1NC modules
AT POLICY
Globalization is the process of globalizing masculine politics through armed conflict
and economic intervention.
Chow ’03 (Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and
Social Change in the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
Michael Kimmel (2002) points out that
the underlying logics of globalization in capitalist production, market
rationality, trade liberalization , privatization, transnational corporations (TNCs) and modernity are
themselves gendered, organized discourses , processes and institutional arrangements that create
and perpetuate power relationships between men and women in society . In fact, Connell (2001) argues that
globalization is the manifestation of globalizing masculinities historically in terms of conquests,
settlements, imperial empires and postcolonialization . Recent US war involvement with Iraq offers a contemporary
example to examine how
global and local masculinities , politics, economic interests and military might play
out and erupt into armed conflicts . Gender is thus a critical dimension that must be factored into
discussion of globalization and examined for how it creates differential opportunities, challenges, risks
and dilemmas for women and men and how, in turn, it modifies the process of social change
Increased globalization between the US and Latin America produces poverty, sex
trafficking, economic marginalization and labor exploitation based on gender
oppression. Women's oppression is what subsidizes and makes economic
liberalization possible.
Chow ’03 (Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and
Social Change in the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
costs of globalization are caused by its inherent contradictions that create dilemmas,
risks and rights violations, breeding inequality, poverty and discontent, especially in the developing world.
The unequal payoffs and
Whether measured in purely monetary terms or social ones, globalization is not a zero-sum game, for it brings mixed blessings and unequal outcomes within and between nations and their
globalization
citizens. At the macro level,
fosters technological advancement, convenience of communication and transportation, and economic development that reduces costs,
encourages trade expansion, promotes global production and increases the wealth of nations, though for some more than for others (Stiglitz, 2002; UNDP, 1999, 2002). However, these same
facilitated the threat of capital relocation, unequal partnerships in trade and finance,
fragmentations in labor production, economic marginalization, relentless cost-cutting by the TNCs,
downsizing of governments , curtailment of social and legal entitlements, retrenchment of social service programs,
factors have also
suppression of organized labor , diminished national autonomy, reinforcement of inequality between countries,
and promotion of dependency of the South on the North . At the micro level, globalization creates employment
opportunities and increases female labor force participation, wage benefits, economic independence, selfworth and more life options, although these advantages are still limited and unequal.
Yet, even these same benefits are besieged with contradictions, globalization also
produces adverse effects particularly for women – feminization
of labor in segregated and low-paying work , wage dependency , labor exploitation, economic
marginalization, poverty, sex tourism , and international human trafficking
of women and young girls – further worsening
the already low status of women and their life conditions and
exacerbating inequalities based on race, gender, class and
nationality in the developing world. The alleged payoffs of globalization are , in fact, subsidized by
women’s paid labor in the formal sector, their cheap labor and meager income in the informal sector,
and unpaid household labor
in the home.
Silence about the gendered dimension of economic engagement is an intended tactic
and cloaking device that serves to conceal the work of masculine violence.
Chow ’03 (Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and
Social Change in the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
Why is globalization as a gendered phenomenon not well recognized? Among many reasons, several are relevant here. First,
mainstream discourse
focuses on globalization primarily as encompassing macro and disembodied forces , flows and
processes in terms of its economic and societal impact. The concept remains at a general, abstract
level that has greater meaning and relevance to academicians, journalists and some activists than to the general public, even though people’s
everyday lives are very much affected by global forces and happenings. Much of the theorizing about
globalization is either gender-neutral or gender-blind, ignoring how globalization shapes gender relationships and people’s lives materially,
politically, socially and culturally at all levels and treating its differential effects on women and men as similar.
Gender is basically taken for granted, as if it does not matter. In particular, women’s voices and lives are
virtually absent
from much theoretical discussion on globalization. When the gender issue is discussed, the focus tends to be on the effects of
globalization on women rather than on the effects of gender on globalization .
Some of globalization’s gendered effects are
invisible, particularly when its victims, such as poor Third World women, are structurally marginalized, rendering
these effects less apparent and less directly observable. How the gender dimension shapes the globalization process is ignored as
either unimportant or irrelevant. How gender relations are products of various global–local systems of patriarchy
and hegemonic masculinities seldom enters critical debate and discussion. The failure to incorporate
gender into the study of globalization in meaningful and systematic ways not only produces
incomplete views of women’s rights
as fundamental human rights and inaccurate understanding of the sources of gender inequality ,
but
undermine development policy and practice . In other words, the gender dimension is a critically
important missing piece in the theorizing of globalization. Therefore, gender matters for
understanding what globalization is and how it is influenced by gendered hierarchies and ideologies, which
in turn shape gendered institutions, relationships, identities and experiences of women and men.
also can actually
Framing the world through gendered dualisms orients all policies towards economic
growth, effeminizing all alternative discourses as irrational or impossible. This
precipitates war, poverty, oppression, and environmental degradation-- making
extinction inevitable.
Nhanenge 7
[Jytte Masters @ U South Africa, paper submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of master
of arts in the subject Development Studies, “ECOFEMINSM: TOWARDS INTEGRATING THE CONCERNS OF WOMEN,
POOR PEOPLE AND NATURE INTO DEVELOPMENT]
Generation of wealth was an important part of the Scientific Revolution and its modem society
. The scientific discipline of economics therefore
is founded on similar dualised premises as science, also
economics became a system of domination and exploitation of women, Others and nature. The
following discussion is intended to show that. The way in which economics, with its priority on masculine forces,
becomes dominant relates to web-like, inter-connected and complex processes, which are not
always clearly perceived. The below discussions try to show how the dualised priority of the individual over society,
reason over emotion, self-interest over community-interest, competition over cooperation, and
more pairs, generate domination that leads to the four crises of violence and war, poverty, human oppression
and environmental degradation. The aim in sum is to show how the current perspective of economics is
destroying society (women and Others) and nature. The following discussion is consequently a critique of economics. It is meant to highlight some
became a significant means for wealth creation. However, since it
elements that make economics a dominant ideology, rather than a system of knowledge. It adopts a feministic view and it is therefore seen from the side of women, poor people and
nature. The critique is extensive, but not exhaustive. It is extensive because economics is the single most important tool used by mainstream institutions for development in the South.
Thus if we want to understand why development does not alleviate poverty, then we first need to comprehend why its main instrument, economics, cannot alleviate poverty. A critical
analysis of economics and its influence in development is therefore important as an introduction to next chapter, which discusses ecofeminism and development. However, the
critique is not exhaustive because it focuses only on the dualised elements in economics. It is highly likely that there are many more critical issues in economics, which should be
analyzed in addition to the below mentioned. However, it would exceed this scope. Each of the following 10 sections discusses a specific issue in economics that relates to its dualised
nature. Thus, each can as such be read on its own. However, all sections are systemically interconnected. Therefore each re-enforces the others and integrated, they are meant to
t
show the web of masculine forces that make economics dominant towards women, Others and nature. The first three sections intend to show tha economics sees itself as a neutral,
economics
cannot value social and environmental needs. Hence, a few individuals become very rich from
capitalising on free social and natural resources, while the health of the public and the
environment is degraded. It also is shown that the exaggerated focus on monetary wealth does not increase human happiness. It rather leads to a deteriorating
quality of life . Thus, the false belief in eternal economic growth may eventually destroy life on planet
objective, quantitative and universal science, which does not need to be integrated in social and natural reality. The outcome of this is, however, that
Earth . The next section shows that economics is based on dualism, with a focus solely on yang forces. This has serious consequences for all yin issues: For example, the
priority on individualism over community may in its extreme form lead to self-destruction.
the priority on rationality while excluding human emotions
may
Similarly,
end in greed, domination,
poverty, violence and war . The next section is important as a means to understanding “rational” economics. Its aim is to clarify the psychological meaning of
money. In reality, reason and emotion are interrelated parts of the human mind; they cannot be separated. Thus, economic “rationality” and its
focus on eternal wealth generation are based on personal emotions like fears and inadequacies,
rather than reason. The false belief in dualism means that human beings are lying to themselves,
which results in disturbed minds, stupid actions with disastrous consequences. The focus on masculine forces is consequently
psychologically unhealthy; it leads to domination of society and nature , and will eventually destroy the world.
Beginning from the subject location of marginalized bodies is the only way to make
gendered colonial violence visible. This epistemological privilege doesn't stem from a
claim about identity, but rather the position of being most impacted by these policies.
Only by centralizing these experiences can we find a roadmap for global restructuring.
Mohanty 03
(Chandra Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural
Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at Syracuse University, ““Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity
through Anticapitalist Struggles”, Signs, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter 2003), pp. 499-535, JSTOR)//SK
This is the very opposite of “special interest” thinking. If
we pay attention to and think from the space of some of the most
disenfranchised communities of women in the world, we are most likely to envision a just and
democratic society capable of treating all its citizens fairly. Conversely, if we begin our analysis from, and limit it to, the space of
privileged communities, our visions of justice are more likely to be exclusionary because privilege nurtures blindness to those without the same privileges. Beginning
from the lives and interests of marginalized communities of women, I am able to access and make the workings of power visible—to read up the ladder of privilege.
It is more necessary to look upward—colonized peoples must know themselves and the colonizer. This
particular marginalized location
makes the politics of knowledge and the power investments that go along with it visible so that we
can then engage in work to transform the use and abuse of power. The analysis draws on the notion of epistemic
privilege as it is developed by feminist standpoint theorists (with their roots in the historical materialism of Marx and Lukacs) as well as postpositivist realists, who
provide an analysis of experience, identity, and the epistemic effects of social location.15 My view is thus a materialist and “realist” one and is antithetical to that of
postmodernist relativism. I believe there are causal links between marginalized social locations and experiences and the ability of human agents to explain and
analyze features of capitalist society. Methodologically, this analytic perspective is grounded in historical materialism. My
claim is not that all
marginalized locations yield crucial knowledge about power and inequity, but that within a tightly
integrated capitalist system, the particular standpoint of poor indigenous and Third World/South
women provides the most inclusive viewing of systemic power. In numerous cases of environmental racism, for instance,
where the neighborhoods of poor communities of color are targeted as new sites for prisons and toxic dumps, it is no coincidence that poor black, Native American,
and Latina women provide the leadership in the fight against corporate pollution. Three out of five Afro‐Americans and Latinos live near toxic waste sites, and three
of the five largest hazardous waste landfills are in communities with a population that is 80 percent people of color (Pardo 2001, 504–11). Thus, it is precisely their
critical reflections on their everyday lives as poor women of color that allows the kind of analysis of the power structure that has led to the many victories in
environmental racism struggles.16 Herein lies a lesson for feminist analysis. Feminist scientist Vandana Shiva, one of the most visible leaders of the antiglobalization
movement, provides a similar and illuminating critique of the patents and intellectual property rights agreements sanctioned by the World Trade Organization since
1995.17 Along with others in the environmental and indigenous rights movements, she argues that the WTO sanctions biopiracy and engages in intellectual piracy
by privileging the claims of corporate commercial interests, based on Western systems of knowledge in agriculture and medicine, to products and innovations
derived from indigenous knowledge traditions. Thus, through the definition of Western scientific epistemologies as the only legitimate scientific system, the WTO is
able to underwrite corporate patents to indigenous knowledge (as to the Neem tree in India) as their own intellectual property, protected through intellectual
property rights agreements. As a result, the patenting of drugs derived from indigenous medicinal systems has now reached massive proportions. I quote Shiva:
Through patenting, indigenous knowledge is being pirated in the name of protecting knowledge and preventing piracy. The knowledge of our ancestors, of our
peasants about seeds is being claimed as an invention of U.S. corporations and U.S. scientists and patented by them. The only reason something like that can work is
because underlying it all is a racist framework that says the knowledge of the Third World and the knowledge of people of color is not knowledge. When that
knowledge is taken by white men who have capital, suddenly creativity begins. … Patents are a replay of colonialism, which is now called globalization and free
trade. (Shiva, Gordon, and Wing 2000, 32) The contrast between Western scientific systems and indigenous epistemologies and systems of medicine is not the only
issue here. It is the colonialist and corporate power to define Western science, and the reliance on capitalist values of private property and profit, as the only
normative system that results in the exercise of immense power. Thus indigenous knowledges, which are often communally generated and shared among tribal and
peasant women for domestic, local, and public use, are subject to the ideologies of a corporate Western scientific paradigm where intellectual property rights can
only be understood in possessive or privatized form. All innovations that happen to be collective, to have occurred over time in forests and farms, are appropriated
or excluded. The idea of an intellectual commons where knowledge is collectively gathered and passed on for the benefit of all, not owned privately, is the very
opposite of the notion of private property and ownership that is the basis for the WTO property rights agreements. Thus this idea of an intellectual commons
among tribal and peasant women actually excludes them from ownership and facilitates corporate biopiracy. Shiva’s analysis of intellectual property rights,
biopiracy, and globalization is made possible by its very location in the experiences and epistemologies of peasant and tribal women in India. Beginning from the
practices and knowledges of indigenous women, she “reads up” the power structure, all the way to the policies and practices sanctioned by the WTO. This is a very
clear example then of a transnational, anticapitalist feminist politics. However, Shiva says less about gender than she could. She is after all talking in particular about
women’s work and knowledges anchored in the epistemological experiences of one of the most marginalized communities of women in the world—poor, tribal, and
peasant women in India. This is a community of women made invisible and written out of national and international economic calculations.
An analysis
that pays attention to the everyday experiences of tribal women and the micropolitics of their
ultimately anticapitalist struggles illuminates the macropolitics of global restructuring . It suggests the
thorough embeddedness of the local and particular with the global and universal, and it suggests the need to conceptualize questions of justice and equity in
transborder terms. In other words, this mode of reading envisions a feminism without borders, in that it foregrounds the need for an analysis and vision of solidarity
across the enforced privatized intellectual property borders of the WTO. These particular examples offer the most inclusive paradigm for understanding the
motivations and effects of globalization as it is crafted by the WTO. Of course, if we were to attempt the same analysis from the epistemological space of Western,
corporate interests, it would be impossible to generate an analysis that values indigenous knowledge anchored in communal relationships rather than profit‐based
hierarchies. Thus, poor tribal and peasant women, their knowledges and interests, would be invisible in this analytic frame because the very idea of an intellectual
commons falls outside the purview of privatized property and profit that is a basis for corporate interests. The obvious issue for a transnational feminism pertains to
the visions of profit and justice embodied in these opposing analytic perspectives. The focus on profit versus justice illustrates my earlier point about social location
and analytically inclusive methodologies. It is the social location of the tribal women as explicated by Shiva that allows this broad and inclusive focus on justice.
Similarly, it is the social location and narrow self‐interest of corporations that privatizes intellectual property rights in the name of profit for elites. Shiva essentially
offers a critique of the global privatization of indigenous knowledges. This is a story about the rise of transnational institutions such as the WTO, the World Bank,
and the International Monetary Fund, of banking and financial institutions and cross‐national governing bodies like the MAI (Multinational Agreement on
Investments). The effects of these governing bodies on poor people around the world have been devastating. In fundamental ways, it is girls and women around the
world, especially in the Third World/South, that bear the brunt of globalization.
Poor women and girls are the hardest hit by the
degradation of environmental conditions, wars, famines, privatization of services and deregulation of
governments, the dismantling of welfare states, the restructuring of paid and unpaid work,
increasing surveillance and incarceration in prisons, and so on . And this is why a feminism without and beyond borders is
necessary to address the injustices of global capitalism. Women and girls are still 70 percent of the world’s poor and the majority of the world’s refugees. Girls and
women comprise almost 80 percent of displaced persons of the Third World/South in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Women do two‐thirds of the world's work and
earn less than one‐tenth of its income. Women own less than one‐hundredth of the world’s property, while they are the hardest hit by the effects of war, domestic
violence, and religious persecution. Feminist political theorist Zillah Eisenstein states that global capital in racialized and sexualized guise destroys the public spaces
of democracy and quietly sucks power out of the once social/public spaces of nation‐states. Corporate capitalism has redefined citizens as consumers—and global
markets replace the commitments to economic, sexual, and racial equality (Eisenstein 1998, esp. chap. 5). It is especially on the bodies and lives of women and girls
from the Third World/South—the Two‐Thirds World—that global capitalism writes its script, and it is by paying attention to and theorizing the experiences of these
communities of women and girls that we demystify capitalism as a system of debilitating sexism and racism and envision anticapitalist resistance.
