Vagabond Capitalism and the Necessity of Social Reproduction

A vagabond, as is well known, moves from place to place without a fixed home. However, vagabondage insinuates a little dissolution—an unsettled, irresponsible, and disreputable life, which indeed can be said of the globalization of capitalist production. This paper reframes the discussion on globalization through a materialist focus on social reproduction. By looking at the material social practices through which people reproduce themselves on a daily and generational basis and through which the social relations and material bases of capitalism are renewed—and the havoc wreaked on them by a putatively placeless capitalism—we can better expose both the costs of globalization and the connections between vastly different sites of production. Focusing on social reproduction allows us to address questions of the making, maintenance, and exploitation of a fluidly differentiated labor force, the productions (and destructions) of nature, and the means to create alternative geographies of opposition to globalized capitalism. I will draw on examples from the “First” and “Third Worlds” to argue that any politics that effectively counters capitalism's global imperative must confront the shifts in social reproduction that have accompanied and enabled it. Looking at the political‐economic, political‐ecological, and cultural aspects of social reproduction, I argue that there has been a rescaling of childhood and suggest a practical response that focuses on specific geographies of social reproduction. Reconnecting these geographies with those of production, both translocally and across geographic scale, begins to redress the losses suffered in the realm of social reproduction as a result of globalized capitalist production. The paper develops the notion of “topography” as a means of examining the intersecting effects and material consequences of globalized capitalist production. “Topography” offers a political logic that both recognizes the materiality of cultural and social difference and can help mobilize transnational and internationalist solidarities to counter the imperatives of globalization.     

Wild Globalization: The Biopolitics of Climate Change and Global Capitalism on Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast

Abstract: This article explores the value of Deleuzoguattarian approaches for understanding the entangled relationships between globalization, climate change, capitalism and indigenous peoples. Drawing on Brett Neilson's concept of wild globalization, it analyzes the biopolitics of climate change and capitalism as they are experienced on Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast. A focus on the heterogeneous economies and ecologies of the Miskito Keys and their destruction by Hurricane Felix reveals the destabilizing forces immanent to capitalism itself. Thinking about climate change not as a transcendent teleological megahazard, but as a Body without Organs, might enable us to be schizophrenic rather than paranoid about climate change.     

Capitalism, cities, and the production of symbolic forms

A striking characteristic of contemporary capitalism is the increasing importance (in terms of growth, employment, revenue, etc.) of sectors whose outputs are imbued with significant cultural or symbolic content. Sectors of these sorts are predominantly, though not exclusively, located in large cities. I describe how these cities function as creative fields generating streams of both cultural and technological innovations. Post-Fordist cities are shown to be especially fertile terrains of commodified cultural production. A number of these cities have become major centres of image-producing industries such as film, music recording, or fashion clothing, and this phenomenon is also often associated with profound transformations of their physical landscapes. I argue that the economic foundations of these trends reside, in part, in the structural characteristics of image-producing industries, marked as they frequently are by modularized, network structures of production and a strong proclivity to geographic agglomeration. At the same time, the main centres of the contemporary cultural economy are caught up in insistent processes of globalization. I suggest that after an initial phase of product standardization and concentrated development in only a few major centres, the cultural economy of capitalism now appears to be entering a new phase marked by increasingly high levels of product differentiation and polycentric production sites. I also submit that the contemporary cultural economy of capitalism constitutes a historical shift beyond consumer society as such.     

Between Survival and Revolution: Another Community Development System is Possible

Abstract: The tensions between capitalism and community have created a situation where, from the depths of multinational corporate headquarters to the diverse urban streets of America, the latter is now being co‐opted by the former. Couple this with the current neoliberal order being imposed on the world by multilateral institutions, high‐ranking government officials, and the corporate elite, and you have an economic imperial agenda being carried out in all corners of the globe. In this article, I take a dialectical and investigative approach in critiquing the neoliberal ideology that dictates how the work of community development corporations is funded and controlled. Much of today's reality within community development consists of an environment where funding restrictions undermine community power, community development trumps community organizing, professionalization creates a disconnect between community development staff and community members, and competition for funding forces organizations to spend more time on funders' needs than the needs of the communities they serve. J P Morgan Chase is profiled to illustrate how economic neoliberal globalization and so‐called community capitalism shape the modern community development movement. I conclude with an analysis of how empowerment, organizational democracy, and collective ownership have the potential to open up spaces of hope for urban communities in the United States who have been forced to live under the hegemony of economic neoliberal globalization.     

