatürde bu sorunların aşılması
için önerilen uygulamalar dikkatlere
sunulacaktır

Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault are widely accepted to be central figures of post-war French philosophy. Philosophers, cultural theorists, and others have devoted considerable effort to the critical examination of the work of each of... more

Gilles Deleuze and Michel Foucault are widely accepted to be central figures of post-war French philosophy. Philosophers, cultural theorists, and others have devoted considerable effort to the critical examination of the work of each of these thinkers, but despite the strong biographical and philosophical connection between Foucault and Deleuze, very little has been done to explore the relationship between them. This special issue of Foucault Studies is the first collection of essays to address this critical deficit with a rigorous comparative discussion of the work of these two philosophers.

This article examines the productivity of agriculture at the Postclassic polity of Xaltocan, Mexico. Employing multiple lines of data (remote sensing, artifactual, ecofactual, chronological, demographic, historic, ethnographic, and... more

This article examines the productivity of agriculture at the Postclassic polity of Xaltocan, Mexico. Employing multiple lines of data (remote sensing, artifactual, ecofactual, chronological, demographic, historic, ethnographic, and environmental), it reconstructs the potential productivity of an integrated raised field, chinampa system that surrounded the polity. This exercise reveals that the system was capable of producing a sizeable caloric surplus above the needs of the kingdom's estimated total population and the number of laborers necessary to maintain full production. To situate the processes related to agricultural production, the paper considers how farmers' strategies were articulated with multiple institutions. Increased integration between political, social, and household institutions possibly fostered residents' incorporation into the body politic and provided mechanisms to finance the political economy. Such integration and dependency fractured, however, when Xaltocan was conquered.

A well-regulated economic system requires incentives that reward productive and withhold rewards from unproductive activity. Such incentives are put in place by means of legislation and enforced with the help of regulatory agencies. A... more

A well-regulated economic system requires incentives that reward productive and withhold rewards from unproductive activity. Such incentives are put in place by means of legislation and enforced with the help of regulatory agencies. A well-managed system will allocate resources more efficiently than a system in which income may be gained without active participation in economic activity, by lending at interest in particular, which invariably increases the prices of finished goods without, however, adding any value. Interest-based lending produces a range of important, though rarely highlighted, side effects. They include inefficiency, indebtedness, instability, inflation, unemployment, slow or declining economic growth, and an uneven distribution of wealth. (224 pages)

First this paper will discuss Michel Foucault foundation of his ideas, and why more than a critical intervention from scholars of color is needed. Moreover, we should be aware that not only were Foucault’s deficient of political ideas or... more

First this paper will discuss Michel Foucault foundation of his ideas, and why more than a critical intervention from scholars of color is needed. Moreover, we should be aware that not only were Foucault’s deficient of political ideas or a vision of what the world ought to be, but in neglecting question of the human he indirectly made a very ontological statement “only white lives matter”. His ideas are well-known already and I don’t want to site them there or spend a lot of paper space discussing them, what is more important is who and what he represent. Secondly, I want to turn my focus on Marx, to argue that Marxism and Marxist do not and cannot provide us a solution to black suffering. I am not against Marxism, I believe that capitalist exploitation dominates the world and I am against it, but the ontological question “what and who is human?” when answer by the Marxist is always the white, worker, male. So if blacks are outside of human whose racial experiences are not relevant then how can we understanding the student slave, the worker slave, when chattel slavery has already ended? If black people are surplus, therefore disposable, then what is left of Marx? If black people do not have function or purpose within capitalism? I want to follow up with offering an alternative, the work of black feminist Sylvia Wynter is vital to understanding the racialization and the category of human in western modernity (Weheliye, 2014), I will attempt to piece together her call for a new humanism, alongside and relation to work by Afro-Pessimist and Critical Race Theory to gain a perspective of racialization and what does that mean for black students in the Afterlife. In all, I want to argue that the afterlife should be a more proper way of looking at history and progress here in the West. This will cause us to rethink slavery and freedom. Hopefully I will be able to messy picture of schooling where black children are posted to a social death but life is also worth living. To life a life in death or black life is not white social life.