Thus any
analysis of the effects of globalization needs to centralize the experiences and struggles of these
particular communities of women and girls . Drawing on Arif Dirlik’s notion of “place consciousness as the radical other of global
capitalism” (1999), Grace Lee Boggs makes an important argument for place‐based civic activism that illustrates how centralizing the struggles of marginalized
communities connects to larger antiglobalization struggles. Boggs suggests that “place consciousness … encourages us to come together around common, local
experiences and organize around our hopes for the future of our communities and cities. While global capitalism doesn’t give a damn about the people or the
natural environment of any particular place because it can always move on to other people and other places, place‐based civic activism is concerned about the
health and safety of people and places” (Boggs 2000, 19). Since women are central to the life of neighborhood and communities they assume leadership positions in
these struggles. This is evident in the example of women of color in struggles against environmental racism in the United States, as well as in Shiva’s example of
tribal women in the struggle against deforestation and for an intellectual commons. It is then the lives, experiences, and struggles of girls and women of the
Two‐Thirds World that demystify capitalism in its racial and sexual dimensions—and that provide productive and necessary avenues of theorizing and enacting
anticapitalist resistance.
Corrective approaches fail: Any detritus of western knowledge must be rejected to
delink the human from the creation of the non-human colonial other. As western
scholars of privilege, this requires arguing for radical interventions.
Mignolo 13 (Walter D. Who Speaks for the “Human” in Human Rights?. Human Rights from a Third
World Perspective: Critique, History and International Law. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Professor of
semiotics at Duke University, PhD. rb)
imperial knowledge (that is, based on Greek and ¶ Latin categories and translated into modern European
(e.g., owns) the concept of
human. If you want to dispute it from the ¶ genealogy of thoughts of Arabic, Urdu, Russian, Aymara, Bambara, or any ¶
other language and experiences embedded in non-Western history or ¶ indirectly related to Western categories of thoughts
¶ In
this regard, Western
vernacular ¶ languages—Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and English) ¶ controls
(and indirection here ¶ refers to imperial expansion and colonization), you would have two options: ¶ to bend and accept what is human
according to Western knowledge (grounded in Greek and Latin; that is, not in Greek and Arabic) is; or you
would prefer to de-link, to
engage in epistemic disobedience denouncing the ¶provincialism of the universal and engage in a
collective, differential, ¶ planetary assumption that being human is not being Vitruvian, Christian or ¶
Kantian but is instead being able first to dispute the imperial definition ¶ humanity. Secondly it is to
engage in building a society in which human is ¶ not defined and rhetorically affirming that we are all
equal, but human will ¶ be what comes out of building societies on principles that prevent ¶ classification and ranking to justify domination
and exploitation among ¶ people who are supposed to be equal by birth. If you decide this option, ¶ please do not attempt to
provide a
new truth,
a new definition of what does it mean to be human that will correct the mistakes
of previous definitions of human . Since there is no such entity, the second option would be decolonial, that
is, to move away (de-link) from the imperial consequences of a ¶ standard of human, humanity and the
related ideal of civilization. If you ¶ choose this option it doesn’t mean that you accept that you are not
human ¶ and you are also a barbarian . On the contrary, placing yourself in the space that imperial
discourse gave to lesser humans, uncivilized and barbarians, you would argue for radical
interventions from the perspective of those who have been made barbarians, abnormal and
uncivilized . That is, you will ¶ argue for justice and equality from the perspective and interests of those who ¶ lost their equality and have
been subjected to injustices.
AT Discourse Aff
Globalization is the process of globalizing masculine politics through armed conflict
and economic intervention.
Chow ’03 (Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and
Social Change in the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
Michael Kimmel (2002) points out that
the underlying logics of globalization in capitalist production, market
rationality, trade liberalization , privatization, transnational corporations (TNCs) and modernity are
themselves gendered, organized discourses , processes and institutional arrangements that create
and perpetuate power relationships between men and women in society . In fact, Connell (2001) argues that
globalization is the manifestation of globalizing masculinities historically in terms of conquests,
settlements, imperial empires and postcolonialization . Recent US war involvement with Iraq offers a contemporary
example to examine how
global and local masculinities , politics, economic interests and military might play
out and erupt into armed conflicts . Gender is thus a critical dimension that must be factored into
discussion of globalization and examined for how it creates differential opportunities, challenges, risks
and dilemmas for women and men and how, in turn, it modifies the process of social change
Increased globalization between the US and Latin America produces poverty, sex
trafficking, economic marginalization and labor exploitation based on gender
oppression. Women's oppression is what subsidizes and makes economic
liberalization possible.
Chow ’03 (Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and
Social Change in the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
costs of globalization are caused by its inherent contradictions that create dilemmas,
risks and rights violations, breeding inequality, poverty and discontent, especially in the developing world.
The unequal payoffs and
Whether measured in purely monetary terms or social ones, globalization is not a zero-sum game, for it brings mixed blessings and unequal outcomes within and between nations and their
globalization
citizens. At the macro level,
fosters technological advancement, convenience of communication and transportation, and economic development that reduces costs,
encourages trade expansion, promotes global production and increases the wealth of nations, though for some more than for others (Stiglitz, 2002; UNDP, 1999, 2002). However, these same
facilitated the threat of capital relocation, unequal partnerships in trade and finance,
fragmentations in labor production, economic marginalization, relentless cost-cutting by the TNCs,
downsizing of governments , curtailment of social and legal entitlements, retrenchment of social service programs,
factors have also
suppression of organized labor , diminished national autonomy, reinforcement of inequality between countries,
and promotion of dependency of the South on the North . At the micro level, globalization creates employment
opportunities and increases female labor force participation, wage benefits, economic independence, selfworth and more life options, although these advantages are still limited and unequal.
Yet, even these same benefits are besieged with contradictions, globalization also
produces adverse effects particularly for women – feminization
of labor in segregated and low-paying work , wage dependency , labor exploitation, economic
marginalization, poverty, sex tourism , and international human trafficking
of women and young girls – further worsening
the already low status of women and their life conditions and
exacerbating inequalities based on race, gender, class and
nationality in the developing world. The alleged payoffs of globalization are , in fact, subsidized by
women’s paid labor in the formal sector, their cheap labor and meager income in the informal sector,
and unpaid household labor
in the home.
Framing the world through gendered dualisms orients all policies towards economic
growth, effeminizing all alternative discourses as irrational or impossible. This
precipitates war, poverty, oppression, and environmental degradation-- making
extinction inevitable.
Nhanenge 7
[Jytte Masters @ U South Africa, paper submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of master
of arts in the subject Development Studies, “ECOFEMINSM: TOWARDS INTEGRATING THE CONCERNS OF WOMEN,
POOR PEOPLE AND NATURE INTO DEVELOPMENT]
. The scientific discipline of economics therefore
became a significant means for wealth creation. However, since it is founded on similar dualised premises as science, also
Generation of wealth was an important part of the Scientific Revolution and its modem society
economics became a system of domination and exploitation of women, Others and nature. The
following discussion is intended to show that. The way in which economics, with its priority on masculine forces,
becomes dominant relates to web-like, inter-connected and complex processes, which are not
always clearly perceived. The below discussions try to show how the dualised priority of the individual over society,
reason over emotion, self-interest over community-interest, competition over cooperation, and
more pairs, generate domination that leads to the four crises of violence and war, poverty, human oppression
and environmental degradation. The aim in sum is to show how the current perspective of economics is
destroying society (women and Others) and nature. The following discussion is consequently a critique of economics. It is meant to highlight some
elements that make economics a dominant ideology, rather than a system of knowledge. It adopts a feministic view and it is therefore seen from the side of women, poor people and
nature. The critique is extensive, but not exhaustive. It is extensive because economics is the single most important tool used by mainstream institutions for development in the South.
Thus if we want to understand why development does not alleviate poverty, then we first need to comprehend why its main instrument, economics, cannot alleviate poverty. A critical
analysis of economics and its influence in development is therefore important as an introduction to next chapter, which discusses ecofeminism and development. However, the
critique is not exhaustive because it focuses only on the dualised elements in economics. It is highly likely that there are many more critical issues in economics, which should be
analyzed in addition to the below mentioned. However, it would exceed this scope. Each of the following 10 sections discusses a specific issue in economics that relates to its dualised
nature. Thus, each can as such be read on its own. However, all sections are systemically interconnected. Therefore each re-enforces the others and integrated, they are meant to
t
show the web of masculine forces that make economics dominant towards women, Others and nature. The first three sections intend to show tha economics sees itself as a neutral,
economics
cannot value social and environmental needs. Hence, a few individuals become very rich from
capitalising on free social and natural resources, while the health of the public and the
environment is degraded. It also is shown that the exaggerated focus on monetary wealth does not increase human happiness. It rather leads to a deteriorating
quality of life . Thus, the false belief in eternal economic growth may eventually destroy life on planet
objective, quantitative and universal science, which does not need to be integrated in social and natural reality. The outcome of this is, however, that
Earth . The next section shows that economics is based on dualism, with a focus solely on yang forces. This has serious consequences for all yin issues: For example, the
priority on individualism over community may in its extreme form lead to self-destruction.
the priority on rationality while excluding human emotions
may
Similarly,
end in greed, domination,
poverty, violence and war . The next section is important as a means to understanding “rational” economics. Its aim is to clarify the psychological meaning of
money. In reality, reason and emotion are interrelated parts of the human mind; they cannot be separated. Thus, economic “rationality” and its
focus on eternal wealth generation are based on personal emotions like fears and inadequacies,
rather than reason. The false belief in dualism means that human beings are lying to themselves,
which results in disturbed minds, stupid actions with disastrous consequences. The focus on masculine forces is consequently
psychologically unhealthy; it leads to domination of society and nature, and will eventually destroy the world.
Silence about the gendered dimension of economic engagement is an intended tactic
and cloaking device that serves to conceal the work of masculine violence.
Chow ’03 (Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and
Social Change in the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
Why is globalization as a gendered phenomenon not well recognized? Among many reasons, several are relevant here. First, mainstream
discourse focuses on globalization primarily as encompassing macro and disembodied forces, flows
and processes in terms of its economic and societal impact. The concept remains at a general, abstract
level that has greater meaning and relevance to academicians, journalists and some activists than to the general public, even though
people’s everyday lives are very much affected by global forces and happenings. Much of the theorizing about
globalization is either gender-neutral or gender-blind, ignoring how globalization shapes gender
relationships and people’s lives materially, politically, socially and culturally at all levels and treating its
differential effects on women and men as similar. Gender is basically taken for granted, as if it does
not matter. In particular, women’s voices and lives are virtually absent from much theoretical discussion
on globalization. When the gender issue is discussed, the focus tends to be on the effects of
globalization on women rather than on the effects of gender on globalization. Some of globalization’s
gendered effects are invisible, particularly when its victims, such as poor Third World women, are structurally
marginalized, rendering these effects less apparent and less directly observable. How the gender dimension
shapes the globalization process is ignored as either unimportant or irrelevant. How gender relations are products of various
global–local systems of patriarchy and hegemonic masculinities seldom enters critical debate and
discussion. The failure to incorporate gender into the study of globalization in meaningful and
systematic ways not only produces incomplete views of women’s rights as fundamental human rights
and inaccurate understanding of the sources of gender inequality, but also can actually undermine
development policy and practice. In other words, the gender dimension is a critically important missing
piece in the theorizing of globalization. Therefore, gender matters for understanding what
globalization is and how it is influenced by gendered hierarchies and ideologies, which in turn shape
gendered institutions, relationships, identities and experiences of women and men.
Focus on the contingency of discourse fails-- it is materiality that structures the
discursive. Their optimism is a misplaced form of substitutionary politics that only
pays lip service to the oppressed while marginalizing structures remain intact.
Taft-Kaufman 95
Jill Taft-Kaufman, “Other ways: Postmodernism and performance praxis,” The Southern Communication
Journal, Volume 60, Issue 3, Spring, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via ProQuest Research
Library Professor in the Department of Speech Communication And Dramatic Arts at Central Michigan
University, 1995 MI
If the lack of consistency between postmodernism's self-styled allegiance to the oppositional and its collaboration with the existing state of
academic practice were its only shortcoming, it should be enough to prevent us from unquestioningly embracing it as a theory. More
disquieting still, however, is its postulation of the way the world around us works. Theory that presumes to talk about culture must stand the
test of reality. Or, as Andrew King states, "culture is where we live and are sustained. Any doctrine that strikes at its root ought to be carefully
scrutinized" (personal communication, February 11, 1994). If one subjects the premise of postmodernism to scrutiny, the consequences are
both untenable and disturbing. In
its elevation of language to the primary analysis of social life and its
relegation of the de-centered subject to a set of language positions, postmodernism ignores the way
real people make their way in the world. While the notion of decentering does much to remedy the idea of an essential,
unchanging self, it also presents problems. According to Clarke (1991): Having established the material quality of ideology, everything else we
had hitherto thought of as material has disappeared. There is nothing outside of ideology (or discourse). Where Althusser was concerned with
ideology as the imaginary relations of subjects to the real relations of their existence, the connective quality of this view of ideology has been
dissolved because it lays claim to an outside, a real, an extra-discursive for which there exists no epistemological warrant without lapsing back
into the bad old ways of empiricism or metaphysics. (pp. 25-26) Clarke explains how the same disconnection between the discursive and the
extra-discursive has been performed in semiological analysis: Where it used to contain a relation between the signifier (the representation)
and the signified (the referent), antiempiricism has taken the formal arbitrariness of the connection between the signifier and signified and
replaced it with the abolition of the signified (there can be no real objects out there, because there is no out there for real objects to be). (p. 26)
To the postmodernist, then, real objects have vanished. So, too, have real people. Smith (1988) suggests that postmodernism has canonized
doubt about the availability of the referent to the point that "the real often disappears from consideration" (p. 159).
become abstractions.
Real individuals
Subject positions rather than subjects are the focus. The emphasis on subject positions or construction of the
discursive self engenders an accompanying critical sense of irony which recognizes that "all conceptualizations are limited" (Fischer, 1986, p.
224).
This postmodern position evokes
what Connor (1989) calls " an
absolute weightlessness in which
anything is imaginatively possible because nothing really matters " (p. 227). Clarke (1991) dubs it a "playfulness that
produces emotional and/or political disinvestment: a refusal to be engaged" (p. 103).
The luxury of being able to muse about
what constitutes the self is a posture in keeping with a critical venue that divorces language from
material objects and bodily subjects. The postmodern passwords of "polyvocality," "Otherness," and
"difference," unsupported by substantial analysis of the concrete contexts of subjects, creates a solipsistic quagmire. The
political sympathies of the new cultural critics, with their ostensible concern for the lack of power experienced by
marginalized people, aligns them with the political left. Yet, despite their adversarial posture and talk of
opposition, their discourses on intertextuality and inter-referentiality isolate them from and ignore the conditions that
have produced leftist politics—conflict, racism, poverty, and injustice. In short, as Clarke (1991) asserts,
postmodern emphasis on new subjects conceals the old subjects, those who have limited access to good
jobs, food, housing, health care, and transportation, as well as to the media that depict them. Merod (1987) decries this
situation as one which leaves no vision, will, or commitment to activism. He notes that academic lip service to the oppositional is underscored
by the absence of focused collective or politically active intellectual communities. Provoked by the academic manifestations of this problem Di
Leonardo (1990) echoes Merod and laments: Has there ever been a historical era characterized by as little radical analysis or activism and as
much radical-chic writing as ours?
