neoliberalism and abandonment

“Any form of life that could not produce values according to market logic would not merely be allowed to die, but, in situations in which the security of the market (and sisnce the market was now the raison d’etre of the state, the state) seemed at stake, ferreted out and strangled. This way of killing is not commensurate with an older sovereign power Foucault so viscerally described in the opening of Discipline and Punish. There are not public spectacles of drawn and quartered bodies – or lynched bodies. Secret agreements are made to remove the body to be tortured far away from public sight and scrutiny.” (22)

“Once we understand that neoliberalism is neither laissez-faire liberalism nor Keynsianism – neither a social formation in which the state allows the market to proceed on the basis of one set of principles and the market allows the state to proceed on another set of principles, nor a well planned form of state and market regulation – but something much more aggressive, then we can understand why we get nowhere within neoliberalism arguing whether this or that person did or didn’t care about the vulnerable or that this or that social welfare program was or wasn’t a failure. Instead, we need to start asking what are the measures of failure, the arts of failure, such that people believe and experience cultural recognition and social welfare as failures.” (22-23)

from Povinelli, Economies of Abandonment

EASA 2012 – Displacing Certainty: Precarity and Forms of Life

Proposal submitted to the 2012 meeting of the European Association of Social Anthropologists in Nanterre, France. The session is called “Displacement and Uncertainty.”

*****

Displacing Certainty: Precarity and Forms of Life

What does uncertainty look like in the context of neoliberal governance? How are the life- and place-making projects of displaced populations affected by uncertainty under neoliberalism? This paper approaches these questions through an exploration of various strategies and tactics to control human migration flows, including refugee/asylum movement. The primary argument is that uncertainty is not a byproduct of contemporary governance, and therefore not an exceptional condition to be corrected; instead, uncertainty is actively cultivated under neoliberal governance. Uncertainty works in various ways and at multiple scales: displaced populations experience everyday uncertainty, host communities experience social and economic uncertainty, and global economic institutions thrive off of conditions of uncertainty. This condition of generalized uncertainty translates into the contemporary governance of precarity. Considered a form of governmentality (Foucault), precarity is an intensification of uncertainty as an overtly political project aimed at shaping the social (and the subject) in the image of neoliberalism. The everyday experience of uncertainty within displaced populations is the limit-case for the governance of precarity, because the figure of the refugee is merely the most ‘honest’ instantiation of the governmentality of neoliberalism. Ultimately, the paper proceeds from an elaboration of techniques of migrant/refugee policing, through precarity and uncertainty as everyday experience, to, finally, an attempt to re-inscribe the figure of the refugee as the anthropological grounding of a new political project. Examples of this political project will be provided, namely the Sans-Papiers, the Roma, the Zapatistas, and the hill peoples of Zomia, Southeast Asia.

*****

They also asked for a 300 character (including spaces) short abstract, an almost impossible exercise. Here’s mine (which is terrible):

Uncertainty surrounding displaced populations read through a broad understanding of precarity as a form of governmentality in conditions of neoliberalism. Under these conditions, displaced populations offer evidence of new subjectivities that themselves attempt to exert control over precarity.

Stuart Hall on neoliberalism

Over at the Guardian. 

Excerpt:

My argument is that the present situation is another unresolved rupture of that conjuncture which we can define as “the long march of the Neoliberal Revolution”. Each crisis since the 1970s has looked different, arising from specific historical circumstances. However, they also seem to share some consistent underlying features, to be connected in their general thrust and direction of travel. Paradoxically, such opposed political regimes as Thatcherism and New Labour have contributed in different ways to expanding this project. Now the coalition is taking up the same cause.

Neoliberalism is grounded in the “free, possessive individual”, with the state cast as tyrannical and oppressive. The welfare state, in particular, is the arch enemy of freedom. The state must never govern society, dictate to free individuals how to dispose of their private property, regulate a free-market economy or interfere with the God-given right to make profits and amass personal wealth. State-led “social engineering” must never prevail over corporate and private interests. It must not intervene in the “natural” mechanisms of the free market, or take as its objective the amelioration of free-market capitalism’s propensity to create inequality.

 

contextualizing u.s. higher education activism

My contribution to the February 2011 GESO newsletter. Distribution of the whole newsletter is scheduled for next week.

