The Gospel of Freedom,or Another Gospel? Augustinian Reflections on Empire and American Foreign Policy

Abstract

American foreign policy is often extolled in terms of exporting "freedom" to the rest of the world— extending God's gift to humanity (according to President Bush's Second Inaugural). But just what notion of "freedom" undergirds this project? According to the National Security Strategy, the freedom being globalized is a negative, non-teleological notion of freedom that primarily underwrites the expansion of free markets. But such a liberal, non-teleological notion of freedom is just the notion of freedom that is rejected by the orthodox (Augustinian) theological tradition. So the theological invocations that cloak this foreign policy can only be, technically, heretical. This paper takes Augustine's theology as a mode of cultural criticism, offering a contemporary rendition of Augustine's critique of empire in The City of God by interrogating the discourse of freedom associated with the Bush Doctrine as well as a critique of Hardt and Negri's alternative as it is laid out in Empire and Multitude.     

‘Where we need to go’: comments on ‘decennial reflections on A Geography of Heritage’

This article is a comment on: Tubridge et al., 2012. Decennial reflections on a ‘geography of heritage’ (2000). International Journal of Heritage Studies, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2012.695038     

Reflections on ‘fieldwork and disabled students: discourses of exclusion and inclusion’

The promotion of education for sustainable development (ESD) is likely to be constrained by its compatibility with other missions and objectives of higher education institutions (HEIs). Finding space for ESD in the Enterprise Economy invites consideration of opportunities for increasing the visibility and audibility of environmental messages in HE sectors primarily committed to equipping national economies with skilled graduates. A survey of undergraduates registered for a physical geography module at the National University of Singapore was undertaken for three successive cohorts. Students fundamentally associate sustainability with resource-based definitions and usually construct environmental issues in terms of access to and utilization of the resource base. A limited articulation of environmental problems in neighbouring countries suggests that a geographical perspective (emphasizing space and scale) could be usefully enhanced. However, the role of the geography discipline in best serving ESD is ambiguous given the need to infuse ideas through traditional disciplinary boundaries. Reflections on environmental awareness and attitudes among students in Singapore concur with UNESCO recognition that models for ESD must be locally defined in culturally appropriate ways.     

The Little Nyonya and Singapore’s national self: reflections on aesthetics,ethnicity and postcolonial state formation

Singapore’s postcolonial state formation process has combined the appeal/distress of a multiracial society with the nationalistic pride of economic development. In recent years, the city-state has witnessed a revival of Peranakan culture and history, referring to the descendants of early Chinese immigrants who integrated into Indigenous societies before becoming prized mediators for British colonisers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. We question how these references are strategically deployed as part of the process of postcolonial state formation and how their aesthetic representations support public discussions and debates about what defines contemporary (Chinese) Singaporean identity. By examining Peranakan representations in the television series The Little Nyonya from a Deleuzian perspective, it will be argued that Peranakan history and culture are mobilised to de-territorialise previous meanings of national ethnic markers, specifically Chineseness, and to re-territorialise a local sense of Indigeneity. In reaction to concerns over Mainlander identity, representations of Peranakan culture and history in The Little Nyonya support the indigenisation of a specific Chinese identity that is accessible to all Singaporeans, offering an aesthetic framework in which the ongoing process of negotiating between Singapore’s national self and other unfolds.     

Doing Justice to Bodies? Reflections on Food Justice,Race, and Biology

Abstract: The food justice concept takes disproportionate prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes among people of color as evidence of injustice. Yet several measurements of obesity are based on norms derived from white bodies, which can also be a source of injustice. Part of the conceptual problem lies with reticence to discuss questions of material bodily difference as it relates to race given the legacy of racial science. Noting the distinction between racialism and racism, this article explores ways to think about biological difference in raced bodies, without reducing it to genetics. It draws on insights from Foucauldian notions of race and the new science of epigenetics to suggest that biological difference is more an effect of racism than a cause. Several pathways to obesity exist that have less to do with current day food access or genetic inheritance than with differential exposures that are somatized epigenetically.     

Re-placing gender? Reflections on 15 years of Gender,Place and Culture

This article reflects on Gender, Place and Culture (GPC) from 1994 to mid-2008, to highlight some of the key subjects and debates which have been delimited and progressed within its pages. Launched simultaneously with the cultural turn in human geography, GPC proceeded to raise important questions about identity and difference, effectively reflecting but also driving a number of transformative intellectual and political agendas. This reflection will focus on three interrelated sites of such activity: empirical, theoretical and political. Empirically, numerous articles have examined the ways gender is lived, in and across spaces and these have been enlivened by approaches highlighting masculinities, sexualities and embodiment. Theoretically these subjects have been informed by post-colonial and post-structural frameworks, directing discussion towards multiple identities, reflexivity, research practice, performativity, material cultures, positionality and the nature of academic knowledge. In addition, GPC has registered progressive political concerns for justice and equality, though the nature and extent of its political import has been legitimately questioned from without and within the pages of the journal. The resolution of the many dilemmas associated with the ways gender is lived, thought about and practiced has not always been successful in the pages of GPC, and the ongoing reality of Anglo-American dominance, the persistence of women's inequality and the tension between discursive and political activism, remains. However, in re-placing gender over the last 15 years, GPC has been a journal of serious and path-breaking scholarship which has further legitimized the value of feminist geography.     

The Danzón,North American Racial Discourses,and Reflections on Early Jazz

This essay proposes a way of understanding the formation of jazz as part of a broader transnational exchange of culture. It argues that the processes by which jazz came into being closely resemble others taking place in Cuba and elsewhere, and thus calls for analysis that positions jazz as part of a hemispheric exchange of cultural influences that extend beyond the United States. Second, it reviews and critiques existing scholarship on New Orleans jazz from a transnationalist perspective. It suggests that such literature presents turn-of-the-twentieth-century New Orleans culture as insular, with little or no recognition of the international movement of artists and musical forms. Finally, it suggests that the cultural projects associated with jazz in the United States have necessitated a strong emphasis on the contributions of black US artists to the exclusion of Hispanics.     