Maundering on about Otherness : phallocentrism or Eurocentric tropes has become a
lazy academic substitute for actual engagement with
the detailed
histories
and contemporary realities of Western
racial minorities, white women, or any Third World population. (p. 530) Clarke's assessment of the postmodern elevation of language to the
"sine qua non" of critical discussion is an even stronger indictment against the trend. Clarke examines Lyotard's (1984) The Postmodern
Condition in which Lyotard maintains that virtually all social relations are linguistic, and, therefore, it is through the coercion that threatens
speech that we enter the "realm of terror" and society falls apart. To this assertion, Clarke replies: I can think of few more striking indicators of
the political and intellectual impoverishment of a view of society that can only recognize the discursive. If the worst terror we can envisage is
the threat not to be allowed to speak, we are appallingly ignorant of terror in its elaborate contemporary forms. It may be the intellectual's
conception of terror (what else do we do but speak?), but its projection onto the rest of the world would be calamitous....(pp. 2-27) The realm
of the discursive is derived from the requisites for human life, which are in the physical world, rather than in a world of ideas or symbols.(4)
Nutrition, shelter, and protection are basic human needs that require collective activity for their
fulfillment. Postmodern emphasis on the discursive without an accompanying analysis of how the
discursive emerges from material circumstances hides the complex task of envisioning and working
towards concrete social goals (Merod, 1987). Although the material conditions that create the situation of marginality escape the
purview of the postmodernist, the situation and its consequences are not overlooked by scholars from marginalized groups. Robinson (1990)
for example, argues that " the
justice that working people deserve is economic, not just textual" (p . 571). Lopez
(1992) states that "the starting point for organizing the program content of education or political action must be the present existential,
concrete situation" (p. 299). West (1988) asserts that borrowing French post-structuralist discourses about "Otherness" blinds us to realities of
American difference going on in front of us (p. 170). Unlike postmodern "textual radicals" who Rabinow (1986) acknowledges are "fuzzy about
power and the realities of socioeconomic constraints" (p. 255), most writers from marginalized groups are clear about how discourse
interweaves with the concrete circumstances that create lived experience. People
whose lives form the material for
postmodern counter-hegemonic discourse do not share the optimism over the new recognition of
their discursive subjectivities, because such an acknowledgment does not address sufficiently their
collective historical and current struggles against racism, sexism, homophobia, and economic
injustice. They do not appreciate being told they are living in a world in which there are no more real subjects. Ideas have consequences.
Emphasizing the discursive self when a person is hungry and homeless represents both a cultural and
humane failure. The need to look beyond texts to the perception and attainment of concrete social goals keeps writers from
marginalized groups ever-mindful of the specifics of how power works through political agendas, institutions, agencies, and the budgets that
fuel them.
Beginning from the subject location of marginalized bodies is the only way to make
gendered colonial violence visible. This epistemological privilege doesn't stem from a
claim about identity, but rather the position of being most impacted by these policies.
Only by centralizing these experiences can we find a roadmap for global restructuring.
Mohanty 03
(Chandra Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural
Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at Syracuse University, ““Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity
through Anticapitalist Struggles”, Signs, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter 2003), pp. 499-535, JSTOR)//SK
This is the very opposite of “special interest” thinking. If
we pay attention to and think from the space of some of the most
disenfranchised communities of women in the world, we are most likely to envision a just and
democratic society capable of treating all its citizens fairly. Conversely, if we begin our analysis from, and limit it to, the space of
privileged communities, our visions of justice are more likely to be exclusionary because privilege nurtures blindness to those without the same privileges. Beginning
from the lives and interests of marginalized communities of women, I am able to access and make the workings of power visible—to read up the ladder of privilege.
It is more necessary to look upward—colonized peoples must know themselves and the colonizer. This
particular marginalized location
makes the politics of knowledge and the power investments that go along with it visible so that we
can then engage in work to transform the use and abuse of power. The analysis draws on the notion of epistemic
privilege as it is developed by feminist standpoint theorists (with their roots in the historical materialism of Marx and Lukacs) as well as postpositivist realists, who
provide an analysis of experience, identity, and the epistemic effects of social location.15 My view is thus a materialist and “realist” one and is antithetical to that of
postmodernist relativism. I believe there are causal links between marginalized social locations and experiences and the ability of human agents to explain and
analyze features of capitalist society. Methodologically, this analytic perspective is grounded in historical materialism. My
claim is not that all
marginalized locations yield crucial knowledge about power and inequity, but that within a tightly
integrated capitalist system, the particular standpoint of poor indigenous and Third World/South
women provides the most inclusive viewing of systemic power. In numerous cases of environmental racism, for instance,
where the neighborhoods of poor communities of color are targeted as new sites for prisons and toxic dumps, it is no coincidence that poor black, Native American,
and Latina women provide the leadership in the fight against corporate pollution. Three out of five Afro‐Americans and Latinos live near toxic waste sites, and three
of the five largest hazardous waste landfills are in communities with a population that is 80 percent people of color (Pardo 2001, 504–11). Thus, it is precisely their
critical reflections on their everyday lives as poor women of color that allows the kind of analysis of the power structure that has led to the many victories in
environmental racism struggles.16 Herein lies a lesson for feminist analysis. Feminist scientist Vandana Shiva, one of the most visible leaders of the antiglobalization
movement, provides a similar and illuminating critique of the patents and intellectual property rights agreements sanctioned by the World Trade Organization since
1995.17 Along with others in the environmental and indigenous rights movements, she argues that the WTO sanctions biopiracy and engages in intellectual piracy
by privileging the claims of corporate commercial interests, based on Western systems of knowledge in agriculture and medicine, to products and innovations
derived from indigenous knowledge traditions. Thus, through the definition of Western scientific epistemologies as the only legitimate scientific system, the WTO is
able to underwrite corporate patents to indigenous knowledge (as to the Neem tree in India) as their own intellectual property, protected through intellectual
property rights agreements. As a result, the patenting of drugs derived from indigenous medicinal systems has now reached massive proportions. I quote Shiva:
Through patenting, indigenous knowledge is being pirated in the name of protecting knowledge and preventing piracy. The knowledge of our ancestors, of our
peasants about seeds is being claimed as an invention of U.S. corporations and U.S. scientists and patented by them. The only reason something like that can work is
because underlying it all is a racist framework that says the knowledge of the Third World and the knowledge of people of color is not knowledge. When that
knowledge is taken by white men who have capital, suddenly creativity begins. … Patents are a replay of colonialism, which is now called globalization and free
trade. (Shiva, Gordon, and Wing 2000, 32) The contrast between Western scientific systems and indigenous epistemologies and systems of medicine is not the only
issue here. It is the colonialist and corporate power to define Western science, and the reliance on capitalist values of private property and profit, as the only
normative system that results in the exercise of immense power. Thus indigenous knowledges, which are often communally generated and shared among tribal and
peasant women for domestic, local, and public use, are subject to the ideologies of a corporate Western scientific paradigm where intellectual property rights can
only be understood in possessive or privatized form. All innovations that happen to be collective, to have occurred over time in forests and farms, are appropriated
or excluded. The idea of an intellectual commons where knowledge is collectively gathered and passed on for the benefit of all, not owned privately, is the very
opposite of the notion of private property and ownership that is the basis for the WTO property rights agreements. Thus this idea of an intellectual commons
among tribal and peasant women actually excludes them from ownership and facilitates corporate biopiracy. Shiva’s analysis of intellectual property rights,
biopiracy, and globalization is made possible by its very location in the experiences and epistemologies of peasant and tribal women in India. Beginning from the
practices and knowledges of indigenous women, she “reads up” the power structure, all the way to the policies and practices sanctioned by the WTO. This is a very
clear example then of a transnational, anticapitalist feminist politics. However, Shiva says less about gender than she could. She is after all talking in particular about
women’s work and knowledges anchored in the epistemological experiences of one of the most marginalized communities of women in the world—poor, tribal, and
peasant women in India. This is a community of women made invisible and written out of national and international economic calculations.
An analysis
that pays attention to the everyday experiences of tribal women and the micropolitics of their
ultimately anticapitalist struggles illuminates the macropolitics of global restructuring . It suggests the
thorough embeddedness of the local and particular with the global and universal, and it suggests the need to conceptualize questions of justice and equity in
transborder terms. In other words, this mode of reading envisions a feminism without borders, in that it foregrounds the need for an analysis and vision of solidarity
across the enforced privatized intellectual property borders of the WTO. These particular examples offer the most inclusive paradigm for understanding the
motivations and effects of globalization as it is crafted by the WTO. Of course, if we were to attempt the same analysis from the epistemological space of Western,
corporate interests, it would be impossible to generate an analysis that values indigenous knowledge anchored in communal relationships rather than profit‐based
hierarchies. Thus, poor tribal and peasant women, their knowledges and interests, would be invisible in this analytic frame because the very idea of an intellectual
commons falls outside the purview of privatized property and profit that is a basis for corporate interests. The obvious issue for a transnational feminism pertains to
the visions of profit and justice embodied in these opposing analytic perspectives. The focus on profit versus justice illustrates my earlier point about social location
and analytically inclusive methodologies. It is the social location of the tribal women as explicated by Shiva that allows this broad and inclusive focus on justice.
Similarly, it is the social location and narrow self‐interest of corporations that privatizes intellectual property rights in the name of profit for elites. Shiva essentially
offers a critique of the global privatization of indigenous knowledges. This is a story about the rise of transnational institutions such as the WTO, the World Bank,
and the International Monetary Fund, of banking and financial institutions and cross‐national governing bodies like the MAI (Multinational Agreement on
Investments). The effects of these governing bodies on poor people around the world have been devastating. In fundamental ways, it is girls and women around the
world, especially in the Third World/South, that bear the brunt of globalization.
Poor women and girls are the hardest hit by the
degradation of environmental conditions, wars, famines, privatization of services and deregulation of
governments, the dismantling of welfare states, the restructuring of paid and unpaid work,
increasing surveillance and incarceration in prisons, and so on . And this is why a feminism without and beyond borders is
necessary to address the injustices of global capitalism. Women and girls are still 70 percent of the world’s poor and the majority of the world’s refugees. Girls and
women comprise almost 80 percent of displaced persons of the Third World/South in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Women do two‐thirds of the world's work and
earn less than one‐tenth of its income. Women own less than one‐hundredth of the world’s property, while they are the hardest hit by the effects of war, domestic
violence, and religious persecution. Feminist political theorist Zillah Eisenstein states that global capital in racialized and sexualized guise destroys the public spaces
of democracy and quietly sucks power out of the once social/public spaces of nation‐states. Corporate capitalism has redefined citizens as consumers—and global
markets replace the commitments to economic, sexual, and racial equality (Eisenstein 1998, esp. chap. 5). It is especially on the bodies and lives of women and girls
from the Third World/South—the Two‐Thirds World—that global capitalism writes its script, and it is by paying attention to and theorizing the experiences of these
communities of women and girls that we demystify capitalism as a system of debilitating sexism and racism and envision anticapitalist resistance.
Thus any
analysis of the effects of globalization needs to centralize the experiences and struggles of these
particular communities of women and girls . Drawing on Arif Dirlik’s notion of “place consciousness as the radical other of global
capitalism” (1999), Grace Lee Boggs makes an important argument for place‐based civic activism that illustrates how centralizing the struggles of marginalized
communities connects to larger antiglobalization struggles. Boggs suggests that “place consciousness … encourages us to come together around common, local
experiences and organize around our hopes for the future of our communities and cities. While global capitalism doesn’t give a damn about the people or the
natural environment of any particular place because it can always move on to other people and other places, place‐based civic activism is concerned about the
health and safety of people and places” (Boggs 2000, 19). Since women are central to the life of neighborhood and communities they assume leadership positions in
these struggles. This is evident in the example of women of color in struggles against environmental racism in the United States, as well as in Shiva’s example of
tribal women in the struggle against deforestation and for an intellectual commons. It is then the lives, experiences, and struggles of girls and women of the
Two‐Thirds World that demystify capitalism in its racial and sexual dimensions—and that provide productive and necessary avenues of theorizing and enacting
anticapitalist resistance.
Corrective approaches fail: Any detrius of western knowledge must be rejected to
delink the human from the creation of the non-human colonial other. As western
scholars of privilege, this requires arguing for radical interventions.
Mignolo 13 (Walter D. Who Speaks for the “Human” in Human Rights?. Human Rights from a Third
World Perspective: Critique, History and International Law. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Professor of
semiotics at Duke University, PhD. rb)
imperial knowledge (that is, based on Greek and ¶ Latin categories and translated into modern European
(e.g., owns) the concept of
human. If you want to dispute it from the ¶ genealogy of thoughts of Arabic, Urdu, Russian, Aymara, Bambara, or any ¶
other language and experiences embedded in non-Western history or ¶ indirectly related to Western categories of thoughts
¶ In
this regard, Western
vernacular ¶ languages—Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and English) ¶ controls
(and indirection here ¶ refers to imperial expansion and colonization), you would have two options: ¶ to bend and accept what is human
according to Western knowledge (grounded in Greek and Latin; that is, not in Greek and Arabic) is; or you
would prefer to de-link, to
engage in epistemic disobedience denouncing the ¶provincialism of the universal and engage in a
collective, differential, ¶ planetary assumption that being human is not being Vitruvian, Christian or ¶
Kantian but is instead being able first to dispute the imperial definition ¶ humanity. Secondly it is to
engage in building a society in which human is ¶ not defined and rhetorically affirming that we are all
equal, but human will ¶ be what comes out of building societies on principles that prevent ¶ classification and ranking to justify domination
and exploitation among ¶ people who are supposed to be equal by birth. If you decide this option, ¶ please do not attempt to
provide a
new truth,
a new definition of what does it mean to be human that will correct the mistakes
of previous definitions of human . Since there is no such entity, the second option would be decolonial, that
is, to move away (de-link) from the imperial consequences of a ¶ standard of human, humanity and the
related ideal of civilization. If you ¶ choose this option it doesn’t mean that you accept that you are not
human ¶ and you are also a barbarian . On the contrary, placing yourself in the space ¶ that imperial
discourse gave to lesser humans, uncivilized and barbarians, ¶ you would argue for radical
interventions from the perspective of those who have been made barbarians, abnormal and
uncivilized . That is, you will ¶ argue for justice and equality from the perspective and interests of those who ¶ lost their equality and have
been subjected to injustices.
AT RIGHTS
Human rights defines violence only in relation to the violation of the stability
masculine public sphere. Women's rights are only concievable through propriety
values, thus making sexual violence the only human rights abuse that women face,
not the disproportionate impacts of conflict, sanctions, and structural adjustment.