*****     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****     *****

The United States has entered a period of general educational crisis; but this crisis has nothing to do with what mainstream policy makers and commentators would have you believe. Rather than declining in quality and innovation, the US remains a destination country for higher education (meaning most of the world’s best universities are here and attracting students from abroad) and the country remains the site of innovation in science, engineering, and business. This doesn’t appear to be in serious jeopardy in the near future. The changes to higher education being forced through in many states right now, based on arguments about maintaining competitiveness and an innovative edge, are chimeras. Chimeras conjured to solidify the university as a site of immediate value production.

American higher education activism has generally been geared toward creating and preserving a critical distance between the demands of immediate value production and the historic ideal of the university as a site of humanistic education, clearly a case of deferred value production. American students have engaged in activism since the founding of higher education in the country – students at Harvard rioted over the quality of butter in the dining halls in 1766. In the last century or so, American students have been mostly mobilized around creating an inclusive, identity-driven curriculum and the accessibility of the university to various historically marginalized constituencies. These battles reflect the humanistic ideals of the university, and demonstrate that historically what students want from their education is not immediate value. It is external pressure from corporations and ignorant politicians driving the current trend toward insisting that the university serve as a center for vocational training.

The current battle over the role, meaning, and value of higher education in the United States (and the world) is a battle over the very meaning of the public sphere within the new paradigm of class politics: immaterial labor. As capital continues to adapt itself to the realm of finance, services, and the production of creativity, traditional labor politics are put under erasure. There are still factories, meat packing plants, construction sites, and other traditional bastions of labor, but they are increasingly marginalized in favor of an economy based around the production of affects, ideas, and services that are nor produced in linear, regimented, atomized modes of production. These changes are driving more diverse students to the university. It is not surprising that the current crisis in higher education coincides with this historically unmatched increase in college enrollment by ethnic minorities and traditionally poor white populations.

The new modes of production coupled with the influx of the historic laboring classes into the realm of immaterial labor – a realm traditionally dominated by the bourgeoisie – are shifting the site of class politics from the factory to the university. The university has become the factory, at least in terms of its function in the economy; but this change presents new challenges. Immaterial production is difficult to measure quantitatively, making the ability to engage in collective bargaining increasingly difficult. This leads to downright silly measures of “productivity” by valuing the quantity of faculty publications over quality: publish or perish is a new form of class war, designed to keep faculty and graduate students concerned more about output than defending their quality of life.

Now more than ever we must recognize that the working conditions of faculty – including the contingent labor of graduate assistants of all types and adjunct faculty – are directly tied to the meaning and value of public higher education. Without tenure, academic freedom, and benefits and compensation that guarantee a form of life conducive to the life of the mind the public university as an idea and an aspiration will cease to exist.

Ohio State already receives among the highest amounts of private and corporate sponsorship of research among US universities. President Gee is, and has been, committed to the destruction of academic disciplines and the relegation of research funding through an internal system of competitive grants. He has also been vocal about the need to change the tenure system. It is obvious why Gee is seen, worldwide, as one of the foremost proponents of the corporate university, and wishes to see the traditional role of higher education altered in favor of a notion of “productivity” and “usefulness” to society that is the very death of public education.

Join GESO in defending the very idea of public higher education by demanding 1) the compensation and benefits that allow us to live our lives while pursuing our educations, 2) a meaningful role in the governance process of the university, and 3) the redirection of university resources away from vanity building projects and towards university support for research in ALL disciplines.

Pedagogy of a Public Market – Part 3 (final)

This post will conclude the paper I wrote after the initial phase of my research at the Columbus North Market. My research is by no means done, in fact this paper really only serves to highlight a few areas where future research is necessary. I will continue my fieldwork this quarter and continue to report as I go.

*****************************************************************************************************************************************

Neoliberal
Pedagogy in Public Space: “Safe Gathering” vs. “Dangerous Assembly”

The elision of gathering place and conspicuous
consumption is indicative of the new neoliberal paradigm.[1]
The injection of economic thinking into every aspect of life is one facet of neoliberalism,
one supported and inscribed through the shift of our public spaces into
commercial spaces. The historical development of the market shows that there
never really was a time when the two spheres were separate; however, the
redefinition of public space, combined with contemporary policing practices,
physical limitations of an indoor market, and the presence of mostly
prepared-food vendors marks a shift in the market’s relationship with the
citizens of Columbus.

