Fall 2013
ANG 6930: Anthropological Problematizations of
Globalization and Global Assemblages
Prof. Maria Stoilkova
stoilkov@ufl.edu
3345 Turlington Hall
Anthropology Department
Meets:
Mon. 4:05 pm – 7:05 pm @ TUR 2305
Office hours:
Tue: 3-5 pm @ 3345 TUR
Wed: 1-3 pm @ 3345 TUR
(if inconvenient, make an appointment to meet separately)
The international expansion of markets and market relations, and the global pursuit of economic
liberalism, that has marked at least the last 30 years of our history have been also linked to the
collapse of the cold-war international structure, and the emergence of new alignments of
sovereign rule, market rationality and regimes of citizenship since. These changes have had
profound impact on social life and human experiences, as an increasing portion of the world
population has been assembled directly into capitalist labor markets, while “national” and
“regional” markets fastened into “transnational” labor regimes.
The store of measures – administrative, institutional, political and economic – that underwrote
these developments had been variously described as “the era of globalization,” “the age of
advanced capitalism,” “disorganized capitalism” and also the “neoliberal turn”. While marking a
significant shift in the “management” of populations and the administration of spaces, the most
significant feature of these global (neoliberal) interventions seems to have been also the fact
that they appear as non-political and non-ideological problem-solving projects, projects that
presumably are driven purely by market calculations. Still, the global is not a given, and it is
made through intense and highly unequal exchanges.
Analyses of globalization have also proliferated in this period. Some studies underscore what is
perceived as grand transformation and a “new order of things” worldwide: a shift from
modernization to globalization; the emergence of global cities and of the “global assembly line”;
the rise of global elites and a new network society.
Seen in this way “globalization” affects the very core of modern scientific disciplines as well.
More profoundly it has transformed significantly standard units of analysis, where various
regionalisms, localisms along with transnational patters have become of increased interest to
social observers. This class will explore both some key the topics of “globalization” as well as the
various analytical perspectives and methods of analysis developed in anthropology and social
sciences more broadly to capture the current socio-political and economic transformations in
the world. In this new line of scientific reasoning that addresses the “global”, anthropologists
have first focused on a more micro level phenomena, and specifically looking at “localities” and
how these respond, adapt and resist to changing “macro” processes. Most recently, another
productive line of research has sought to capture globalization in terms of “assemblages” (OngCollier) or “friction(s)” (Tsing) or the way in which global forms have been articulated in specific
situations and defined ever more complex material, collective and discursive relationships of the
“local-global”. The overall result of the impact of “globalization” these anthropologists have
argues has been the emergence of new “assemblages” of sovereign rule, market rationality and
regimes of citizenship emerging around the globe with profound impact on communities,
nations, states and social and cultural life overall. New ethical concerns are emerging on every
stage of these transformations inviting rigorous ethnographic/anthropological investigation.
This seminar, will introduce students to the main debates in the field of studies of
“globalization”, but more importantly we will try to show how within the problem-space of
globalization we can frame today anthropological questions. It is meant to help students expand
their reading of different areas of the world and through that enhance their perspective on their
own projects in a broader theoretical and analytical (as well as comparativistic) framework.
List of books used in the seminar:
GLOBAL SHADOWS, JAMES FERGUSEN
LOSING CONTROL, SASKIA SASSEN
A brief History of NEOLIBERALISM, DAVID HARVEY
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkWWMOzNNrQ)
NEOLIBERALISM AS EXCEPTION, AIHWA ONG
GLOBAL ASSEMBLAGES, ONG AND COLLIER
THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF GLOBALIZATION, JONATHAN XAVIER AND RENATO ROSALDO
Dezalay Y and Barth G THE INTERNATIONALIZATION OF PALACE WARS
SHADOW ELITE, JANINE WEDEL
LIQUIDATED, KAREN HO
MOBILE LIVES, ELLIOT AND URRY
MODERNITY AT LARGE, APPADURAI
THEORY FROM THE SOUTH, COMAROFFS
Format and Assignments:
Reading materials will be available electronically or through copies (please make sure you have
the materials on time for each next class). The seminar is designed to help students formulate
and express their own ideas on the topics taken up, and to sharpen their analytical skills, as well
as understandings of theoretical traditions in the field. As such, discussion and presentation is
the central component of this seminar. Each class is organized around presentations prepared
by students, while the lecturer gives a short orientation into the topic, geared towards providing
(historically, politically, and theoretically) contextualizing information on the themes selected
each week.