Charlesworth 99
(Hilary, She is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, a professor in RegNet and Director of
the Centre for International Governance and Justice, ANU, “Feminist Methods in International Law”, The
American Journal of International Law, Vol. 93, No. 2 (Apr., 1999), pp. 379-394, JSTOR)//SK
The category of "human rights abuses" is a contested one from a feminist perspective. Analysis of the understanding of human rights in international law generally has shown that the definition of
human rights is limited and androcentric.50 The limitations of human rights law with respect to women are intensified in the context of IHL. Take, for example, the way that it deals
with rape and sexual assault. Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention places states under an obligation to protect women in international armed conflict "against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced
' The provision assumes that women should be protected from sexual crimes
because they implicate a woman's honor, reinforcing the notion of women as men's property, rather
than because they constitute violence. This proprietary image is underlined by the use of the language of protection rather than prohibition of the violence.52 Additional Protocol I
prostitution, or any form of indecent assault."
replaces the reference to a woman's honor with the notion that women should "be the object of special respect,"53 implying that women's role in childbearing is the source of special status. Significantly, the provisions on rape are
not specifically included in the category of grave breaches of international humanitarian law.54 In the context of noninternational armed conflict, common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions does not specifically refer to sexual
violence, generally prohibiting violence to life and the person, cruel treatment and torture, and humiliating and degrading treatment. IHL, then, treats rape and sexual assault as an attack on (the warrior's) honor or on the sanctity
of motherhood and not explicitly as of the same order as grave breaches such as compelling a prisoner of war to serve in enemy forces. The statutes of the two ad hoc Tribunals and the ICC, by contrast, provide much fuller
responses to sexual violence, constructing it, depending on the circumstances, as potentially a crime of genocide, a crime against humanity and a war crime. This recognition was the result of considerable work and lobbying by
women's organizations, but its limitations should be noted. In the statutes of the Yugoslav Tribunal and the ICC at least, all three categories of international crimes are concerned only with acts forming part of a widespread,
systematic or large- scale attack. Thus,
the "new" international criminal law engages sexual violence only when it is an
aspect of the destruction of a community . An example of this characteristic was the invitation to the prosecution by a trial chamber of the Yugoslav Tribunal, when reviewing
indictments against Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, to consider broadening the characterization of the notion of genocide. It stated that "[t]he systematic rape of women .. . is in some cases intended to transmit a new ethnic
identity to the child. In other cases humiliation and terror serve to dismember the group."55 This comment suggests that the primary problem with rape is either its effect on the ethnic identity of the child born as a result of the
This understanding of rape perpetuates a view of women as cultural objects
through which war can be waged. The decision in the 1998 Akayesu case by the Rwanda Tribunal that rape constituted an act of genocide if committed with the
rape or the demoralizing effect on the group as a whole.
or bodies on which and
intention to destroy a particular group56 also rests on this limited image of women. The emphasis on the harm to the Tutsi people as a whole is, of course, required by the international definition of genocide, and the Akayesu
decision on this point57 simply illustrates the inability of the law to properly name what is at stake: rape is wrong, not because it is a crime of violence against women and a manifestation of male dominance, but because it is an
assault on a community defined only by its racial, religious, national or ethnic composition.58 In this account,
the violation of a woman's body is secondary to the
humiliation of the group. In this sense, international criminal law incorporates a problematic public/private distinction: it operates in the public realm of the collectivity, leaving the private sphere of
the individual untouched. Because the notion of the community implicated here is one defined by the men within it, the distinction has gendered consequences. Another public/private
distinction incorporated (albeit unevenly) in international criminal law-via human rights law-is that
between the acts of state and nonstate actors. 59 Such a dichotomy has gendered aspects when mapped onto the reality of violence against women. Significantly, the ICC
statute defines torture more broadly than the Convention against Torture, omitting any reference to the involvement of public officials.60 Steven Ratner has suggested, however, that some sort of distinction based on "official"
The
problem, from a feminist perspective, is not the drawing of public/private, or regulated/nonregulated, distinctions as such, but rather the reinforcement of gender
inequality through the use of such distinctions. We need, then, to pay attention to the actual operation
involvement is useful as a criterion to sort out those actions against human dignity that should engender state and individual international criminal responsibility and those (such as common assault) that should not.61
of boundary drawing
For example,
in international law
and whether it ends up affecting women's and men's lives differently.
the consequence of defining certain rapes as public in international law is to make private
rapes seem somehow less serious . The distinction is made, not by reference to women's
experiences, but by the implications for the male-dominated public sphere .62 A different type of
silence
that might be identified
in the legal protection
of the human rights of women in armed conflict
is the almost exclusive focus on
sexual violence .63 Insights generated by the "world traveling" method suggest that this emphasis obscures many other human rights
issues in times of armed conflict , particularly the protection of economic, social and cultural rights of women . Conflict exacerbates the globally
unequal position of women and men in many ways.
We know, for example, of the distinctive burdens placed on women through food and medical shortages
caused by conflict.64 When food is scarce, more women than men suffer from malnutrition, often because of cultural norms that require men and boys to eat before women and girls.65 Humanitarian relief for the victims of
conflict regularly fails to reach women, as men are typically given responsibility for its distribution.66 Economic sanctions imposed before, during or after armed conflict have had particular impact on women and girls, who are
Although the effect of these practices falls heavily on women, they are not
understood by international law to be human rights abuses that would engage either state or
individual responsibility.
disproportionately represented among the poor.67
Using rights justification for liberating the ‘oppressed third world' consolidates U.S
hyper masculinity, resulting in economic devastation, environmental destruction and
extraction, and indiscriminate massacres.
Mohanty 06
(Chandra Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender
Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at
Syracuse University, “US Empire and the Project of Women’s Studies: Stories of citizenship, complicity
and dissent”, Gender, Place and Culture, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 7–20, February 2006,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09663690600571209)//SK
A number of scholars including Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin (2004) conclude that since the last decades of the twentieth century, the US rules through the mechanisms of ‘informal empire’
managing the flow of corporate capital globally across and through the borders of nation/states, as well as through military interventions in countries that resist this form of capitalist
these mechanisms of informal and not violently visible empire building are predicated on
deeply gendered, sexualized, and racial ideologies that justify and consolidate the hypernationalism, hypermasculinity, and
neo-liberal discourses of ‘capitalist democracy’ bringing freedom to oppressed third world peoples—especially to third world women. The US
war state mobilizes gender and race hierarchies and nationalist xenophobia in its declaration of internal and external enemies, in its construction and consolidation of
the ‘homeland security’ regime, and in its use of the checkbook and cruise missile to protect its own
economic and territorial interests. It mobilizes both languages of empire and imperialism to consolidate a militarized regime internally as well as outside its
territorial borders. Bringing ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ (or more precisely the free market) to Afghanistan and Iraq most recently, then, has
globalization.2 However, I would argue that
involved economic devastation, de-masculinization, destruction of cultural, historical, natural and
environmental resources, and, of course, indiscriminate massacres in both countries . Similarly, ‘making the
homeland safe’ has involved the militarization of daily life, increased surveillance and detention of immigrants, and a culture of authoritarianism fundamentally at odds with American liberal
democratic ideals. If the larger, overarching project of the US capitalist state is the production of citizens for empire, then the citizens for democracy narrative no longer holds. Where US liberal
democratic discourse posed questions about democracy, equality, and autonomy (the American dream realized), neo-liberal, militarist discourse poses questions about the free market, global
opportunity, and the protection of US interests inside and outside its national borders. Capitalist imperialism is now militarist imperialism. Capitalist globalization is militarized globalization.
Their affirmative assumes a neutral form of labor that gains value as it gains skill however the female body is an inherent state of wasting. The aff performs this
wasting through reiterating the narrative of cultural victimization.
Wright 11
( Melissa W. Spring 2011. Disposable Women¶ and Other Myths of¶ Global Capitalism. Departments of
Geography and Women’s Studies, Pennsylvania State University. p.101-102)
In a March 1999 interview, a research psychiatrist from Texas Tech¶ University who specializes in serial murders commented to the El¶ Paso
Times that these Juárez murderers “tend to ‘discard’ their victims¶ once they get what they want from them” (Stack and Valdez¶ 1999). Such a
vision of the Mexican woman as inevitably disposable¶ is common to both the murder and the turnover narratives. At
the¶ heart of
these seemingly disparate story lines is the crafting of the¶ Mexican woman as a figure whose value
can be extracted from her,¶ whether it be in the form of her virtue, her organs, or her efficiency¶ on
the production floor. And once “they,” her murderers or her supervisors,¶ “get what they want from” her, she is discarded.¶ The vision
of her disposability, the likelihood that this condition¶ could exist in a human being, is what is so valuable to those who¶ extract what they want
from her. When she
casts the shadow of the¶ consummate disposable laborer whose labor power is not
even worth¶ the expense of its own social reproduction, she is a utopian image.¶ In this particular
manifestation, the Mexican woman is the utopian¶ image of a culturally victimized variation of labor who guarantees her¶ replacement—after
being worn down by repetitive stress syndrome,¶ migraines, or harassment over pregnancies—with fresh recruits who¶ are, perhaps, leaving
another place of employment for one of the same¶ reasons. That the same women are turning over as they move from¶ one place to another
does not disrupt the utopian image of their constant¶ decline as part of their progression toward disposability. Quite¶ to the contrary, their
value circulates through their continual flow¶ from one factory to the next, since as a woman leaves one place of¶ work, perhaps having been
dismissed for missing a menstrual period,¶ and then enters another once her menstrual flow resumes, she again¶ represents value. Her
fluctuation between value and waste is part of¶ her appeal for her employer.¶ This image of her as the subject formed in the flux between
waste¶ and value provides her contours as a variation of capital. With such a¶ constitution, she can be nothing other than a temporary worker,
one¶ whose intrinsic value does not mature, grow, and increase over time.¶ And therefore, as a group, Mexican women represent the
permanent¶ labor force of the temporarily employed. The individual instances¶ of this subject come and go as women deemed wasteful to a
firm’s¶ project are replaced by new recruits. Her cultural constitution is¶ internally driven and immune to any diversionary attempts by the¶
industry to put Mexican women on a different path. Instead, she will¶ repeat the pattern like women before her and perpetuate the problem¶
of turnover so valuable to the maquilas.¶ Such a utopian image of the Mexican woman as a figure permanently¶ and ineluctably headed toward
decline, always promising that¶ her labor power will be worth less than the cost of her own social¶ reproduction, evokes Benjamin’s elaboration
of the fetish. Benjamin¶ renovated Marx’s analogy of the fetish as phantasmagoria to refer not¶ only to the social relations of the market
embedded in the commodity¶ but also to the social relations of representation that were sustained in¶ the commodity. According to Susan
Buck-Morss (1989, 82), Benjamin’s¶ concern with “urban phantasmagoria was not so much the commodity-¶ in-the-market as the commodityon-display.” Benjamin’s point is¶ that the mechanics of representation are as critical to the creation of¶ value as the actual exchange of use
values in the marketplace.¶ The fetish of the Mexican woman as waste-in-the-making offers¶ evidence for Benjamin’s view of the fetish as an
entity “on display.”¶
really
As a figure of waste, she represents the possibility of a human existence¶ that is
worthless, and this representation is valuable in and of itself.
condition, then she opens up a number of valuable possibilities for¶ numerous people.
perhaps
If we really can see and believe in her wasted¶
For the managers of the maquiladora
industry, her worthlessness means they can count on the temporary labor force¶ that they need in
order to remain competitive in a global system of¶ flexible production. The image of the murder
victims —many of them¶ former maquila employees abducted on their commutes between¶ home and work— also represents
value for the industry as cultural¶ victims.
Through the descriptions of Mexican cultural violence,¶ jealous machismo, and
female sexuality, maquiladora exculpation¶ finds its backing.
No degree of investment in public infrastructure¶ to
improve transportation routes, finance lighting on streets, boost¶ public security, or hold seminars in
the workplace will make any¶ difference . Others can also benefit from the widespread and believable¶ representation of the
Mexican woman as waste-in-the-making.¶ The perpetrators of serial murders, domestic violence, and random¶ violence against women can
count on a lack of public outrage and¶ on official insouciance with regard to their capture. And the city and¶ state officials in Chihuahua who
are concerned about their political¶ careers under the public scrutiny of their effectiveness in curbing¶ crime can defer responsibility .
The
stories of this wasting and wasted figure must always be told¶ since , to adapt Butler’s calculation to my purposes,
the naming of her¶ as waste is also “the repeated inculcation of the norm”
(Butler 1993,¶ 8).
The
repetitive telling of the wasting woman in the turnover and¶ murder stories is requisite because of
her ambiguity: the waste is never¶ stable or complete . The possibility of her value—of fingers still
flexible¶ or of a murdered young woman who was cherished by many—¶ lurks in the background, and
so the sorting continues as we search for¶ evidence of the wasted value. Her dialectic constitution is suspended¶
through the pitting of the two antithetical conditions that she invariably¶ embodies. We find this dialectic condition through the questions¶
that ask, Is she worthy of our concern? Are her fingers nimble or stiff,¶ her attitude pliant or angry, her habits chaste or wild? Through the¶
posing of such questions, her ambiguity is sorted as if it were always¶ present for the sorting. Meanwhile, she hangs in the balance.
Corrective approaches fail: Any detrius of western knowledge must be rejected to
delink the human from the creation of the non-human colonial other. As western
scholars of privilege, this requires arguing for radical interventions.
Mignolo 13 (Walter D. Who Speaks for the “Human” in Human Rights?. Human Rights from a Third
World Perspective: Critique, History and International Law. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Professor of
semiotics at Duke University, PhD. rb)
imperial knowledge (that is, based on Greek and ¶ Latin categories and translated into modern European
(e.g., owns) the concept of
human. If you want to dispute it from the ¶ genealogy of thoughts of Arabic, Urdu, Russian, Aymara, Bambara, or any ¶
other language and experiences embedded in non-Western history or ¶ indirectly related to Western categories of thoughts
¶ In
this regard, Western
vernacular ¶ languages—Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and English) ¶ controls
(and indirection here ¶ refers to imperial expansion and colonization), you would have two options: ¶ to bend and accept what is human
according to Western knowledge (grounded in Greek and Latin; that is, not in Greek and Arabic) is; or you
would prefer to de-link, to
engage in epistemic disobedience denouncing the ¶provincialism of the universal and engage in a
collective, differential, ¶ planetary assumption that being human is not being Vitruvian, Christian or ¶
Kantian but is instead being able first to dispute the imperial definition ¶ humanity. Secondly it is to
engage in building a society in which human is ¶ not defined and rhetorically affirming that we are all
equal, but human will ¶ be what comes out of building societies on principles that prevent ¶ classification and ranking to justify domination
and exploitation among ¶ people who are supposed to be equal by birth. If you decide this option, ¶ please do not attempt to
provide a
new truth,
a new definition of what does it mean to be human that will correct the mistakes
of previous definitions of human . Since there is no such entity, the second option would be decolonial, that
is, to move away (de-link) from the imperial consequences of a ¶ standard of human, humanity and the
related ideal of civilization. If you ¶ choose this option it doesn’t mean that you accept that you are not
human ¶ and you are also a barbarian . On the contrary, placing yourself in the space ¶ that imperial
discourse gave to lesser humans, uncivilized and barbarians, ¶ you would argue for radical
interventions from the perspective of those who have been made barbarians, abnormal and
uncivilized . That is, you will ¶ argue for justice and equality from the perspective and interests of those who ¶ lost their equality and have
been subjected to injustices.
Beginning from the subject location of marginalized bodies is the only way to make
gendered colonial violence visible. This epistemological privilege doesn't stem from a
claim about identity, but rather the position of being most impacted by these policies.
Only by centralizing these experiences can we find a roadmap for global restructuring.
Mohanty 03
(Chandra Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural
Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at Syracuse University, ““Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity
through Anticapitalist Struggles”, Signs, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter 2003), pp. 499-535, JSTOR)//SK
This is the very opposite of “special interest” thinking. If
we pay attention to and think from the space of some of the most
disenfranchised communities of women in the world, we are most likely to envision a just and
democratic society capable of treating all its citizens fairly. Conversely, if we begin our analysis from, and limit it to, the space of
privileged communities, our visions of justice are more likely to be exclusionary because privilege nurtures blindness to those without the same privileges. Beginning
from the lives and interests of marginalized communities of women, I am able to access and make the workings of power visible—to read up the ladder of privilege.