According to Mark Cotè, Richard J.F. Day, and
Greig De Peuter, “The neoliberal project includes what is known as the
globalization of capital, as well as the intensification of societies of
control.”[2]
Problematic in such definitions (and they are common), however, is the
anthropomorphization of neoliberalism. Referring to a neoliberal project grants
agency to an ideology that is better described through the articulation of
numerous practices in mundane places, such as Columbus’ North Market. Observing
the market over a period of weeks in the winter of 2009 highlighted a number of
practices that seem to articulate with established thinking about
neoliberalism. I categorize the practices as drawing a distinction between
“safe gathering” and “dangerous assembly.”

I am defining “dangerous assembly” as any
gathering that disrupts commerce or tarnishes the appearance of the hyperreal.
This assembly is often intentionally disruptive (such as the Reclaim the
Streets movement[3]), directed
at capitalist enterprise (such as Reverend Billy’s Church of Stop Shopping[4]),
and can occur in large-scale or small-scale forms often without clear
leadership which makes it hard to eliminate.

At least since Seattle hosted the World Trade
Organization’s third Ministerial meeting in 1999, which exploded into violence,[5]
cities around the world have been extremely careful in regulating conduct in
public spaces. Coupled with the September 11^th terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, large-scale assembly has become
difficult to organize and execute without inciting preemptive state violence.
The Democratic and Republican National Conventions in both 2004 and 2008 are
further examples of a tightening of control in the wake of Seattle 1999. My
point here, though, is not to illustrate how the North Market is no longer a
place of dissent (by some accounts, it has been a place of political activism),
but rather the trickle-down effect from neoliberal policing practices has meant
that only a certain kind of dissent is
allowable, and “dangerous assembly” is not it.

Instead, “safe gathering” is encouraged, which
I am referring to as the regulated and parsed gathering of small, private
groups of people in public space that does not impede commerce or shine a
critical light on the hyperreal. These practices are acceptable to the
commercial enterprise of the market while still allowing for some (limited)
choice-making activities. By allowing for small groups of people to gather
around tables to talk about whatever they like, an appearance of freedom is
generated that makes “dangerous assembly” practices seem outside the norm. It
becomes an affront to common sense to see people disrupting commerce in any
way. These practices ensure that it appears that there is a balance of commerce
with public engagement, while in reality the clearly commercial enterprise is
never interrupted.

Conclusion

What all of this points to is the preliminary
finding that the North Market does indeed help educate for neoliberal
sensibilities, even while it contains the seeds for its own subversion. This
amounts to what Foucault referred to as heterotopic space. Foucault describes
heterotopic spaces as fitting a number of criteria.[6]
First, the market is a space that has changed over time, most notably from a
site of daily necessity to a space for conspicuous consumption. Second, the
market is a space in which multiple spaces exist. It is simultaneously a space
of commerce, social gathering, law enforcement/policing, marketing (for the
city), and perhaps even a kind of “theme park.” Third, the market is linked to
“slices in time.” It acts as a museum, indefinitely collecting time through
artifacts on display and the historical narrative constructed for public view.
It also acts as festival, through its special events (like Fiery Foods Festival)
in particular. Finally, the market operates in relation to remaining space, in
this instance, the city of Columbus. For this criteria, the market acts as a
“real” space of commerce in relation to the normally messy practice of everyday
life in America. So, while I have focused on the neoliberal pedagogy of the
North Market, there are other stories to be told. Most evident from this
project, then, is the need to continue this line of research. There are still
numerous questions that need to be answered, and observing the market in spring
and summer will give me a more complete picture and most likely change my
findings.

---

[1] As
articulated by Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at the
College de France, 1978-1979 (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).

[2] Mark Cotè,
Richard J.F. Day, and Greig De Peuter, ed., Utopian Pedagogy: Radical
Experiments Against Neoliberal Globalization
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007).