World cities and territorial states under conditions of contemporary globalization

This is largely an empirical paper which uses a unique set of office geography data to describe inter-city relations across the world. After identifying a set of 55 world cities, these patterns are related to states in a preliminary analyses of city–state connections. Particular emphasis is placed upon identifying trans-state processes and regional city hierarchies. This empirical reporting is sandwiched between a theoretical and practical introduction and conclusion. Using Braudel's conceptualization of capitalism as a world of monopolies, world city formation is introduced as a particular geographical knowledge nexus for creating new monopoly products. In the concluding section, the future of globalization is linked to the possibilities for world city network knowledge monopolies.     

Feminism,the false consciousness of neoliberal capitalism? Informalization,fundamentalism, and women in an Indian city

Neoliberal globalization produces complex terrains of gender exploitation, with – some feminists argue – contradictory impacts on women. On the one hand, it subjects more women to increasing domination and devalorization by capital; on the other hand, women often ‘work’ globalization in ‘enabling’ ways. Informal jobs are often preferred sites for crafting economic emancipation and breaking away from patriarchy at home. Another body of literature argues that the feminization of informalization does not dismantle androcentric, neoliberal capitalism; moreover, reading these moments as women ‘working’ globalization represents a co-optation of women. Using examples of the feminization of informalization and ethno-religious gender violence in Ahmedabad city, India, this article critiques the concept of co-optation and argues that ‘actually existing women’ forge complex negotiations in the context of diverse exploitation, which can be conceptualized better with Marxian and Gramscian notions of false consciousness. The article also contends that understanding false consciousness as an assemblage where gender, class, caste, and ethnicity intersect in myriad ways will create possibilities for resistance.     

Canada in a global economy

This paper questions the neoliberal understanding of globalization as a coherent and progressive force representing the apotheosis of late capitalism. Here, globalization is seen as a contested and sometimes even chaotic process, which needs to be interpreted in the context of the local geographies and histories in which it is embedded. Viewed as a socio-economic process, globalization is characterized by a recurring interplay between local and global interests, implying that Canada's relations with the global economy have been socially constructed in diverse ways, at different times, in different places. Five distinct relations are examined here, each one being linked to a well known historical figure, as follows: the ecological depletion of resources (John Cabot); technological dependence (Alexander Graham Bell); continental integration (C.D. Howe); cultural deterritorialization (Walt Disney); and the new geometries of power (Conrad Black). Each of these five relations has found distinctive local expression.     

The last north American indian ethnography

Locating the proper relationship between material and cultural aspects of human life has been an enduring, discipline-defining, and divisive problem in anthropology. Recent studies of the local effects of globalization have exacerbated the divide. Although case studies seem to have lost their luster for many anthropologists, the renewed ethnography considered in this review demonstrates that local research can clarify international economic processes. When people choose to make foreign commodities part of their lives, the results are neither inevitable nor predetermined. Local and global, cultural and material, never totally subsume each other.     

Review Essay: Taking the Pulse of Emerging Modernity

The archaeology of the development of modernity as it emerged out of the Middle Ages is potentially one of the most important and powerful areas of study that can be pursued today. A number of historical archaeologists in Europe have taken up the difficult task of examining this transition, and are currently providing insights into the shift from feudalism to mercantilism and capitalism. This topic is both important to the understanding of history and to providing tangible proof that historical archaeology has the potential to contribute to knowledge about the globalization process. Three recent books in particular are especially significant in this archaeological endeavor.     