It is more necessary to look upward—colonized peoples must know themselves and the colonizer. This
particular marginalized location
makes the politics of knowledge and the power investments that go along with it visible so that we
can then engage in work to transform the use and abuse of power. The analysis draws on the notion of epistemic
privilege as it is developed by feminist standpoint theorists (with their roots in the historical materialism of Marx and Lukacs) as well as postpositivist realists, who
provide an analysis of experience, identity, and the epistemic effects of social location.15 My view is thus a materialist and “realist” one and is antithetical to that of
postmodernist relativism. I believe there are causal links between marginalized social locations and experiences and the ability of human agents to explain and
analyze features of capitalist society. Methodologically, this analytic perspective is grounded in historical materialism. My
claim is not that all
marginalized locations yield crucial knowledge about power and inequity, but that within a tightly
integrated capitalist system, the particular standpoint of poor indigenous and Third World/South
women provides the most inclusive viewing of systemic power. In numerous cases of environmental racism, for instance,
where the neighborhoods of poor communities of color are targeted as new sites for prisons and toxic dumps, it is no coincidence that poor black, Native American,
and Latina women provide the leadership in the fight against corporate pollution. Three out of five Afro‐Americans and Latinos live near toxic waste sites, and three
of the five largest hazardous waste landfills are in communities with a population that is 80 percent people of color (Pardo 2001, 504–11). Thus, it is precisely their
critical reflections on their everyday lives as poor women of color that allows the kind of analysis of the power structure that has led to the many victories in
environmental racism struggles.16 Herein lies a lesson for feminist analysis. Feminist scientist Vandana Shiva, one of the most visible leaders of the antiglobalization
movement, provides a similar and illuminating critique of the patents and intellectual property rights agreements sanctioned by the World Trade Organization since
1995.17 Along with others in the environmental and indigenous rights movements, she argues that the WTO sanctions biopiracy and engages in intellectual piracy
by privileging the claims of corporate commercial interests, based on Western systems of knowledge in agriculture and medicine, to products and innovations
derived from indigenous knowledge traditions. Thus, through the definition of Western scientific epistemologies as the only legitimate scientific system, the WTO is
able to underwrite corporate patents to indigenous knowledge (as to the Neem tree in India) as their own intellectual property, protected through intellectual
property rights agreements. As a result, the patenting of drugs derived from indigenous medicinal systems has now reached massive proportions. I quote Shiva:
Through patenting, indigenous knowledge is being pirated in the name of protecting knowledge and preventing piracy. The knowledge of our ancestors, of our
peasants about seeds is being claimed as an invention of U.S. corporations and U.S. scientists and patented by them. The only reason something like that can work is
because underlying it all is a racist framework that says the knowledge of the Third World and the knowledge of people of color is not knowledge. When that
knowledge is taken by white men who have capital, suddenly creativity begins. … Patents are a replay of colonialism, which is now called globalization and free
trade. (Shiva, Gordon, and Wing 2000, 32) The contrast between Western scientific systems and indigenous epistemologies and systems of medicine is not the only
issue here. It is the colonialist and corporate power to define Western science, and the reliance on capitalist values of private property and profit, as the only
normative system that results in the exercise of immense power. Thus indigenous knowledges, which are often communally generated and shared among tribal and
peasant women for domestic, local, and public use, are subject to the ideologies of a corporate Western scientific paradigm where intellectual property rights can
only be understood in possessive or privatized form. All innovations that happen to be collective, to have occurred over time in forests and farms, are appropriated
or excluded. The idea of an intellectual commons where knowledge is collectively gathered and passed on for the benefit of all, not owned privately, is the very
opposite of the notion of private property and ownership that is the basis for the WTO property rights agreements. Thus this idea of an intellectual commons
among tribal and peasant women actually excludes them from ownership and facilitates corporate biopiracy. Shiva’s analysis of intellectual property rights,
biopiracy, and globalization is made possible by its very location in the experiences and epistemologies of peasant and tribal women in India. Beginning from the
practices and knowledges of indigenous women, she “reads up” the power structure, all the way to the policies and practices sanctioned by the WTO. This is a very
clear example then of a transnational, anticapitalist feminist politics. However, Shiva says less about gender than she could. She is after all talking in particular about
women’s work and knowledges anchored in the epistemological experiences of one of the most marginalized communities of women in the world—poor, tribal, and
peasant women in India. This is a community of women made invisible and written out of national and international economic calculations.
An analysis
that pays attention to the everyday experiences of tribal women and the micropolitics of their
ultimately anticapitalist struggles illuminates the macropolitics of global restructuring . It suggests the
thorough embeddedness of the local and particular with the global and universal, and it suggests the need to conceptualize questions of justice and equity in
transborder terms. In other words, this mode of reading envisions a feminism without borders, in that it foregrounds the need for an analysis and vision of solidarity
across the enforced privatized intellectual property borders of the WTO. These particular examples offer the most inclusive paradigm for understanding the
motivations and effects of globalization as it is crafted by the WTO. Of course, if we were to attempt the same analysis from the epistemological space of Western,
corporate interests, it would be impossible to generate an analysis that values indigenous knowledge anchored in communal relationships rather than profit‐based
hierarchies. Thus, poor tribal and peasant women, their knowledges and interests, would be invisible in this analytic frame because the very idea of an intellectual
commons falls outside the purview of privatized property and profit that is a basis for corporate interests. The obvious issue for a transnational feminism pertains to
the visions of profit and justice embodied in these opposing analytic perspectives. The focus on profit versus justice illustrates my earlier point about social location
and analytically inclusive methodologies. It is the social location of the tribal women as explicated by Shiva that allows this broad and inclusive focus on justice.
Similarly, it is the social location and narrow self‐interest of corporations that privatizes intellectual property rights in the name of profit for elites. Shiva essentially
offers a critique of the global privatization of indigenous knowledges. This is a story about the rise of transnational institutions such as the WTO, the World Bank,
and the International Monetary Fund, of banking and financial institutions and cross‐national governing bodies like the MAI (Multinational Agreement on
Investments). The effects of these governing bodies on poor people around the world have been devastating. In fundamental ways, it is girls and women around the
world, especially in the Third World/South, that bear the brunt of globalization.
Poor women and girls are the hardest hit by the
degradation of environmental conditions, wars, famines, privatization of services and deregulation of
governments, the dismantling of welfare states, the restructuring of paid and unpaid work,
increasing surveillance and incarceration in prisons, and so on . And this is why a feminism without and beyond borders is
necessary to address the injustices of global capitalism. Women and girls are still 70 percent of the world’s poor and the majority of the world’s refugees. Girls and
women comprise almost 80 percent of displaced persons of the Third World/South in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Women do two‐thirds of the world's work and
earn less than one‐tenth of its income. Women own less than one‐hundredth of the world’s property, while they are the hardest hit by the effects of war, domestic
violence, and religious persecution. Feminist political theorist Zillah Eisenstein states that global capital in racialized and sexualized guise destroys the public spaces
of democracy and quietly sucks power out of the once social/public spaces of nation‐states. Corporate capitalism has redefined citizens as consumers—and global
markets replace the commitments to economic, sexual, and racial equality (Eisenstein 1998, esp. chap. 5). It is especially on the bodies and lives of women and girls
from the Third World/South—the Two‐Thirds World—that global capitalism writes its script, and it is by paying attention to and theorizing the experiences of these
communities of women and girls that we demystify capitalism as a system of debilitating sexism and racism and envision anticapitalist resistance.
Thus any
analysis of the effects of globalization needs to centralize the experiences and struggles of these
particular communities of women and girls . Drawing on Arif Dirlik’s notion of “place consciousness as the radical other of global
capitalism” (1999), Grace Lee Boggs makes an important argument for place‐based civic activism that illustrates how centralizing the struggles of marginalized
communities connects to larger antiglobalization struggles. Boggs suggests that “place consciousness … encourages us to come together around common, local
experiences and organize around our hopes for the future of our communities and cities. While global capitalism doesn’t give a damn about the people or the
natural environment of any particular place because it can always move on to other people and other places, place‐based civic activism is concerned about the
health and safety of people and places” (Boggs 2000, 19). Since women are central to the life of neighborhood and communities they assume leadership positions in
these struggles. This is evident in the example of women of color in struggles against environmental racism in the United States, as well as in Shiva’s example of
tribal women in the struggle against deforestation and for an intellectual commons. It is then the lives, experiences, and struggles of girls and women of the
Two‐Thirds World that demystify capitalism in its racial and sexual dimensions—and that provide productive and necessary avenues of theorizing and enacting
anticapitalist resistance.
*****Links*****
ECONOMIC ENGAGEMENT
Generic
Economic Engagement is used to exploit women’s labor and support institutions that
perpetuate masculine domination.
Moghadam ’99 (Valentine, Prof. of Sociology @ Northeastern Univ., “Gender and Globalization:
Female Labor and Women’s Mobilization”, Journal of World Systems Research 5:2)
Through institutions such as the transnational corporation and the state, the global economy
generates capital largely through the exploitation of labor, but it is not indifferent to the gender and
ethnicity of that labor. Gender and racial ideologies have been deployed to favor white male workers and
exclude others, but they have also been used to integrate and exploit the labor power of women and
of members of disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups in the interest of profit-making. In the current
global environment of open economies, new trade regimes, and competitive export industries, global
accumulation relies heavily on the work of women, both waged and unwaged, in formal sectors and in the home, in
manufacturing, and in public and private services. This phenomenon has been termed the “feminization of labor.” Guy Standing (1989) has
hypothesized that the
increasing globalization of production and the pursuit of flexible forms of labor to
retain or increase competitiveness, as well as changing job structures in industrial enterprises, favor
the “feminization of employment” in the dual sense of an increase in the numbers of women in the
labor force and a deterioration of work conditions (labor standards, income, and employment status). Women have been
gaining an increasing share of many kinds of jobs, but in the context of a decline in the social power of labor and growing unemployment, their
labor-market participation has not been accompanied by a redistribution of domestic, household, and childcare responsibilities. Moreover,
women are still disadvantaged in the new labor markets, in terms of wages, training, and occupational
segregation. They are also disproportionately involved in forms of employment increasingly used to
maximize profits: temporary, part-time, casual, and home-based work. Generally speaking, the situation is better or worse for women
depending on the type of state and the strength of the economy. Women workers in the welfare states of northern Europe fare best, followed
by women in other strong Western economies. In Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, the economic status of working women
changed dramatically for the worse following the collapse of communism. In much of the developing world, a class of women professionals and
workers employed in the public sector and in the private sector has certainly emerged due to rising educational attainment, changing
aspirations, economic need, and the demand for relatively cheap labor. However, vast
numbers of economically active
women in the developing world lack formal training, work in the informal sector, have no access to
social security, and live in poverty.
Economic rationality manipulates gender ideology to overstretch women’s labor.
Moghadam ’99 (Valentine, Prof. of Sociology @ Northeastern Univ., “Gender and Globalization:
Female Labor and Women’s Mobilization”, Journal of World Systems Research 5:2)
Why do economic
crises and structural adjustment hurt women more than they do men? The reasons have to
do with both the social relations of gender and the nature of market reforms. • Customary biases and
intrahousehold inequalities lead to lower consumption by and fewer benefits for women and girls among lower income groups. • The
mobility of labor that is assumed by free-market economics and encouraged by structural adjustment
policies does not take into account the fact that women’s geographic and occupational mobility is
constrained by family and childrearing responsibilities. • The legal and regulatory framework often does not treat
women as autonomous citizens but rather as dependents or minors -- with the result that in many countries,
women cannot own or inherit property, or seek a job or take out a loan without the permission of husband or father. • Structural
adjustment policies over-stretch women’s labor time by increasing women’s productive activities
(higher labor-force participation due to economic need and household survival strategy) and reproductive burdens (in that women
have to compensate in care-giving for cutbacks in social services). Working-class women and urban poor women are particularly hard hit. •
Because of women’s concentration in government jobs in many developing countries, and because the private sector discriminates against
women or is otherwise “unfriendly” to women and unwilling to provide support structures for working mothers, middle-class women may
suffer disproportionately from policies that aim to contract the public sector wage bill by slowing down public-sector hiring. • Industrial
restructuring or privatization adversely affect women, as women tend to be laid off first because of
gender bias, but also because women workers tend to be concentrated in the lower rungs of the
occupational ladder, in unskilled production jobs, or in overstaffed administrative and clerical positions. • The poverty-inducing
aspect of structural adjustment hits women hard and is especially hard on female-headed households
with children. • Labor-market discrimination and job segregation result in women being concentrated in
the low-wage employment sectors, in the informal sector, and in the contingent of “flexible labor”.
Neoliberal accumulation of labor cannot survive without taking advantage of
patriarchal gender ideologies.
Moghadam ’99 (Valentine, Prof. of Sociology @ Northeastern Univ., “Gender and Globalization:
Female Labor and Women’s Mobilization”, Journal of World Systems Research 5:2)
Inasmuch as women have been organizing and mobilizing against the particularistic and hegemonic aspects of globalization, there are political
implications to what I have discussed in this paper. In addition, there are theoretical implications for development studies, world-systems
analysis, and social-movement theory. I have argued that the
capitalist world-economy functions by means of the
deployment of labor that is waged and non-waged, formal and informal, male and female. In recent
decades, the involvement of women in various kinds of labor arrangements has been striking. Capitalist accumulation is achieved
through the surplus-extraction of labor, and this includes the paid and unpaid economic activities of
women, whether in male-headed or female-headed households. The various forms of the deployment of female labor
reflect asymmetrical gender relations and patriarchal gender ideologies. Global accumulation as the
driving force of the world-system not only hinges on class and regional differences across economic
zones, it is a gendered process as well, predicated upon gender differences in the spheres of
production and reproduction. In an era of economic globalization, the pressure for greater
competitiveness through lower labor and production costs encourages the demand for and supply of
female labor.
Trade
Trade expansion and liberalization is steeped in patriarchy—4 reasons
Ventura-Dias 10
-Director of the Division of International trade and Integration at the Economic Commission for Latin
America of the UN, PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics @ UC Berkeley [Vivianne, International
Institute for Sustainable Development, “Beyond Barriers: The Gender Implications of Trade
Liberalization in Latin America,” pg. V-VI, 2010,
http://www.iisd.org/tkn/pdf/beyond_barriers_gender_latin_america.pdf, DKP]
At the macro level, the size of female employment in exporting industries depends on country specific ¶ variables, since it is the nature of the
international integration of each country, or its trade specialization, ¶ that will determine the characteristics of the demand for female labour.
The correlation of manufactured ¶ exports and female employment has been due to the massive
integration of Asian and a few other ¶ developing countries into international supply chains, where
women perform the most labour intensive ¶ activities of the production complex (mostly in textiles and
clothing, toys, and electronic products). ¶ Latin American resource intensive exporting industries are not intensive
employers of women, although ¶ women have also been intensively employed in the non-traditional agricultural exports of several ¶
countries such as Chile, Ecuador and Colombia.¶ There are already excellent surveys of the empirical literature on trade and gender, with a few
of them ¶ also covering Latin America. A group of hypotheses from the literature can be summarized: ¶ 1.
Women are widely
employed in labour intensive exporting industries that tend to provide ¶ precarious jobs with few or
no social benefits (in a process called the feminization of jobs). In ¶ this case, their welfare is directly affected by
eventual job loss due to the lack of competitiveness ¶ of local exporting enterprises or by the
reallocation of activities by large multinational enterprises ¶ searching for cheaper labour elsewhere. ¶ 2. Women
are also widely employed in subsistence and family farm production that can be import ¶ competing. In this case,
their welfare is affected by cheaper imports of agricultural products ¶ (which may be subsidized in the country of
origin).¶ 3. The technological intensification of productive systems tends to reduce the presence of
women in ¶ the job market (known as the defeminization of jobs). ¶ 4. The nature of women’s integration into labour
markets brought about by trade liberalization and ¶ trade expansion can potentially challenge intrafamily
relations. There is impressionistic evidence ¶ that in some cases finding employment in the exporting industry has improved women’s ¶
bargaining power in the household.