Transborder tourism,borderless classroom: reflections on a Hawaii–Singapore experience

This paper discusses a virtual or borderless classroom exercise conducted by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the University of Hawaii, Manoa (UHM). By reflecting on the experiences and views of the NUS participants, the article explores the possibility of virtual explorations as a substitute for conventional fieldtrips and fieldwork. The findings reveal that online interactions and experiences simulate some of the processes and outcomes of traditional field explorations. Online exercises also permit cross‐country collaboration and trans‐cultural dialogue between students in two campuses. On the other hand, virtual exchanges are limited by their static two‐dimensional medium when contrasted with conventional fieldtrips, which provide multi‐sensory experiences that better allow participants to understand a foreign environment, society and culture.     

A Gramscian Conjuncture in Latin America? Reflections on Violence,Hegemony, and Geographical Difference

This article addresses whether the concepts of Antonio Gramsci still “travel” to Latin America. During the 20^th century, Gramsci was one of the most important social theorists invoked to understand forms of social order in Latin America, as well as providing resources to reflect upon subaltern culture, resistance and the construction of alternatives. However, over the past two decades there have been several theoretical and practical challenges to the hegemony of Gramsci. These challenges are multifarious, but can be reduced to several important contentions that are explored in this article. These include the enduring role of violence, the alleged decline of ideology and finally the challenge of state‐centrism in the face of geographical difference. In the current regional conjuncture, marked by the return to power of right‐wing social forces, I therefore examine whether Gramscian concepts are still apposite for understanding the political economy of Latin America in the 21^st century.     

To live and let die: Food,famine, and administrative violence in Democratic Kampuchea, 1975–1979

Between 1975 and 1979 approximately two million people died in the Cambodian genocide. We argue that the mass violence that transpired during this period was a manifestation of the Khmer Rouge's attempt to make life. Through a focus on the production of both violence and vulnerability we direct attention to the contradictory policies and practices forwarded by the Khmer Rouge that were designed to maximize life through the maximization of death. Specifically, we consider the mass starvation that accompanied the genocide as a structure of violence; we forward the argument that the rationing of food constitutes a calculated yet contradictory policy, namely that food rations represent in material form an inner contradiction of fostering life and disallowing life. Subsequently, the policy of forced rations—which imposed a particular space of vulnerability on Cambodia's population—resulted in massive loss of life through starvation and disease that were not the unintended side-effects of poor research, poor planning, or poor implementation on behalf of the Khmer Rouge, but rather were the necessary consequences of a proto-capitalist form of state-building.     

To live and let die: Food,famine, and administrative violence in Democratic Kampuchea, 1975–1979

Between 1975 and 1979 approximately two million people died in the Cambodian genocide. We argue that the mass violence that transpired during this period was a manifestation of the Khmer Rouge's attempt to make life. Through a focus on the production of both violence and vulnerability we direct attention to the contradictory policies and practices forwarded by the Khmer Rouge that were designed to maximize life through the maximization of death. Specifically, we consider the mass starvation that accompanied the genocide as a structure of violence; we forward the argument that the rationing of food constitutes a calculated yet contradictory policy, namely that food rations represent in material form an inner contradiction of fostering life and disallowing life. Subsequently, the policy of forced rations—which imposed a particular space of vulnerability on Cambodia's population—resulted in massive loss of life through starvation and disease that were not the unintended side-effects of poor research, poor planning, or poor implementation on behalf of the Khmer Rouge, but rather were the necessary consequences of a proto-capitalist form of state-building.     

Akogare,Ideology, and ‘Charisma Man’ Mythology: Reflections on ethnographic research in English language schools in Japan

In light of recent reflexive ethnography based on frameworks of performativity, this work develops a phenomenological interpretation of my white, male, gaijin (foreign), English-speaking positionality inside Japan's private English conversation schools (eikaiwa). These eikaiwa are ubiquitous in modern urban areas. They are patronized predominantly by women who seek career enhancement, study and/or work abroad, and international romance. To understand the gendered participation patterns inside the eikaiwa I develop a phenomenological understanding of my positionality through a framework based on Occidentalism. This framework is grounded in the ideo-geographically specific notions of seken (surveillance) and akogare (desire). Akogare is instantiated and intensified inside eikaiwa by the performative aspects of staff, students and instructor practices in addition to eikaiwa texts and advertising and popular media discourses while seken, especially gender-normative seken, directed at women is minimized. This framework allows me to present a nuanced account of the interaction of my positionalities with those of the informants.     

Something Borrowed,Something New? Reflections on Apocalypticism and Prophecy in the Old Testament

This article approaches the ongoing scholarly debate as to what constitutes apocalypticism in ancient Judaism, and, in particular, if and how apocalyptic texts stand out as different from prophetic texts in the Old Testament. Some examples from the history of scholarship illustrate how the dichotomy between prophecy and apocalypticism has been perceived, and the underlying presuppositions are discussed critically. A case is made for assuming a fundamental continuity between so-called prophetic and apocalyptic writings as developments of the same literary tradition. Against this background is discussed how differences and nuances between texts within this continuity can be fruitfully acknowledged. Three tendencies that appear to be reinforced in so-called apocalyptic texts in the Old Testament are pointed out: The extensive use of literary loans from older texts, the development of visually suggestive, yet elusive imagery, and the combination of different literary forms and genres. Finally, some selected texts from Old Testament prophetic books (Ezekiel, Daniel, Joel, and Isaiah) serve as test cases for the first of these aspects.