The End of Queer (as we knew it): Globalization and the making of a gay-friendly South Africa

In J. K. Gibson-Graham's The End of Capitalism (as we knew it), the authors (Julie Graham and Katherine Gibson) provocatively deploy queer theory to further their project of telling non-capitalist stories of globalization. In short, they reject the narrative that globalization is always and only penetrative in the hope that global capital will ‘lose its erection’ and ‘other openings’ in the body of capitalism can be considered. I adopt their strategy of looking at stories of globalization. But, while they are concerned with the homophobia of economic theorizing, I consider the gay-friendly discourse of post-apartheid South Africa. Recent expressions of official tolerance by various nation-states around the globe have been dismissed as the mere appropriation of difference by hegemonic forces. Against such interpretations, I look at the ways in which the inclusion of ‘sexual orientation’ in post-apartheid South Africa's constitutional Equality Clause can instead be read as a queer globalization. Based on this reading, I problematize the presumption that queer globalizations take place beyond the realm of the hegemonic and point to the need for queer theorists to think through the political ramifications of homosexuality's repositioning as saviour rather than scapegoat of certain nation-states.     

The Spaces of Capital: The Political Form of Capitalism and the Internationalization of the State1

Abstract: In the course of the neoliberal globalization offensive capital has become more international. This development has placed the question of the state on the agenda once again. The central issue here is the extent to which the existing plurality of states should be seen as a historically contingent state of affairs which might not in principle last indefinitely, or as a structural component of the capitalist mode of production. One important aspect of this issue is the question of how the relationship between the “political form” of capitalism and “institutions” is understood. More often than not, even approaches that use Marxist theory have tended to address this question in an unsatisfactory manner.     

再论冷战的后果与影响

持续战后40多年的东西方冷战造成了巨大而深远的后果与影响,对此国内外学术界尚缺乏全面深入的总结研究。本文在笔者早先研究的基础上,又从国际关系格局、战争与和平、欧洲的联合、经济全球化、资本主义的变化、社会主义事业的发展等六个方面扼要论述了冷战的后果与影响。     

The Historical Constitution of the Political Forms of Capitalism

Abstract: This article provides a general overview and critique of approaches to state theory, from the Marxist “state derivation“ debate of the 1970s, through to regulation and world‐systems perspectives, to theories which encompass imperialism. It proposes that a theory of the political forms of capitalism should have three elements: it should be based on analysis of the different historical processes by which capitalist states have been and are constituted; it should elucidate the specificities of the various political forms of capitalism; and it should explain the continuing existence of a plurality of states and imperialist relations.     

Excavations on the site of Sir Abraham Elton's glassworks,Cheese Lane,Bristol

SUMMARY: This article examines the evidence for engagement with the rural post-medieval landscape using two national case studies: Wales and Scotland. The issues reflected in these case studies are indicative of the wider challenges for archaeologists and professional practitioners alike. The article recognizes that landscape is not just about geographical place, but an archaeological theoretical framework. It proposes that Post-Medieval Archaeology monographs and conference sessions specific to landscape could help to tease out themes that address the big questions of the post-medieval world — capitalism, modernity and improvement — but also take account of agency, identity and meaning.     

Financial Globalization,Local Debt Markets and New State Financial Activism in Middle-income Countries

Since the global financial crisis of 2008–09, there has been a renewed interest in the role of the state in processes of financial development and globalization. This article explores new forms of state economic activity via the development of debt capital markets in Southeast Asia, specifically Indonesia and Malaysia. It suggests that the expanding profile of various state-controlled entities in local capital markets constitutes a new form of state financial activism responsive to (upper) middle-class consumption preferences such as modern infrastructure, urban housing and low-risk investments. This activism highlights state agency and complicates the propositions of the emergent literature on state capitalism and financial de-risking that focuses on increasingly close alignment of the interests of states and international portfolio investors. Accordingly, the authors caution against unilinear conceptions of the state in which activism is primarily geared towards accommodating the preferences of international investors. The article posits that states are actively trying to establish new market logics for the benefit of their domestic middle classes via the development of domestic capital markets, and that the emergent role of middle-income country (upper) middle classes as financial consumers reconfigures processes of state-managed financialization.     