Economic growth encompasses asymmetric opportunities across gender lines—alt is a
pre-requisite to breaking down patriarchy
Ventura-Dias 10
-Director of the Division of International trade and Integration at the Economic Commission for Latin
America of the UN, PhD in Agricultural and Resource Economics @ UC Berkeley [Vivianne, International
Institute for Sustainable Development, “Beyond Barriers: The Gender Implications of Trade
Liberalization in Latin America,” pg. 15, 2010,
http://www.iisd.org/tkn/pdf/beyond_barriers_gender_latin_america.pdf, DKP]
The departure point for an economic study of gender relations is the separation of human activities
into ¶ two sets in which the relative association of men and women has social and economic
implications. The ¶ first set comprises productive or income generating activities that are performed in the
market (the ¶ public sphere), while the second consists of unpaid activities that are performed within the
household ¶ (the private sphere). The latter includes care activities that meet basic human needs such as preparing ¶ meals,
cleaning, bearing children, child rearing, family caring and community work, but also subsistence ¶ production in
rural communities, all of which fall under the category of the ‘care economy’, ‘unpaid care ¶ work’, ‘non-
market work’ or ‘the work of social reproduction’ (Aguirre, 2005; Elson, 1999; Folbre, ¶ 1994). Men and women are
differently involved in these two large sets of activities and this sexual ¶ division of labour, which is
socially defined (gendered); entails asymmetric conditions for men and ¶ women to access productive
assets, economic opportunities and benefits; and ultimately constrains ¶ women’s mobility and their
ability to act and to articulate the choices affecting their lives (Sen, 1990).¶ It is important to reiterate that women are
not equal in terms of the restrictions they face when accessing ¶ productive resources, including human capital accumulation. Although gender
relations cut across class ¶ and race groups, class and race compound gender inequity relations. Gender conflicts exist across class ¶ and other
social characteristics; nonetheless, among women, the level of bargaining power is also a ¶ function of their access to assets and their level of
income, which are determined by social class and race ¶ affiliation. A proper evaluation of trade effects would require the disaggregation of
data on women ¶ according to income levels, rural-urban activities and race whenever possible.¶ A consensus has emerged in recent economic
research that trade and gender as much as trade and ¶ poverty are multidimensional and complex topics. To assess gender equity effects from
trade liberalization ¶ requires a better understanding of the nature, pace and scale of changes launched by trade liberalization. ¶ Macro and
micro issues need to be related, and the mediation among them through markets, policies ¶ and institutions has to be elucidated (Bussolo & De
Hoyos, 2009; Fontana, 2009; Giordano, 2009). ¶ Labour market institutions, property rights institutions, markets and other institutions mediate
the ¶ relations between trade and the final outcomes at the household level (Bardhan, 2005; Jansen & Nordås, ¶ 2004). In this sense, the
important role of domestic policies in alleviating the adjustment costs that result ¶ from trade
liberalization and increasing its benefits cannot be ignored. Relevant institutions and public ¶ policies can be effective in
reducing adjustment costs either by compensating the negatively affected ¶ industries, facilitating the training of displaced workers or
enhancing the operation of particular markets. ¶ There has not been much research on institutions and public policies that have a bearing on
attenuating ¶ (or enhancing) the negative impacts of trade liberalization on gender inequalities in access to resources ¶ and opportunities.¶
Although within the space of this short paper it is not possible to provide a full picture of changes ¶ brought about by trade liberalization in
heterogeneous Latin American countries, the following section ¶ describes the general features of the process in broad outlines.
Globalization
Globalization is the process of globalizing masculine politics.
Chow ’03 (Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and
Social Change in the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
Michael Kimmel (2002) points out that
the underlying logics of globalization in capitalist production, market
rationality, trade liberalization , privatization, transnational corporations (TNCs) and modernity are
themselves gendered, organized discourses , processes and institutional arrangements that create
and perpetuate power relationships between men and women in society . In fact, Connell (2001) argues that
globalization is the manifestation of globalizing masculinities historically in terms of conquests,
settlements, imperial empires and postcolonialization . Recent US war involvement with Iraq offers a contemporary
example to examine how
global and local masculinities , politics, economic interests and military might play
out and erupt into armed conflicts . Gender is thus a critical dimension that must be factored into
discussion of globalization and examined for how it creates differential opportunities, challenges, risks
and dilemmas for women and men and how, in turn, it modifies the process of social change
Trade and Globalization are built on a distinction between formal and informal work
which exacerbates gender ideology and justifies labor exploitation.
Moghadam ’99 (Valentine, Prof. of Sociology @ Northeastern Univ., “Gender and Globalization:
Female Labor and Women’s Mobilization”, Journal of World Systems Research 5:2)
At the same time that women have been entering the formal labor force in record numbers in the developed countries, much
of the
increase in female labor-force participation in developing countries has occurred in the informal
sectors of the economy. Unregistered and small-scale urban enterprises, home-based work and self-employment may fall into this
category, and they include an array of commercial and productive activities. (The extent of the urban informal sector and its links to the formal
sector are matters of dispute, and women’s involvement in it has not always been captured in the official statistics.) In the urban areas of
developing countries, many
formal jobs have become “informalized” as employers seek to increase
“flexibility” and lower labor and production costs through subcontracting, as Beneria and Roldan (1987) showed
in their study of Mexico City. The growth of informalization is observed also in developed countries. Drawing on existing gender
ideologies regarding women’s roles, their attachment to family, and the perceived lower value of their
work, subcontracting arrangements encourage the persistence of home-based work (Boris and Prugel 1996).
Many women accept this kind of work—with its insecurity, low wages, and absence of benefits—as a
convenient form of income-generation that allows them to carry out domestic responsibilities and care for children. FernandezKelly (1989: 613)
emphasizes “the
process whereby employers seeking competitive edges in domestic and international
markets can tap into not only ‘cheap labor’, which is both female and male, but also into a substratum
of labor, predominately female, that is outside of formal relationships”.
Economic engagement is a proxy for gender based imperialism in Latin America
Chow ’03 (Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and
Social Change in the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
Does globalization benefit people and their countries? To what extent does globalization bring about benefits and costs to men and women
similarly or differently? The fifth theme deals with the dialectical processes and consequences of globalization as it impacts
various
sectors of societies differently, with men benefiting more from the payoffs of globalization while
women shoulder disproportionately more of its costs and burdens. Since globalization is not
monolithic, its web of relationships among different dimensions, levels and forces often creates
contradictions embedded in the complex, multifaceted process of globalization. For example, Weiss
investigates how certain elements of CEDAW as an international treaty are contradictory to Islamic tenets and cultural practices, posing
problems in its implementation in Pakistan. Globalization induced
changes unequally affect countries of the North
and the South, and most changes have been documented to be more detrimental to the latter than the
former (Hoogvelt, 1997; Misra, 2000; Afshar and Barrientos, 1999). Given the persistence of poverty, the instability of
political regimes, corruption, armed conflict, debt burdens and other internal turmoil, many states in
Africa, Asia and Latin/Caribbean America have been pressured externally by the hegemonic power of global
systems and multilateral agencies controlled by societies of the North which have pushed for a
globalized neoliberal agenda and austerity of SAPs. Under such pressure, the nation-states often perform contradictory roles, as
Denis, Osirim and Lindio-McGovern point out in their analyses. In the case of the Philippines, while the government actively promotes labor
export for the benefits of workers’ remittances to pay national debts, it lacks a strong political will to protect the labor rights and welfare of its
migrant citizens, thereby indirectly subsidizing social reproduction activities in Italy. Such
contradictions have intensified the
predicaments many states face, marginalizing women and the poor and widening social inequalities
and injustice locally, nationally and globally. Even in Canada, considered to occupy a somewhat ‘middle ground’ political
position which affords women a wide range of legal and social entitlements, women are still not on an equal footing with men, as Caragata
argues in this special issue.
Globalization- Hum Trafficking
Increased globalization between the US and Latin America produces poverty, sex
trafficking, economic marginalization and labor exploitation based on gender
oppression.
Chow ’03 (Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and
Social Change in the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
The unequal
payoffs and costs of globalization are caused by its inherent contradictions that create
dilemmas, risks and rights violations, breeding inequality, poverty and discontent, especially in the
developing world. Whether measured in purely monetary terms or social ones, globalization is not a zero-sum game, for
it brings mixed blessings and unequal outcomes within and between nations and their citizens. At the
macro level, globalization fosters technological advancement, convenience of communication and transportation, and economic
development that reduces costs, encourages trade expansion, promotes global production and increases the wealth of nations, though for
some more than for others (Stiglitz, 2002; UNDP, 1999, 2002). However, these same factors have also facilitated
the threat of
capital relocation, unequal partnerships in trade and finance, fragmentations in labor production,
economic marginalization, relentless cost-cutting by the TNCs, downsizing of governments, curtailment of social and legal
entitlements, retrenchment of social service programs, suppression of organized labor, diminished national autonomy, reinforcement of
inequality between countries, and promotion of dependency of the South on the North. At the micro
level, globalization creates employment opportunities and increases female labor force participation, wage benefits, economic
independence, selfworth and more life options, although these advantages are still limited and unequal. Yet, even these same benefits are
besieged with contradictions, globalization also produces
adverse effects particularly for women – feminization of labor in
dependency, labor exploitation, economic marginalization, poverty, sex
tourism, and international human trafficking of women and young girls – further worsening the already low status of women
and their life conditions and exacerbating inequalities based on race, gender, class and nationality in the
developing world. The alleged payoffs of globalization are, in fact, subsidized by women’s paid labor in
the formal sector, their cheap labor and meager income in the informal sector, and unpaid household
labor in the home.
segregated and low-paying work, wage
Economic interconnectivity promotes human trafficking
Brewer 9
(Devin, “Globalization and Human Trafficking” Topical Research Digest: Human Rights and Human Trafficking pg 46-47
http://www.du.edu/korbel/hrhw/researchdigest/trafficking/Globalization.pdf DA: 2013-7-8)
The process of globalization is especially pronounced and entrenched in the world economy. An
¶ increasingly integrated world
economy enables human trafficking to thrive. Just like the slavery of ¶ old, modern day trafficking of humans is
a lucrative business that has only become more rewarding ¶ for traffickers with the advent of
globalization. In fact, the trans-Atlantic slave trade of centuries ago ¶ epitomized economic globalization. Just as it was back then, human
trafficking, as abhorrent as it is, ¶ remains a matter of supply and demand. To corroborate this stark and unfortunate economic reality, ¶ the ILO
estimates that annual global profits generated from trafficking amount to around U.S. $32 ¶ billion (ILO 2008). Polakoff submits that
economic globalization has led to a form of “global apartheid” and a ¶ corresponding emergence of a
new “fourth world” populated by millions of homeless, incarcerated, ¶ impoverished, and otherwise
socially excluded people (Polakoff 2007). It is from this pool of ¶ “fourth world” denizens where victims of
human trafficking are increasingly drawn. From this ¶ perspective, economic globalization is the prime culprit
of the facilitation of an exorbitant number ¶ of vulnerable trafficking victims worldwide. More precisely,
according to the U.S. Department of ¶ State’s 2008 report, about 600,000 to 800,000 people—mostly women and children—are trafficked ¶
across national borders. In this age of globalization, one can only expect these numbers to escalate ¶ as the inequalities and the economic
disparities between the developing and developed worlds ¶ continue at the present pace.
We have an ethical obligation to take action to stop trafficking.
Stone 2005
(Marjorie, Professor of Gender Studies at Dalhousie University, “Twenty-first Century Global Sex
Trafficking: Migration, Capitalism, Class, and Challenges for Feminism Now”, ESC: English Studies in
Canada 31.2-3, Project Muse,
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/esc_english_studies_in_canada/v031/31.2stone.html)
In a chapter on "The Breaking Grounds" in The Natashas: The New Global Sex Trade (2003), Canadian journalist Victor Malarek interviews a
young woman named Sophia describing how trafficked women and girls were "broken in" for service in the sex trade in Kosovo. Initially Sofia
thinks, "I will fight back," then watches as another woman who does resist is burned with cigarettes "all over her arms," "attacked … anally,"
and beaten unconscious until she is "no longer breathing. There was no worry on the faces [End Page 31] of the owners. They simply carried her
out" (33–34). Trafficking in human beings is "now the third-largest moneymaking venture in the world,
after illegal weapons and drugs," Malarek observes (4). A 2005 International Labour Organization report estimates that among the 8.1 million
persons in forced labour by private agents and enterprises globally (excluding those coerced by states, the army, or rebel military groups), 2.5
million are trafficked. Of these more than half, 1.4 to 1.7
million, are "in forced commercial sexual exploitation"
ranging along a continuum from debt bondage and intimidation to incarceration, rape, terrorism, and
torture.1 Despite the measures thus far taken by NGOs such as the Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW), the
UN (through its 2000 Palermo Protocol against trafficking), the European Union, and by various governments, sex trafficking is not
declining but is growing in scope, sophistication, and invisibility, as Paolo Monzini and Marco Gramenga, among many
others, document.2 Driven by global inequities, growing numbers of migrants working in the sex industry,
and structural readjustments in the developing world, the former Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe, sex trafficking is also
increasingly networked with the drug trade, the trade in human organs, prostitution networks, internet pornography, mail-order bride
operations, and sex tourism.3 Minors are also increasingly among those exploited, like the children trafficked back and
forth across the Mexican–U.S. border described by Peter Landesman in a January 2004, New York Times story.4 Malarek and Monzini both note
that, notwithstanding progressive human rights initiatives, the UN and the
U.S. have themselves substantially contributed
to trafficking through the ineffectual regulation of peace-keeping troops in places such as Bosnia or the effects of
military bases in Asia.5 While the U.S. initiation of its State [End Page 32] Department's annual "Traffic in Person" audit in 2000 created
measures to counteract trafficking by ranking countries according to their success in regulating it, Malarek notes that the effectiveness of the
TIP audits has increasingly been hollowed out by the political reasons seeming to govern the movement of countries from the lower ranks of
Tier Three—for countries not meeting or attempting to meet minimal standards in counteracting trafficking—to Tier One, for countries said to
be in full compliance with "minimum standards" (187).6 Nor does the U.S. State Department "consider that the vast majority of men using
trafficked women either at home or outside their borders are from the … well-heeled nations sitting smugly on Tier One" (Malarek 205). Sex
and forced labour trafficking in its
more extreme forms is the slave trade of the twenty-first century and
arguably the greatest human rights challenge we may now face.7 Yet, although it generates untold suffering for
hundreds of thousands of women and children (in George Eliot's terms, "the roar on the other side of silence"), it was not among the long list of
feminist concerns accompanying the call for contributions to this forum. Nor is it an issue that often arises in literary and cultural studies
"postfeminist" contexts, or one that much preoccupied my own thoughts as a literary critic and self-identified feminist until recently.8 What are
the reasons for the relative absence of such an urgent contemporary issue in contexts where one would expect it to have a high profile? To a
degree, its absence speaks to the problems of definition, intelligibility, identity, and agency that plague attempts to name and address
transnational and intra-national sex trafficking. Along with the considerable debate over defining "trafficking" in its various gradations (given
the implications of such definitions for legal action, political agendas, and official quantifications of the scope of the phenomenon), there is
resistance to the term from some sex trader workers seeking to alter the paradigmatic view of their labour—and even in some cases from
women who have been [End Page 33] subjected to coercive and deceiving trafficking practices.9 Frameworks of intelligibility and the visibility
they provide are also impeded by the disguising and filtering stigmatic terms associated with prostitution. As a result, women or girls subjected
to what is in fact systematic serial rape are categorized as "prostitutes," "illegal migrants," or "illegal aliens" who are often summarily deported
after they are "rescued" through police raids, like the women held as sex slaves in Toronto discovered through a series of brothel raids in
1998.10 The
"foreign" identities (often compounded by linguistic barriers) of women subjected to sex trafficking
underscore the importance of racial, ethnic, and national differences in such practices, as well as the social
and legal response to them. Do such differences also contribute to the relative invisibility of this issue within North
American feminism in a period when it has been fractured from within by "identity politics" of various kinds? The possibility seems likely,
especially given the indirect evidence for the role of racial, ethnic, and/or national differences in the response to Malarek's indictment of what
he identifies as the
"fourth wave" of the global sex trade—from "Eastern and Central Europe" (6).