Students who present are expected to write up a small synopsis of their material of choice and
post it prior to class on E-learning. They should also include some discussion points. These
commentaries will serve as a starting point for discussion in class.
There are two components to the assignments for this seminar. By the middle of the semester
students are expected to have conceptualized a topic for their final paper and work on an
annotated bibliography. The final paper aims to enable students to pursue their own areas of
interest. They are expected to write an analytical paper on topics of their choice as related to
the class material (up to 15 pages long double- spaced). The research for this paper may be
based on the literature covered in class, or additional materials relevant to their field.
Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: The Problem-space of Globalization in Anthropology
Anna Tsing, 2000. The Global Situation. In: Cultural Anthropology. Vol. 15/ 3. Pp: 327-360.
Don Kalb, 2004. “Time and Contention in the “great globalization debate”. From: Globalization
and Development. Kalb, D and Pausters W Eds. Hans Sibers Kluwer Academic Publishers.
“From flows to violence: Politics and knowledge in the debates on
globalization and empire” In: Anthropological Theory 5,2 2005
Don Kalb
Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo. 2008 “Tracking Global Flows”. In: The Anthropology of
Globalization. Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo, Eds. Blackwell Publishing
Tom Looser. 2012. The global University, Area studies, and the World Citizen: Neoliberal
Geography's Redistribution of the “World”. Volume 27, Issue 1, pages 97–117
Week 3. The ethics of anthropological engagement with the “global”
Andrea Muehlebach, 2013. On Precariousness and the Ethical Imagination. In Amerucan
Ethnologist Vol 115, 2
Nancy Scheper-Hughes, 2009. “The Ethics of Engaged Ethnography”. In: Anthropology News. Vol.
50, N 6, Sep.
Didier Fassin, 2008. “Beyond good and evil: Questioning the anthropological discomfort with
morals”. In: Anthropological Theory 8: 333
Clarke John, “Living with/in and without neo-liberalism” In: Focaal 2008 51 135-47
Sonia Alvarez, Arturo Arias, Charles Hale. “Re-visioning Latin American Studies”. In: Cultural
Anthropology Volume 26, Issue 2,
Week 4: Spaces and Times of Globalization
David Harvey. 1990, c1989. The Condition of Postmodernity. Blackwell, Chapters 7-11, 17 (pp.
121-189 and 308-326)
David Harvey, 2006. “Neoliberalism and the Restoration of Class Power”. From: Spaces of Global
Capitalism. Verso
Comaroff and Comaroff, 2000. Millennial Capitalism: First Thoughts on a Second Coming. In:
Public Culture 12.2 291-343
Pierre Bourdieu, "The essence of neoliberalism" Le Monde
Diplomatique, December 1998.
Week 5: Ethnography/anthropology of the contemporary
http://anthropos-lab.net/about
George Marcus' "The End(s) of Ethnography: Social/Cultural Anthropology's Signature Form of
Producing Knowledge in Transition" (2008),
MICHAEL T. TAUSSIG EXCELENTE ZONA SOCIAL Cultural Anthropology
Volume 27, Issue 3, pages 498–517, August 2012
http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/660
Paul Rabinow, 2002. Midst Anthropology's Problems. In: Cultural Anthropology May 2002, Vol.
17, No. 2: 135-149.
Further reading
Beck, Ulrich. 2000 “What is Globalization” In: The Global Transformations Reader
Niklas Luhmann, 1998.Observations of Modernity. Stanford University Press. ch 1,5
Bauman Liquid Modernity
Appadurai Modernity at large
Week 6: Biopolitics: governing complex societies
Nikolas Rose¸1999. Extracts from: Powers of Freedom. Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge
University Press (Pp 15-61, 61-136 and 137-167,)
Rabinow, P and Rose, N 2006. “Biopower Today” In: Biosocieties 1 195-217
(https://hampedia.org/wiki/Biopower,_Biopolitics,_and_Bare_Life)
http://anthropology.berkeley.edu/content/biopolitics-biomedicine-bioethics
Collier, Stephen J., and Andrew Lakoff. 2005 On Regimes of Living. In Global assemblages:
technology, politics, and ethics as anthropological problems. A. Ong and S. J. Collier, eds. pp. 2239. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing
Zizek, Slavoj. 2005 Biopolitics: Between Abu Ghraib and Terri Schiavo. Artforum International
44(4):270-271. (O)
Further reading
Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. 2000. “Biopolitical Production”, “Passages of Sovereignty”,
and “Capitalist Sovereignty”. In: Empire. Harvard University Press. (Chapters 1.2, Part 2, 3.6
(http://webpages.ursinus.edu/rrichter/frames82.htm)
Michel Foucault, 2008 From: “The Birth of Biopolitics”
Collier, St and Ong, A Global Assemblages, Anthropological Problems. In: Global Assemblages.