[3] Giorel
Curran, 21^st Century Dissent: Anarchism, Anti-Globalization and
Environmentalism (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2006). Reclaim the Streets organizes, among other things, seemingly
spontaneous “parties” in the middle of traffic intersections or on major
highways to disrupt traffic and draw attention to the way public space is used.

[4] http://www.revbilly.com/. Reverend Billy is
famous for coordinating direct situationist actions such as performing an
exorcism on the flagship Macy’s store in New York City during the Christmas
shopping season.

[5] It is unclear
as to what the “first” act of violence was and who committed it, but what is
clear is that the peaceful civil disobedience of the majority of the protestors
was met with an excessive (impressive?) display of state violence justified by
the destruction of property by some Black Block Anarchists.

[6] Foucault,
“Of Other Spaces.”

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Pedagogy of a Public Market

I've been working this past quarter on a project studying the North Market in Columbus, OH. For the next few posts, I will excerpt from the paper I wrote for a class. I'd love feedback, as this is an ongoing project.

The following is my introduction and initial scene-setting. Following soon will be my discussion of the pedagogies of the market.

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“The space in which we live,
which draws us out of ourselves, in which the erosion of our lives, our time
and our history occurs, the space that claws and gnaws at us, is also, in
itself, a heterogeneous space. In other words, we do not live in a kind of
void, inside of which we could place individuals and things. We do not live
inside a void that could be colored with diverse shades of light, we live
inside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one
another and absolutely not superimposable on one another.” – Michel Foucault[1]

 

Entering the Field

I
shut my car door, breathe in the winter air, cool and crisp, and look around
me. As I stand in the pay-per-hour parking lot, I take account of my
surroundings. The first things I notice are the numerous cars in the lot. It
appears that it will be crowded inside. I begin making my way toward the front
doors; the canopied entrance is lined with empty picnic tables, clearly
intended for warmer weather. The building has a façade that mixes weathered red
brick with newer materials, giving the impression that an old building (the red
brick) has been renovated for more contemporary use (the glass doors and
external staircase). An enormous sign announces the purpose of the building; it
reads “North Market” in large letters, with the O containing a rooster’s head
surrounded by a radiant sun. I enter the front door and am immediately met with
the hustle and bustle of commerce. I am bumped from behind and realize that I
am standing in the doorway – Oh, I’m sorry, I should get out of the way, I say to the man who had run into me. “Not a
problem, I didn’t see you.”

I
move to the side and wonder what I should do first. I have no known connection
to any of the shoppers, workers, or employees of the North Market Business
Authority (the market management council). I decide to walk the floor and get a
feel for the layout, at the same time exploring the shops and getting a sense
of how people move through the market.

At
first, it is easy to see that this is a converted warehouse, as the stalls have
a haphazard, semi-permanent feel to them.[2]
There are few dividing walls; different proprietors separate from one another
by using deli cases, jar-laden bookcases, or produce containers. The North
Market is clearly not a purpose-built environment with permanent partitions.
However, the benefit is that the space can be broken up as necessary making it
easier to bring in businesses of different sizes and means, as the space can be
tailored to meet specific needs. The meat- and fish-mongers at the north end of
the market take up a greater, more specialized space than do the bakery and
popcorn stalls at the south end; the coffee shops and hot dog stands have
specialized equipment, the bbq and hot sauce vendor is simply an open space
lined with shelves with a cash register on a table. One vendor’s space is no
more than six feet wide by ten feet deep or so, and has the feeling of an
over-stuffed closet at grandma’s house. Everything from Bert’s Bees lip-gloss
to Ohio State University shot glasses line the shelves.

As
I complete my circuit, I determine that the ground floor consists of numerous
vendors arranged around a rectangle. The two main thoroughfares run
north-south, intersected by perpendicular east-west alleys. Almost every inch
of walkway space is lined with display cases, serving counters, cash registers,
or lunch counter-style seating. After finding the restrooms, I realize there is
a staircase leading up to a second level. Not knowing what to expect, or even
if I was entering an open area of the market, I head up. Upstairs is a large
open space; tables and chairs line the walls and the inner railing that overlooks
the ground floor shops. At the north end are the North Market business offices.
At the south end is an enclosed seating space that is, according to a sign,
available to rent for private gatherings but is currently empty. I sit down at
a table to observe for a while.