Structural Adjustment
Structural adjustment policies have an adverse impact on women, made worse for
urban poor and people of color.
Moghadam ’99
(Valentine, Prof. of Sociology @ Northeastern Univ., “Gender and Globalization: Female Labor and
Women’s Mobilization”, Journal of World Systems Research 5:2)
As mentioned above, structural adjustment policies have been controversial in the development community. The now-classic UNICEF study,
Adjustment with a Human Face (Cornia, Jolly, and Stewart, 1987), highlighted the social costs of adjustment and provided empirical evidence of
the deterioration of social conditions in ten countries undergoing adjustment. Subsequent studies found that there
have been
differential impacts on the various categories of the poor, including the “chronic” poor, “borderline” poor, and the
“new” or “working poor”. In the early 1980s, critical voices argued that adjustment and stabilization programs in
developing countries were having particularly adverse effects on women. Da Gama Santos (1985) recognized that
the gender division of labor and the differential positions of women and men in the spheres of
production and reproduction would mean that the new policy shifts would lead to very different
outcomes for women and men, although these gender differences would differ further by social class
and by economic sector. Others have found that the burden of adjustment falls on the urban poor, the
working class, and women (Elson, 1991; Sparr, 1995). In many ways, the women of the working class and urban
poor have been the “shock absorbers” of neoliberal economic policies. Structural adjustment policies -with their attendant price increases, elimination of subsidies, social-service decreases, and introduction or
increase of “user fees” for “cost recovery” in the provision of schooling and health care -- heighten the risk and
vulnerability of women and children in households where the distribution of consumption and the provision of health care and
education favor men or income-earning adults. Structural adjustment causes women to bear most of the
responsibility of coping with increased prices and shrinking incomes, since in most instances they are responsible for
household budgeting and maintenance. Rising unemployment and reduced wages for men in a given household lead to increased economic
activity on the part of women and children. This occurs also in households headed by women, an increasing proportion of all households in
most regions. Household survival strategies include increases in the unpaid as well as paid labor of women, as discussed in the previous section.
In the Philippines, mean household size increased, as relatives pooled their resources. One study found that the combined effects of economic
crisis and structural adjustment in Peru led to a significant increase in poverty, with worse outcomes for households headed by women.
Structural adjustment policies and other forms of neoliberalism are said to be a major factor behind
the “feminization of poverty” (see Moghadam, 1997b).
Silence
Silence about the gendered dimension of economic engagement is an intended tactic
and cloaking device that serves to conceal the work of masculine violence.
Chow ’03 (Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and
Social Change in the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
Why is globalization as a gendered phenomenon not well recognized? Among many reasons, several are relevant here. First, mainstream
discourse focuses on globalization primarily as encompassing macro and disembodied forces, flows
and processes in terms of its economic and societal impact. The concept remains at a general, abstract
level that has greater meaning and relevance to academicians, journalists and some activists than to the general public, even though
people’s everyday lives are very much affected by global forces and happenings. Much of the theorizing about
globalization is either gender-neutral or gender-blind, ignoring how globalization shapes gender
relationships and people’s lives materially, politically, socially and culturally at all levels and treating its
differential effects on women and men as similar. Gender is basically taken for granted, as if it does
not matter. In particular, women’s voices and lives are virtually absent from much theoretical discussion
on globalization. When the gender issue is discussed, the focus tends to be on the effects of
globalization on women rather than on the effects of gender on globalization. Some of globalization’s
gendered effects are invisible, particularly when its victims, such as poor Third World women, are structurally
marginalized, rendering these effects less apparent and less directly observable. How the gender dimension
shapes the globalization process is ignored as either unimportant or irrelevant. How gender relations are products of various
global–local systems of patriarchy and hegemonic masculinities seldom enters critical debate and
discussion. The failure to incorporate gender into the study of globalization in meaningful and
systematic ways not only produces incomplete views of women’s rights as fundamental human rights
and inaccurate understanding of the sources of gender inequality, but also can actually undermine
development policy and practice. In other words, the gender dimension is a critically important missing
piece in the theorizing of globalization. Therefore, gender matters for understanding what
globalization is and how it is influenced by gendered hierarchies and ideologies, which in turn shape
gendered institutions, relationships, identities and experiences of women and men.
Silence about the gendered components of globalization allows masculinity to shape
international institutions and determine the meaning of social relationships.
Chow ’03 (Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and
Social Change in the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
Once questions pertaining to women and the implicit gender dimension of globalization are addressed, some authors in this issue, to varying
extents, expand further to the second theme of the issue by recognizing that there
are complex gender, racial/ethnic, class,
nationality and other stratifying ramifications of contemporary globalization in its practices, processes
and outcomes. This theme is rarely acknowledged in the mainstream discourse on globalization. The
fact is that gender is often compounded by its interlocking relationships with such various other
stratifying factors as race, ethnicity, tribe, caste, class, nationality, age/generation, sexuality and disability in different
societal-cultural contexts. This interlocking forms and perpetuates powerful matrices of domination in
local and global systems, impacting forcefully on the process and outcomes of globalization and
incessantly reconfiguring the domination matrices and hierarchies that shape the institutional
arrangements, the organization of social life and relationships, and the system of meaning and lived
experience of women and men at various levels.
Omitting gender specific clauses is not incidental or a link of omission - but an
expression of gender neutrality - always favoring the masculine
Wagner 2012
Constance "LOOKING AT REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS THROUGH THE LENS OF GENDER"
Saint Louis University Public Law Review 31 St. Louis U. Pub. L. Rev. 497 Associate Professor of Law, Saint
Louis University School of Law MI
Another reason for the omission is that international trade agreements are often thought to be
gender neutral. This is because on their face, trade treaties do not appear to treat women differently
than men or to disadvantage them in any way. However, a developing body of academic literature on the feminist
economics of trade challenges this viewpoint. 43 Motivated by a concern to reduce gender inequality and, in particular, to increase the welfare
of poor women in poor countries, these economists seek to demonstrate that women are impacted differently than men by trade liberalization,
and this may exacerbate existing gender-based inequalities. 44¶ Concern over women's inequality is at the core of this approach to trade. There
is abundant evidence that women around the world are disadvantaged when it comes to the distribution of wealth, employment opportunities,
wage equality, property ownership, access to economic resources such as land, credit and business services, access to basic social services such
as health and education, and the right to participate in decision making. 45 Women are more likely than men to be poor and to experience
discrimination in their economic and social lives. 46 The World Bank estimates there are over 1.4 billion people living in abject poverty in the
world today, roughly one-quarter of the population of developing countries. 47 The vast majority of those living in poverty, around seventy
percent, are women and their children. 48¶ The source of these inequalities are social and cultural norms that place women in subservient
positions by confining them to traditional roles within the family as homemakers and caregivers and limiting their ability to participate fully in
economic life on an equal basis with men. 49 While trade liberalization is not the cause of such inequalities, an
increase in trade can
change economic conditions within countries, leading to an increase in existing
gender-based inequalities. 50¶ Feminist trade economists combine gender analysis with the tools of economic analysis to study the
[*506] significantly
interaction of trade relations with gender relations. Through theoretical and empirical work, as well as policy analysis, such economists explore
what is in fact a complex, two-way interaction. 51 Not only does trade impact gender relations, but gender relations in turn impact trade. One
of the primary proponents of this viewpoint is the economist Nilufer Cagatay, who has noted that this type of analysis leads one to the
following conclusions about trade policy. 52 First, men and women are impacted differently by trade liberalization because of their different
positions and command over economic resources. 53 Second, gender-based inequalities may impact trade policy outcomes differently,
depending on the national economy and sector involved, leading to results that were not predicted by standard trade theory. 54 Third, gender
analysis should be incorporated in trade policy discussions to take account of these factors and to ensure that gender equality and the
development goals of trade policy are not undermined. 55¶ Cagatay has advocated examining whether trade liberalization and its impacts on
patterns of trade "perpetuate, accentuate or erode existing gender inequalities." 56 Such impacts are not uniform and may differ depending on
the trade sector and type of economy involved. The differing impacts of trade liberalization on gender inequalities, both positive and negative,
is illustrated by recent economic case studies on shifts in women's paid employment associated with opening of global markets. 57 Cagatay has
noted that export-oriented
manufacturing in developing countries, in sectors such as textile and apparel,
is associated with increased employment of women, while in industrialized countries, the result is the
loss of jobs in those same sectors, where women workers are overrepresented, due to increased
imports from developing countries. 58 The situation is different with agricultural economies in the
developing world, where trade liberalization often disadvantages women or leads to lesser benefits
for them than men. 59 This is because women in such countries tend to be small subsistence farmers
and are often not able to benefit [*507] from new market opportunities due to lack of access to
economic resources or their ability to produce food for their families is disrupted by new patterns of
agricultural production for export.¶ In the view of feminist trade economists like Cagatay, trade policy should move past an
exclusive focus on the social impact of trade, namely the predictions for increased growth and improved market access associated with
standard economic theory, and start looking at social content, namely the social relations across and within nations based on factors such as
gender, class and race that provide the context for trade policy formation. 60 Feminist trade economists assert that the
failure of
mainstream economists to consider gender is "perpetuating gender bias in the actual working of
economies." 61 Feminist trade economists do not accept the argument that trade policies are gender neutral because they do not
specifically target either men or women. 62 Since the stated goal of feminist trade economists is to reduce gender inequality, 63 even trade
policies that are not discriminatory on their face are subject to scrutiny if they fail to take into account
gender differences in economic relations, since such policies may exacerbate existing gender
inequalities. In this sense, such facially neutral policies may be deemed biased on the basis of gender.
64
ECON RATIONALITY
Links
Economic theory depends on hidden transfers of gendered power and externalize the
costs to women. Reliance on the market perpetuates its ability to define value and to
instrumentalize the world.
McMahon ’97 (Martha, Dept. of Sociology @ Univ. of Victoria, “From the Ground Up: Ecofeminism
and Ecological Economics”, Ecological Economics 20.)
Ecofeminism challenges attempts to build ecological economic theory on the model of the individual in neoclassical economics. It sees this
model as anti-ecological and gender biased. Ecofeminism
proposes a grounds up approach to addressing
environmental degradation; one that starts from lived experience rather than an abstract model. In a
world of pre-existing systemic inequalities, it argues, the 'invisible hand' cannot work to achieve
efficiency, equity, or sustainability. Ecofeminism's political centering of marginal voices and the 'other' allows it to theorize the
social world from the ground up rather than the top down. The weakness of neoclassical economics for constructing an ecological economics
arises, ecofeminists explain, not because certain costs or parts of the social and natural world are still external to the rationality of the market.
Rather, it arises because neoclassical
economics offers a partial account of the world. For example, it disguises
the ways in which the market and economic man are dependent on hidden transfers from nature and
unpaid work. To ecofeminists, economic man and his markets depends on invisible subsidies. Neoclassical economics,
they conclude, is thus empirically inadequate and politically biased. Like many economists, ecofeminists see that current market pricing does
not (but should) reflect real costs. Unlike many of them, they argue that the
market has limited ability to deal with the
problem of 'externalities' because, as long as the market is the dominant determiner of value, the
market will inevitably produce externalities. In an ecofeminist analysis, externalities refer not simply to costs that are not
included in conventional accounting practices or price. They refers to costs that fall on parts of the human and non-human world simply
because of they are not part of the dominant system of value. Thus these costs
arise not because of the outsider's
externality, but because of the centre's dominance. It's a matter of power, not location. The notion of
externalities can also be extended to refer to the 'costs', in loss of integrity, diversity, and their own value experienced by
those who are brought into the market, not on their own terms, but translated into (or reduced to) terms set by the market. The problem
is not simply economic man or the market; the danger is that economic man and the market will gain a monopoly
on value. If this happens, ecofeminists warn, not only will the whole world be conceived instrumentally, but
it will be completely instrumentalised.
Economic rationality narrates masculine histories and shapes everyday thinking about
gender and the environment. The impacts of the social narrative of economic
rationality on womyn and nature must be prioritized.
McMahon ’97 (Martha, Dept. of Sociology @ Univ. of Victoria, “From the Ground Up: Ecofeminism
and Ecological Economics”, Ecological Economics 20.)
Ecofeminism ~ offers a profound critique of the assumptions underlying neoclassical economic theory and
asserts that unless these assumptions are transformed, economic theory presents a barrier to, rather
than resource for social change. Ecofeminism shows how the imagery of the market heuristically reduces living
relationships to a metaphor of an exchange of things, while ecofeminists self-consciously use
metaphor to weave stories of webs of interconnectedness among all forms of life. 2 In contrast to the abstract model of the
individual offered by neoclassical economics, ecofeminism
offers an embodied, sensual subject intimately connected to
the concrete here and now. It works from the ground up. Ecofeminists have
been less concerned with formal economic theory than with what they see as the ecologically and socially destructive
consequences of inappropriate economic theorizing (Shiva, 1989). For them, the importance of economic
others and nature in time and space --
theory lies not simply in its analytical ability,
nor in the guidance it offers those in positions of authority.
Its power
also
lies
in how the story it tells of 'man', society and nature shapes and justifies our everyday thinking and
acting and how it silences alternatives.
Popular understandings of
economic theory lend moral legitimacy to
the devaluation and subordination of women and nature . For ecofeminists, neoclassical economics tells a bad story for others
to live by.
Economic rationality emerges from a history of colonization and exploitation. Trade
agreements only work by dispossessing indigenous rights and promoting masculine
“objectivity”
McMahon ’97
(Martha, Dept. of Sociology @ Univ. of Victoria, “From the Ground Up: Ecofeminism and Ecological
Economics”, Ecological Economics 20.)
However, ecofeminist analysis exposes the hidden side of the historical emergence of the
individual of neoclassical economics
and its masculinist model of self. Both, it stresses, were built on the suppression of that which is 'other' to
this new self -- in particular, women, indigenous peoples, nature, and what is seen as non-rational. In a
very concrete sense, economic man of the industrial revolution was built on the mastery and destruction of
nature. The historical analysis by Carolyn Merchant (1980) shows how closely connected were this modern
mastery of nature and the oppression of women. 8 For ecofeminists, the individual of neoclassical economics is intimately
tied to the individual of liberal political theory and rests on deeply dualistic, hierarchical, psychological
and political structures: man versus (and above) woman; man versus nature; reason versus emotion; mind versus body (Shiva, 1989).
According to Plumwood (1993) the (masculinist) individual of neoclassical economics represents the
psychological internalization of the logic of mastery and colonization: " . . . Locke shows how reason in its next
persona as self-contained individual egoism or instrumental rationality, can profitably appropriate the whole
sphere of 'nature' as its own individual property by dispossessing and making invisible previous
inhabitants and their prior rights, whose agency is excluded by Eurocentric concepts of productive
labour." (Plumwood, 1993, p. 192) It is no accident, ecofeminists reflect, that economic man came to maturity in the
heyday of colonization. Speaking from the margins, ecofeminist analysis exposes the shadow side of the liberal story of economic
man. It identifies the abstract individual as primarily a white, privileged male whose 'autonomy' was predicated on the oppression of women,
nature, and non-white persons, and the destructive colonization of indigenous peoples' lands. Thus ecofeminists tell a different story about
economic man -- from the grounds of other's experience up.
Discourse key
Stories produce social reality and become dominating when they assume objectivity.
Theories of economic engagement legitimate market oppression by claiming the world
it produces is empirically grounded.
McMahon ’97 (Martha, Dept. of Sociology @ Univ. of Victoria, “From the Ground Up: Ecofeminism
and Ecological Economics”, Ecological Economics 20.)