Blackwell
Aihwa Ong, 2005. “Ecologies of Expertise: Assembling Flows, Managing Citizenship”. In: Global
Assemblages. A. Ong and St. Collier, Eds. Blackwell Publishing
Giorgio Agamben. 1998. “Biopolitics and the Rights of Man,” “The Camp as the Nomos of the
Modern”. In: Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford University Press (Pp. 127135, 166-180).
Week 7. Globalization and Development
Faist Thomas. 2010. Transnationalization and Development: Towards an Alternative Agenda. In:
Critical Interventions. Volume 12
Mitchel Timothy 2002 Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity The University of
California Press, extracts
Dezaley and Barth, 2002. The Internalization of Palace Wars. The University of. Chicago Press.
Excerpts. Gregory Feldman. 2011
Mosse David Global Governance and the Enthrography of International Aid
Guilhot, N 2007. “Reforming the World”. In: Critical Sociology 33:447-477.
Gregory Feldman. 2011 “Illuminating the Apparatus: Steps toward a Nonlocal Ethnography of
Global Governance.” In Policy Worlds: Anthropology and the Anatomy of Contemporary Power.
Edited by Davide Pero, Cris Shore, and Susan Wright. Berghahn Books: New York and London
Further Readings:
Nicolas Guilhot 2005. The Democracy makers
Ananya Roy 2010. Poverty Capital: Microfinance and the making of Development. Routledge
Ann Laura Stoler, 2008. “Imperial Debris: Reflections on Ruins and Ruination”. In: Cultural
Anthropology May 2008, Vol. 23, No. 2: 191-219.
John Pilger, 2002. The New Rulers of the World. Verso
J
osiah Heyman and Howard Campbell 2009. “The Anthropology of Global Flows …” In:
Anthropological Theory 9/2 131-48
Saskia Sassen. 1998. “The Informal Economy.” From: Globalization and Its Discontents. The New
Press (pp. 153-169)
Week 8: Remaking the Self: Globalization and Subjectivity
Tomas Matza. 2009. Moscow's Echo: Technologies of the Self, Publics, and Politics on the
Russian Talk Show. In: Cultural Anthropology Aug. 2009, Vol. 24, No. 3: 489-522
Rose, N, 1992. “Governing the Enterprising Self”. In: The Values of the Enterprise Culture, Heels
and Morris, Eds. London: Routledge (141-164)
Daromir Rudnyckyj, 2009. “Spiritual Economies: Islam and Neoliberalism in Contemporary
Indonesia” In: Cultural Anthropology. Vol. 24/1 Pp.: 104-141
Biehl, J and Locke, P 2010. “Deluze and the Anthropology of Becoming”. In: Current
Anthropology. Vol 51. N3.
Bayart. Globalization and Political Subjectification: the Neo-liberal period 1980-2004
Susan Greenhalgh, "Planned Births, Unplanned Persons: 'Population' in the Making of Chinese
Modernity." American Ethnologist. Vol. 20, Issue 2, 2003. pp 196-215. (O)
Week 9: Humanitarianism and global intervention
Fergusen, James, 2006. Extracts from: Global Shadows. Duke University Press. Ch 1,2,6
” (2008),
Miriam Ticktin and Ilana Feldman, 2010. Introduction. From “In the Name of Humanity”. Duke
University Press
Tania Li, 2007. The will to improve: Governmentality, development, and the practice of politics.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Ch 4, 7
Erica Bornstein. 2009. The Impulse of Philanthropy. In: Cultural Anthropology Nov. 2009, Vol. 24,
No. 4: 622-651
Aradhana Sharma. 2006. “Crossbreeding Institutions, Breeding Struggle: Women's
Empowerment, Neoliberal Governmentality, and State (Re)Formation in India” In: Cultural
Anthropology
Further readings
Didier Fassin’s “The Humanitarian Politics of Testimony: Subjectification through Trauma in the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict” (2008)
Ilana Feldman’s “Difficult Distinctions: Refugee Law, Humanitarian Practice, and Political
Identification in Gaza” (2007)
Fassin, Didier, and Estelle D'Halluin, 2005. “The Truth from the Body: Medical Certificates as
Ultimate Evidence for Asylum Seekers”. In: American Anthropologist 107(4):597-608. (O)
Wilson, Richard Ashby, and Richard Brown, 2009. Humanitarianism and Suffering: The
Mobilization of Empathy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Week 10: Immigration Tests the New Order
Saskia Sassen, 1996. “Immigration Tests the New Order”. From: Losing Control? Sovereignty in
an Age of Globalization. (59-100)
Nicholas De Genova and Peutz N 2010 “Introduction” to The Deportation Regime
Nina Glick Schiller 2005 Transnational Social Fields and Imperialism: Briging a Theory of Power to
Transnational Studies. In: Anthropological Theory 5/4 439-61
Fassin, Didier 2005: “Compassion and Repression: The Moral Economy of Immigration
Policies in France’ in Cultural Anthropology Vol 20 (3)
Damani James Partridge's “We Were Dancing in the Club, Not on the Berlin Wall: Black Bodies,
Street Bureaucrats, and Exclusionary Incorporation into the New Europe” (2008),
Peter Benson's “El Campo: Faciality and Structural Violence in Farm Labor Camps” (2008)
Further readings:
Basch, L Schiller, N. Blanc K. (Eds.) 1994. Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects and
Deterritorialized Nation-States. Gordon and Breach Science Publishers. (Chapters 1, 2, 4).