---

[1] Michel
Foucault, “Of Other Spaces,” http://www.foucault.info/documents/heteroTopia/foucault.heteroTopia.en.html,
1967 (accessed March 12, 2009).

[2] My
observation was later confirmed when visiting the North Market website, http://www.northmarket.com/about-us.
The building currently housing the market was formerly the Advanced Thresher
warehouse, purchased by the city in 1992, leased to the North Market
Development Authority, and opened to the public in 1995.

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Naomi Wolf

On why government sanctioned protest won't work.

Naomi Wolf Slams ‘Fake’ Activism

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Some thoughts on graffiti

Just to show everyone that I am indeed engaged in something called academic work, here's some thoughts I've had on graffiti that are the result of my research so far.

No war reagan airport

Butler and Graffiti:
Identification and Subjectivity

            Graffiti
in some form or another is as old as humanity. Examples can be found in the
caves in Lascaux, France, later in Pompeii, Italy, and frequently in
contemporary bathroom stalls. However, graffiti as it is popularly understood,
spray painted images on urban surfaces, developed in the late 1960s and early
1970s in Philadelphia, then New York. It has been a text-based art form (which
is why it has become institutionalized largely through graphic design
departments within art schools), but is now transitioning to refer to a
particular style of art, bleeding from the streets onto the internet. In some
ways, the internet (often a fleeting space of presence and disappearance) is
more permanent than the street, betraying a desire for stability in an art
world under constant erasure.

            Graffiti
is clearly an embodied process. The body acts, the paint does not simply appear
on the wall. From whence does this drive come, to engage in illegal activity in
order to see a name in public? In popular discourses it appears that the
graffiti artist is merely a vandal, an anti-social actor in opposition to the
status quo. There is certainly some of that within the broad, worldwide
movement of graffiti or street art. However, as an identity, graffiti cannot be
so essentialized. Understood through Marx’s concept of alienation, graffiti as
an identificatory practice becomes clearer. In an advanced capitalistic
society, such as the United States, the extraction of surplus labor, mass
production, and the profit motive combine and give rise to subjects alienated
from their own labor, and in the conditions of hypercapitalism, labor is life
itself. Closed out of viable economies due to racism, lack of education, and
other structural barriers, such alienation perhaps quickly leads to abjection.
Graffiti arose given these conditions as a means to literally state: I am here,
I am alive, look at me! In this case,
the subject “give[s] an account…because someone has asked me to, and that
someone has power delegated from an established system of justice.” Shut out of
the media, many inner-city youth answered the state on the only publicly
accessible platforms they could: the walls and subway cars of the city.

            Very
quickly, though, the state responded with violence, as graffiti is outside of
what is considered a productive citizenship. New York City’s Metro Transit
Authority (MTA) noticed a decline in ridership. When the MTA conducted surveys
to find out why, the most common response was due to the high levels of crime
taking place on the subway; in fact, many city residents and other potential
riders stated that they thought that most of the crime taking place in the city
was happening on the subway. This was not accurate. The presence of graffiti
gave the impression that no one was in charge of the city and combined with
many other issues the city was forced to act. Graffiti was blamed as creating
an atmosphere of anarchy – and graffiti was anthropomorphized, becoming the
precursor to the disembodied, subjectless “war on terror” begun after September
11^th. The state struck back, erasing graffiti and jailing artists.
The battle had begun and offered a new method of subjectivation. The graffiti
artist as guerilla fighter was born.

            What
began as a public petition for recognition is now a right of passage for
anti-establishment youth, feeding into the perception of graffiti as vandalism.
Regardless, something more was happening. The development of graffiti is often
lumped into/with the development of hip hop. However, graffiti has equal
origins in both punk and hip hop cultures, which share more than most give
credit for. Early crossovers, such as the Beastie Boys (originally a punk
band), and collaborations, such as Aerosmith with Run DMC, Onyx with Biohazard,
Anthrax with both UTFO and Public Enemy illustrate how closely linked the two
cultures were (are?). The “Do It Yourself” (DIY) aesthetic of both punk and hip
hop influenced early graffiti. Racial politics, however, cloud the issue; our
propensity to reduce graffiti to an African American folk art is troubled when
we learn that many of the major artists of the early years were not Black. This
common origin, though, is also unsatisfying because many artists claimed no
allegiance to either culture, particularly once the art form began to spread
around the world. This simply highlights the complexity of the movement and
that in our attempts to write histories of it foreclose much of what actually
happened. We are lucky that many of the early artists are still alive to give
their accounts, but as Butler reminds us, they cannot give complete accounts of
themselves or the art.