The thesis explores potential challenges and opportunities for blockchains and International Relations (IR). The thesis also explores how IR can help understand blockchains as new conceptual phenomena. The thesis broadly questions: what... more

The thesis explores potential challenges and opportunities for blockchains and International Relations (IR). The thesis also explores how IR can help understand blockchains as new conceptual phenomena. The thesis broadly questions: what do blockchains mean for IR? And, what does IR mean for blockchains? Institutions and power are taken to be significant for the exploration because they represent crucial IR concepts. Blockchains are explored as regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutions and as compulsory, institutional, structural, and productive power. Blockchains are argued to provide challenges and opportunities for discipline of IR and the practice of international relations. IR can understand blockchains through the concepts of institutions and power.

Sleep No More’s immersive adaptation of Macbeth has attracted scholarly attention for its insight into spectatorial desires for mobility and interaction. This promotion of spectatorial choice has drawn critiques from scholars such as... more

Sleep No More’s immersive adaptation of Macbeth has attracted scholarly attention for its insight into spectatorial desires for mobility and interaction. This promotion of spectatorial choice has drawn critiques from scholars such as Adam Alston, Jen Harvie and Keren Zaiontz for its enthusiastic complicity in neoliberal modes of consumption and labor. The article conceives of Sleep No More’s version of neoliberal spectatorship as sleepless spectatorship, modeled on Macbeth’s own insomniac characters, reading Sleep No More’s form of spectatorship in conversation with what Simon Williams terms ‘sleep cultures’ research, including Jonathan Crary’s 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep. Sleep No More encourages its spectators to have embodied experiences of the sleeplessness brought about by defining characteristics of neoliberal life, including the deregulation of human biological patterns, the interweaving of ‘real’ life with virtual technology and the experience of intimate relationships as frustrated by a free market logic of scarcity. The article also looks beyond the performance itself to trace neoliberal discourses in the production’s online fan communities and potential labor law violations. Drawing on Jacques Rancière’s The Emancipated Spectator, the article proposes that a sleep cultures approach to theatrical performance might challenge the dichotomy between active and sleepy spectatorship, advocating for a ‘sleeping’ spectator, reclaiming sleep from passivity and framing it as political action performed over a long duration.

In recent years, Reliance Jio’s offer of 4G services, guaranteeing free voice calls and ‘unlimited’ data streaming, lead to disruption in the Indian telecom market with other cellular operators losing their revenue and customer base. To... more

In recent years, Reliance Jio’s offer of 4G services, guaranteeing free voice calls and ‘unlimited’ data streaming, lead to disruption in the Indian telecom market with other cellular operators losing their revenue and customer base. To comprehensively analyze this churn in the Indian telecom industry and its impact on mobile phone customers, the article argues for observing the entanglement of infrastructural and platform-related discourses at three levels of operation: Jio’s strategies to capture the Indian telecom market and the responses by the leading incumbent service provider (Airtel), ordinary citizens’ phone use practices and infrastructural encounters, and the government’s vision for India’s digital future.

L’intento di questo lavoro è presentare un quadro che sia il più completo possibile nell’analizzare il percorso dell’Unione delle Repubbliche Socialiste Sovietiche dalla sua nascita, nel 1922, fino al suo crollo, nel 1991 e,... more

L’intento di questo lavoro è presentare un quadro che sia il più completo possibile nell’analizzare il percorso dell’Unione delle Repubbliche Socialiste Sovietiche dalla sua nascita, nel 1922, fino al suo crollo, nel 1991 e, successivamente, la delicata fase di transizione russa dal comunismo all’economia di mercato, cercando di mettere in luce i problemi incontrati dal Paese nell’instaurare la democrazia. L'ultima parte analizza la figura della Banca Europea per la Ricostruzione e lo Sviluppo ed il suo ruolo specifico nella delicata fase di transizione economica della Russia.