Week 11: The transformation of work and employment
Manuel Castells, 1996. “The Transformation of Work and Employment: Networkers, Jobless, and
Flextimers”. In: The Rise of the Network Society. Blackwell. (pp. 201-272)
Saskia Sassen, 2006. “Global cities and Survival Circuits” In: Globalization: The Transformation of
Social Worlds. D. S. Eitzen and M.B. Zinn Eds. Thomson Wadsworth pp. 196-215
Biao, Xiang 2007. From: Global “Body Shopping:” An Indian labor System in the Information
Technology Industry”. Princeton University Press
Colet Elizabeth 2009. “Blue Cards and the Global battle for Talent”: web link:
http://www.epc.eu/documents/uploads/41255650_Blue%20Cards%20and%20the%20global%2
0battle%20for%20talent.pdf
Andrea Muehlebach. 2011. “On Affective Labor in Post-Fordist Italy”. In: Cultural Anthropology
Volume 26, Issue 1, pages 59–82, February 2011
Week 12: Ethics of the Technoscientific Objects
Ilana Gershon, 2005. “Seeing like a system: Luhmann for anthropologists Anthropological
Theory” 5: 99
Sarah Franklin, 2005. “Stem Cells R Us: Emergent Life Forms and the Global Biological”. In:
Global Assemblages. A. Ong and St. Collier, Eds. Blackwell Publishing
Joao Biehl 2010 Human Values and Political Life in the Wake of Global Aids Treatment. From: In
the Name of Humanity
Zerner Charles, 2010. “Biomimesis and the Weaponization of Life” From: In the Name of
Humanity
Andrew Lakoff, The Generic Biothreat, or, How We Became Unprepared. In: Cultural
Anthropology Aug. 2008, Vol. 23, No. 3: 399-428. (Supplemental material and discussion
available at http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/20
Further Readings
Stephen J. Collier, 2008. “Enacting catastrophe: preparedness, insurance, budgetary
rationalization” In: Economy and Society, Vol. 37, 2,
Tara O’Toole and Donald Henderson, 2006. “A Clearly Present Danger: Confronting the Threat of
Bioterrorism”. In: Globalization: The Transformation of Social Worlds. D. S. Eitzen and M.B. Zinn
Eds. Thomson Wadsworth pp. 239-245
Week 14: Global Rights?
Ronnie Lipschutz, 2004. “Constituting Political Community: Globalization, Citizenship and Human
Rights” In: People out of Place. A. Bryck and G. Shafir (Eds.) Routledge
Andrew Moravcsik, 2000. “The Origins of Human Rights Regimes: Democratic Delegation in
Postwar Europe”. In: International Organization 54(2), Spring. Pp. 217–252
Talal Asad, 2000. “What do Human Rights Do? An Anthropological Inquiry”. In: Theory & Event,
Vol 4 (4)
Richard Wilson, 2010. “Crimes against Humanity and the Conundrum of Race and Ethnicity at
the International Criminal Tribunal.” From: In the Name of Humanity
Ritty Lukose's "Empty Citizenship: Protesting Politics in the Era of Globalization" (2005)
Further readings
Brett Bowden, 2003. “The Perils of Global Citizenship”. In: Citizenship Studies. 7/3 (Pp. 349-62)
[Available on the web]
Week 15: Contested futures
Urry and Elliot Mobile lives ch 7
Susan Brin Hyatt What was Neoliberalism and What comes next?