Public Space, Public
Face: Neoliberalism, Globalism, Localism

            Given
the profusion of graffiti art and artists around the world and the rise to
dominance of neoliberal policies governing public space, the penalties for
being prosecuted under the law are increasing. What used to be a minor crime
now carries with it fines in the thousands of dollars and possible jail time
for “repeat offenders” in many cities around the globe. With the stakes so
high, graffiti is finding other ways to live. It, and by it I mean to summarize the art world of graffiti into the
word graffiti, is finding new
avenues, new ways to

…call forth a public which has yet
to exist. Here calling forth this public would be part of a process called
democracy: since we would reject the reduction of democracy to a mode of governance
based upon counting votes, tallying numbers, etcetera… This process of
constructing or calling forth or creating a public would also require some
struggle, some disagreement… It would require fighting for ground lost and
ground which has yet to be imagined. (16Beaver, Down by Numbers, in Art as a Public Issue)

This struggle and disagreement is part of a radical
democratic project articulated by Chantal Mouffe. While traditional politics
leaves little room for graffiti, agonistic politics offers a site/time for
graffiti to participate as citizenship, and the internet is where much of this
is now happening.

            Much
has been said about the internet and its ability to replace traditional public
forums. However, replacing public physical space with public virtual space is
not very satisfying. We do not yet live our entire lives on-line, regardless of
the clarion calls from doom and gloom media pundits yearning for an earlier,
simpler time. Every time we go outside, even if it is to make the drive to
work, we pass through public space. Reliance on the internet as the sole site
to voice dissent and opposition actually plays into neoliberal politics as an
easy, violence-free way to diffuse the masses. Having a million people send an
email to the White House is still less powerful a statement than having 20,000
people gather on the Mall in the United States capital. Permits are required,
and as experience in Seattle (1999), New York (2000 Democratic Convention), and
Minneapolis/St. Paul (2008, Rage Against the Machine prevented from playing on
stage outside the Republican National Convention, police citing “safety
concerns) shows, the permits act to confine popular protest and to justify
violent state responses once the terms are exceeded. Commerce is interrupted,
which sets off the first domino in a long line that culminates in tear gas and
rubber bullets. More and more, graffiti is being understood, at least by its
practitioners and admirers, through these conditions.

            The
2007 documentary Bomb It highlighted
recent trends, while also providing a strong historical backdrop to the
movement. Jon Reiss, the producer and director, also focused on the global
implications of graffiti as an artistic movement, showcasing global
commonalities while simultaneously demonstrating the particular local styles
and politics. While graffiti seems to have common elements around the globe, it
is clear that graffiti in New York is not the same as graffiti in Los Angeles,
Rio de Janeiro, or Capetown. 

Blek_le_rat_david1190039729_862

In Paris, stenciler Blek le Rat discussed how New
York style writing would not fit the Paris architecture, so he helped create a
unique Parisian style. This is contradicted from within, though, when Reiss
interviews minority/immigrant youth from Paris’ urban exurbs, who take a less
artistic view and reiterate the value of graffiti in asserting an identity in
an alienating environment. Blek le Rat wants art to serve a social purpose
(speaking for) and the anonymous Arab-French youth want to say “fuck you” to
the system that others them (speaking from).

Conclusion

            As
an art form, graffiti is well established and has been since at least the 1980s
when Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat ruled the New York City art scene.
However, the civic value of graffiti remains contested…sort of. Within the
movement it is clear that the motivations of artists are to perform a type of
“urban intervention,” while similar thoughts outside the movement are almost
nonexistent. We are so wrapped up in neoliberal thought that “common sense”
views of property, space (public and private), and the centrality of commerce
relegate graffiti to the vandalism dustbin. My project, as I am beginning to
conceptualize it, is to conduct field research in order to figure out what
exactly it is that graffiti artists are
doing, then work on incorporating that into political and educational theory. 

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