The Dynamism of Integral Liberation: Reconsidering Gustavo Gutiérrez's Central Concept after “the End of History”

This essay questions Daniel Bell Jr.'s claim that liberation theology is ignorant of the links between the cultural and structural formations of capitalism. Focusing especially on Bell's treatment of the thought of Gustavo Gutiérrez, the article argues that Gutiérrez's concept of integral liberation provides a complex account of the manner in which the structural, cultural, and theological levels of liberation are interrelated. It contends, contra Bell, that Gutiérrez's concept does not reduce politics to “statecraft” but instead provides an illuminating framework for understanding the integrity of Christian life within the contemporary neoliberal globalization project. Finally, the paper moves to consider the manner in which Gutiérrez's concept might be fruitfully paired with Leslie Sklair's theorization of global capitalism in order to specify the process of liberation today.     

Globalization,empire and natural law

Three controversial concepts are central to discussion on how international order originates, how it operates, and ultimately how we should respect it: globalization, empire and natural law. Each of these is examined in turn in this article. The currently prevalent way of thinking about globalization simply as a system of inter‐connections, of processes and networks that span national and cultural boundaries is likely to produce anti‐globalization backlashes. Many people reach the conclusion that global rules are simply a euphemism for some sort of imperial or neo‐imperial rule. Consequently, there is an increasingly intense discussion of the role of force and power in a global order. This article suggests an alternative mechanism for creating global order. The power of globalization rests not simply on material prosperity, but on the ability to communicate and share ideas as well as goods across large geographical and cultural distances. Natural law theories suggest that a sustained dialogue between apparently rival traditions of thinking can lead to agreement on shared norms and values.     

Looking Forward by Looking Back: May Day Protests in London and the Strategic Significance of the Urban

This paper deals with the question of how oppositional movements can adapt their protest strategies to meet recent socio-spatial transformations. The work of Lefebvre provides several clues as to how an alternative discourse and appropriation of space could be incorporated in such protest strategies. One of the central themes in Lefebvre's work is that the appearances, forms and functions of urban space are constitutive elements of contemporary capitalism and thus that an alternative narrative of urban space can challenge or undermine dominant modes of thinking. What exactly constitutes the "right" kind of alternative discourse or narrative is a matter of both theoretical and practical consideration. The paper analyses one case: the May Day protests in London in 2001, in which a protest group, the Wombles, managed to integrate theoretical insights into their discourse and practice in a highly innovative manner. Since cities, and global cities in particular, play an ever more important role in maintaining the consumption as well as production practices of global capitalism; they potentially constitute local sites where global processes can be identified and criticised. It is shown that the Wombles effectively made use of these possibilities and appropriated the symbolic resources concentrated in London to exercise a "lived critique" of global capitalism. Since the Wombles capitalised on trends that have not yet ended, their strategies show a way forward for future anti-capitalist protests.     

Cross over food: re-materializing postcolonial geographies

Recent geographical discussions of postcolonialism have highlighted its emphasis on texts and discourses, its neglect of more material aspects of (post)imperial/colonial domination and the need for detailed empirical research articulating postcolonialism and global capitalism. This paper addresses these issues by reporting on research based in a recent debate in the UK trade press over the 'failure' of Caribbean food to 'cross over' into the UK 'mainstream'. It outlines the contrasting manufacturing and marketing practices of two Jamaican food companies whose accounts of (not) attempting this 'cross-over' illustrate postcolonialism's hybrid, resistant, ambivalent, scale-jumping, boundary-crossing, material cultural politics.     

The Archaeology of Capitalism in Iceland: The View from Vieey

This paper examines the particular nature of Icelandic capitalism as it emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing on a recent project investigating the material processes surrounding the rise and fall of an early capitalist venture in the fishing industry, the role of commodities and their intersection with issues of colonialism and nationalism is explored. The study centers on a village community established in 1907 on an island in the bay of Reykjavík, which saw two periods of boom and bust in its short life before the village was abandoned in 1943.