Guilhot N Global Supervision of good governance in the Democracy Makers
Social Class and Citizenship in the Global World
"The Future of America's Working Class" by Joel Kotkin in New Geography (06/01/2010).
The "Class Matters" Forum of The New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/class/
Don Kalb Conversations with a Polish populist
Victoria Bernal. 2004. "Eritrea Goes Global: Reflections on Nationalism in a Transnational Era".
In: Cultural Anthropology
Friedman Jonathan 2000. Globalization, Class and Culture in Global Systems. In: Journal of World
Systems Research Vol 6, #3 (available online)
Consumption, solemnity, hegemony
Robert J. Foster, 2007. “The Work of the New Economy: Consumers, Brands, and Value
Creation” In: Cultural Anthropology. Vol. 22/4. Pp: 707-731.
Peter S. Cahn, 2008. “Consuming Class: Multilevel Marketers in Neoliberal Mexico” In: “Cultural
Anthropology”, Vol. 23/3. Pp.: 429-452
Gabriella Coleman, 2009. “Code is Speech: Legal Tinkering, Expertise, and Protest among Free
and Open Source Software Developers”. In: Cultural Anthropology. Vol. 24/3 Pp.:420-454
Asef Bayat. 2007. “Islamism and the Politics of Fun”. In: Public Culture 19/3
Urry and Elliot From Mobile Lives, ch 6 Consuming to Excesss
The Organization of Intimacy, Love, Sex and Globalization
Aihwa Ong, 1999. “The Pacific Shuttle: Family Citizenship and Capital Circuits”. In: Flexible
Citizenship.
O’Connell Davidson, J., 2001b: ‘The sex tourist, the expatriate, his ex-wife and her ‘Other’: The
politics of loss, difference and desire’. Sexualities. Vol. 4, No.1, pp. 5-24. [Available on the web].
Eva Illouz, 2007. “Romantic webs”. From: Cold Intimacies: the Making of Emotional Capitalism.
Polity Press. Pp: 74-114.
Urry and Elliot Mobile lives ch 5
Nickola Pazderic's 2004. "Recovering True Selves in the Electro-Spiritual Field of Universal Love".
In: Cultural Anthropology
Global Mobilities: the “Globals”, the “Globalizers” (Elite anthropology?)
Karen Ho, 2008. “Situating Global Capitalisms: A View from Wall Street Investment Banks”. In:
The Anthropology of Globalization. J.X. Inda nd R. Rosaldo, Eds. Blackwell Publishing, also ch
from her book
(See: http://www.culanth.org/?q=node/318)
Skidelsky Robert The world on a String
Janine Wedel, 2009. Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy,
Government, and the Free Market. Basic Books, extracts
Urry and Elliot From “Mobile lives” ch 4
Chrystia Freeland, 2011. “The Rise of the New Global Elite” In: The Atlantic Jan/Feb
Peter Redfield, 2012. “The Unbearable Lightness of Expats: Double Binds of Humanitarian
Mobility”. In: Cultural Anthropology. Volume 27, Issue 2, pages 358–382
Globalization and violence
Friedman Jonathan, 2003 Globalization, the State and Violence
Comaroffs Theory from the South
Georgi M. Derluguian’sBourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography.
Daniel J. Hoffman VIOLENCE, JUST IN TIME: War and Work in Contemporary West Africa
NGOization of social service
Michael Hathaway. 2010. “The Emergence of Indigeneity: Public Intellectuals and an Indigenous
Space in Southwest China”. In: Cultural Anthropology
Thomas Pearson. 2009.“On the Trail of Living Modified Organisms: Environmentalism within and
against Neoliberal Order”. In: Cultural Anthropology
Marina Welker. 2009. “Corporate Security Begins in the Community”: Mining, the Corporate
Social Responsibility Industry, and Environmental Advocacy in Indonesia”. In: Cultural
Anthropology
Annelise Riles 2000. The Network Inside Out. University of Michigan Press
Hope and Politics
Hirokazu Miyazaki. 2006. “Economy of Dreams: Hope in Global Capitalism and Its Critiques. In:
Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 21, No. 2: 147-172.
Michael Hathaway, 2010. “The Emergence of Identity: Public Intellectuals and an Indigenous
Space in Southwest China”. In: Cultural Anthropology May 2010, Vol. 25, No. 2:301.333.