The stories we tell about self and the world have practical consequences. Rather than simply
expressing reality, our stories escape their texts and help produce reality. We forget the human
authorship of the social world, and because some people seem to live according to our stories we believe
that these accounts must be externally and objectively true after all. It is this illusion of objectivity that
many feminists reject. Too many assumptions and methodological ideals, Ferber and Nelson (1993), argue, "have
been exempted from critical scrutiny because existing communities of economists have perceived
them as universal and impartial". As a result, we don't understand the multiple ways in which our
models are empirically limited and partial. Such conceptual models provide poor grounds for an
ecological economics. First, despite caveats that economic models are approximations or heuristic devices, many economic
decisions are made as if these models reflect reality (Strassmann, 1993). Second, economists seldom
appreciate the ways in which economic theorizing politically legitimates market society and economic
man. Thus they fail to see how economic theory itself helps to produce the very empirical world it
studies as 'independently' given. Finally, to the extent that the neoclassical model of the individual is
empirically grounded, it is grounded in the partial experience of some and the suppression of the
experience of others . That is, it is inadequately empirical.
Economics maintains internal coherence through suppression of alternative
experiences and inequity.
McMahon ’97
(Martha, Dept. of Sociology @ Univ. of Victoria, “From the Ground Up: Ecofeminism and Ecological
Economics”, Ecological Economics 20.)
For ecofeminists, such partiality
and suppression of evidence is reflected in the ways neoclassical economics
builds on a historically specific conception of the individual without acknowledging its historical
gender, class, race and anti-naturism specificity (Merchant, 1980; Plumwood, 1993; Shiva, 1989). Neoclassical economics,
feminist economists Strassmann (1993); England (1993) explain, is built around the core idea of separate, autonomous
or self-contained, and self-interested individuals and social relationships of contractual exchange. The central character of
economic analysis is the autonomous individual who trades with other individuals in order to maximize a utility (or profit function) (Strassmann,
1993). The theory says little explicitly about what gives individuals utility. Thus, as Ferber and Nelson (1993) point out, there
is a radical
subjectivity at the heart of neoclassical economics and its concept of utility. And this individualized
concept of utility makes it hard to theorize either society or inequality. Drawing on David Gauthier's work, Milde
(1995) points out that the neoclassical concept of the individual and the competitive relationship between
individuals does not merely describe and theorize reality but it embodies normative or moral
commitments. Like Robinson Crusoe on his desert island, the individual in the market is free to use his
capacities to best fulfil his preferences: what he consumes is (directly or indirectly through trade) what he
produces: he gets what he deserves. And because the market appears to be beyond the control of any
one individual, its outcomes are represented as fair to all. Thus the image of the market and
competitive individuals carries moral authority. To ecofeminists, this image of the individual and social
relationships is gender, class and racially biased: it rests on politically hidden, morally unacceptable and
inequitable relationships among people and between people and the natural world (Guard, 1993; Plumwood,
1993; Warren, 1987).
Impact
This economic rationality prioritizes short term profit over the well-being of
environment and human life—makes extinction inevitable
Nhanenge 7
[Jytte Masters @ U South Africa, paper submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of master
of arts in the subject Development Studies, “ECOFEMINSM: TOWARDS INTEGRATING THE CONCERNS OF WOMEN,
POOR PEOPLE AND NATURE INTO DEVELOPMENT]
The scientific discipline of economics
is founded on similar dualised premises as
science, also economics became a system of domination and exploitation of women, Others and
nature. The following discussion is intended to show that. The way in which economics, with its priority on
masculine forces, becomes dominant relates to web-like, inter-connected and complex processes,
which are not always clearly perceived. The below discussions try to show how the dualised priority of the
individual over society, reason over emotion, self-interest over community-interest, competition
over cooperation, and more pairs, generate domination that leads to the four crises of violence
and war, poverty, human oppression and environmental degradation. The aim in sum is to show how the
current perspective of economics is destroying society (women and Others) and nature. The following
Generation of wealth was an important part of the Scientific Revolution and its modem society .
therefore became a significant means for wealth creation. However, since it
discussion is consequently a critique of economics. It is meant to highlight some elements that make economics a dominant ideology, rather than a system
of knowledge. It adopts a feministic view and it is therefore seen from the side of women, poor people and nature. The critique is extensive, but not
exhaustive. It is extensive because economics is the single most important tool used by mainstream institutions for development in the South. Thus if we
want to understand why development does not alleviate poverty, then we first need to comprehend why its main instrument, economics, cannot alleviate
poverty. A critical analysis of economics and its influence in development is therefore important as an introduction to next chapter, which discusses
ecofeminism and development. However, the critique is not exhaustive because it focuses only on the dualised elements in economics. It is highly likely that
there are many more critical issues in economics, which should be analyzed in addition to the below mentioned. However, it would exceed this scope. Each
of the following 10 sections discusses a specific issue in economics that relates to its dualised nature. Thus, each can as such be read on its own. However, all
sections are systemically interconnected. Therefore each re-enforces the others and integrated, they are meant to show the web of masculine forces that
make economics dominant towards women, Others and nature. The first three sections intend to show tha t economics sees itself as a neutral, objective,
quantitative and universal science, which does not need to be integrated in social and natural reality. The outcome of this is, however, that economics
cannot value social and environmental needs. Hence, a few individuals become very rich from
capitalising on free social and natural resources, while the health of the public and the
environment is degraded. It also is shown that the exaggerated focus on monetary wealth does not increase human happiness. It rather
leads to a deteriorating quality of life . Thus, the false belief in eternal economic growth may eventually
destroy life on planet Earth . The next section shows that economics is based on dualism, with a focus solely on yang forces. This has
serious consequences for all yin issues: For example,
the priority on individualism over community may in its
extreme form lead to self-destruction. Similarly, the priority on rationality while excluding
human emotions
may
end in greed, domination, poverty, violence and war . The next section is important as a
means to understanding “rational” economics. Its aim is to clarify the psychological meaning of money. In reality, reason and emotion are interrelated parts
of the human mind; they cannot be separated. Thus,
economic “rationality” and its focus on eternal wealth
generation are based on personal emotions like fears and inadequacies, rather than reason. The
false belief in dualism means that human beings are lying to themselves, which results in disturbed
minds, stupid actions with disastrous consequences. The focus on masculine forces is consequently psychologically unhealthy; it
leads to domination of society and nature, and will eventually destroy the world.
AT Cap is Root
Economic engagement renders women and nature invisible, outside and apart from
economic subjectivity. This makes it impossible to generate a universal struggle
against capitalism.
McMahon ’97 (Martha, Dept. of Sociology @ Univ. of Victoria, “From the Ground Up: Ecofeminism
and Ecological Economics”, Ecological Economics 20.)
Neoclassical economic man is theoretically constructed as the definer of utility and value. That
which is 'other' than economic
man is excluded from participation in this economic world as a 'subject' (capable of claiming or attributing value).
Nature is the ultimate other, devoid of subjectivity, excluded from the sphere of ends, reduced to means. 9
Under male domination, Marti Kheel (1990) notes, women and nature are not simply commodified in the way
Marx theorized male working-class labour power to have been. Rather, they are constructed as being
outside of or apart from economic relations: outside the realm of economic subjects. Val Plumwood (1993)
calls this outsideness 'backgrounding': in backgrounding, the foreground depends on the invisibility of a background. In
neoclassical economics, nature is backgrounded by being assigned no value before it acquires a use-value or
before human labour is applied. Marilyn Waring (1988) shows how the contribution and value of so much of
women's work is rendered invisible in measurements of GDP that exclude unpaid productive and
caring labour from national accounting systems. Equally disturbing, explains Brandt (1995), is how old economic
assumptions about what leads to individual and societal well-being blind people to a range of locally based, environmentally sustainable
economic alternatives.
US/LA RELATIONS
Generic - Paternalism
US Latin American policy is paternalistic and fueled by exceptionalism
Weeks 12-Professor and Chair of Political Science and Public Administration @ University of North Carolina at Charlotte, editor of the
journal the Latin Americanist [Greg, Two Weeks Notice: A Latin American Politics Blog, “Romney and Paternalism in Latin America,”
10/12/2012, http://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/2012/10/romney-and-paternalism-in-latin-america.html, DKP]
Here is an articulation of Mitt Romney's positions on Latin America. It is clearly written by someone who knows nothing about the region, and is
cloyingly paternalistic. This paragraph is a perfect illustration:¶ Latin American nations like Colombia and Brazil, which have achieved a fragile
political stability, look to the United States for essential leadership and public support in the face of these internal and external threats.¶ The
author seems not to understand that the Colombian president has thawed relations with Venezuela and is not looking to the United States for
anything. And what's up with the assertion that Brazil is fragile and needs the U.S.? Good grief. It occurred to me, though, that paternalism
underlies virtually all criticisms of Barack Obama's Latin America policy. Latin American leaders "look
to" the United States and are rudderless if the U.S. government does not give them guidance. There is a
"threat" emanating from Venezuela and only the United States can provide the civilizing power necessary
for goodness and light to once again shine. This is all a crock, of course, but it plays well in the U.S. media. The myth
of American exceptionalism requires that other nations be framed as weaker and less able than we
are. I can imagine Brazilian and Colombian leaders simply shaking their heads in disbelief about how
they are portrayed.
Dem Promo
The United States’ justification of using democracy and freedom as a justification for
liberating the ‘oppressed third world woman’ consolidates U.S hyper masculinity,
resulting in economic devastation, environmental destruction and extraction, and
indiscriminate massacres.
Mohanty 06
(Chandra Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender
Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at
Syracuse University, “US Empire and the Project of Women’s Studies: Stories of citizenship, complicity
and dissent”, Gender, Place and Culture, Vol. 13, No. 1, pp. 7–20, February 2006,
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/09663690600571209)//SK
A number of scholars including Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin (2004) conclude that since the last decades of the twentieth century, the US rules through the
mechanisms of ‘informal empire’ managing the flow of corporate capital globally across and through the borders of nation/states, as well as through military
interventions in countries that resist this form of capitalist globalization.2 However, I would argue that these
mechanisms of informal and
not violently visible empire building are predicated on deeply gendered, sexualized, and racial
ideologies that justify and consolidate the hypernationalism, hypermasculinity, and neo-liberal discourses of
‘capitalist democracy’ bringing freedom to oppressed third world peoples—especially to third world women. The US war state
mobilizes gender and race hierarchies and nationalist xenophobia in its declaration of internal and external enemies, in its construction and
consolidation of the ‘homeland security’ regime, and in its use of the checkbook and cruise missile to
protect its own economic and territorial interests. It mobilizes both languages of empire and imperialism to consolidate a militarized
regime internally as well as outside its territorial borders. Bringing ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ (or more precisely the free market) to
Afghanistan and Iraq most recently, then, has involved economic devastation, de-masculinization, destruction of
cultural, historical, natural and environmental resources, and, of course, indiscriminate massacres in
both countries . Similarly, ‘making the homeland safe’ has involved the militarization of daily life, increased surveillance and detention of immigrants, and
a culture of authoritarianism fundamentally at odds with American liberal democratic ideals. If the larger, overarching project of the US capitalist state is the
production of citizens for empire, then the citizens for democracy narrative no longer holds. Where US liberal democratic discourse posed questions about
democracy, equality, and autonomy (the American dream realized), neo-liberal, militarist discourse poses questions about the free market, global opportunity, and
the protection of US interests inside and outside its national borders. Capitalist imperialism is now militarist imperialism. Capitalist globalization is militarized
globalization.
COUNTRIES
Mexico
Systematic violence against women in Mexico is a result of globalization.
Alba and Guzman 10
(Alicia Gaspar De alba¶ with Georgina Guzman. Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera.
Professor of Chicana Studies @ UCLA. Professor of Chicana Studies @ UCSB. p.27-28)
Yet, an
important factor is constantly overlooked in the public discourse¶ about the Juarez murders. Few
relationship between¶ systematic violence against women and the changes in the
social environment¶ of the city that have allowed such violence to occur. Along Mexico’s¶ border, and especially in Ciudad Juarez, many
changes have resulted from¶ the rapid industrialization produced by Mexico’s intense participation in¶
the global economy..⁶ The unspoken element in the discourse is the multinational¶ corporations’
complicity with Mexican officials in disregarding¶ the health, safety, and security needs of the Mexican
women and girls who¶ work in the maquiladoras. Multinational corporations come into Mexico,¶ lease large plots of land, often run
seriously examine the
their factories twenty-four hours a day,¶ pay no taxes, and do very little to ensure that the workers they employ will ¶ have a roof over their heads, beds to sleep in,
and enough money to feed¶ their families.
Juarez, like many other border towns affected by NAFTA,¶ may have
factories and cheap jobs, but such employment has not enhanced peace and prosperity among the
working class; instead, hostility against the poor working women—who form the majority of those
employed by the maquiladoras —has intensified. To the activists who advocate for justice in the maquiladoras, the undeveloped¶
point that surrounds the phenomenon of the murders is the fact ¶ that the very girl whose body was found mutilated and dumped had worked ¶ hard, very hard, in
one of those factories. She was trying to improve her lot¶ in life, as well as that of her family, and no one, not even her own government, ¶ cares to take
responsibility. What about the fact that the
same attitude¶ about the murders—“We are not responsible”—is also
reflected in¶ employment policies that encourage indifference to the workers’ needs and¶ human
rights, whether in or out of the factories?¶ I argue that the Ciudad Juarez murders are an extreme
manifestation¶ of the systemic patterns of abuse, harassment, and violence against women¶ who
work in the maquiladoras —treatment that is an attributable by-product¶ of the privileges and lack of
regulation enjoyed by the investors who employ¶ them under the North American Free Trade
Agreement..⁷ I begin by¶ acknowledging the critical relationship between women, gender violence,¶ and free trade that has been noted by some scholars.
But I also seek to understand¶ how the absence of regulations to benefit workers in standard freetrade ¶ law and policy perpetuates the degradation of maquiladora
workers¶ and creates environments hostile to workingwomen’s lives, including discrimination, ¶ toxicity in the workplace, and threats of fatal assault. In “Missing ¶
the Story,” noted feminist reporter Debbie Nathan rightly criticizes¶ Senorita Extraviada for its failure to highlight the presence of the maquiladora ¶ industries and
their power to set standards of worker treatment that¶ encourage general hostility toward poor working women.
Th e unquestioned¶ right to
exploit the mostly female working poor in Mexico, combined with¶ the eff ects of rapid
industrialization, incites increased gender violence while¶ securing Mexico’s significant role in the
globalization of the economy at the¶ U.S.-Mexico border.
Border security is militarized, creating a stigma that carries over to the women who
live there, marking them as women of “dubious reputation”
Alba and Guzman 10
(Alicia Gaspar De alba¶ with Georgina Guzman. Making a Killing: Femicide, Free Trade, and La Frontera.
Professor of Chicana Studies @ UCLA. Professor of Chicana Studies @ UCSB. p.100)
Since the geopolitical demarcation between Mexico and the¶ United States was instituted, it has been
the subject of multiple interpretations¶ with generally common concerns. Mexico’s northern border
has been¶ regarded as a site of easy cultural penetration, through language, customs,¶ or lifestyles
produced by the close contact with the United States, and its¶ inhabitants have been labeled, among
other things, as sellouts, pochos, individualists,¶ people without roots, or people who lack national
identity.¶ When the border’s culture is imagined, it is conceived as “different from¶ that which
predominates in other regions,”⁵ or it is deemed “inexplicable.”⁶¶ “From Mexico City’s point of view,
the northern border is imagined as perhaps¶ the most ‘unredeemable’ of all the provinces’ representations.”⁷¶ In the United States,
this image is hardly more positive, for, since the¶ border’s inception, the United States’ expansionism has
converted Mexicans—¶ the ancient people of the region—into “the other.”⁸ Mexican otherness¶ has
been constructed as a cultural nemesis and has come to defi ne¶ everything non-Anglo-Saxon.
Expansionist politics have displayed a zeal¶ for civilizing lands distant from the center, for controlling
everything that¶ signifies barbarism: “sexuality, vice, nature, and people of color.”⁹ These first¶
impressions, along with those of Mexican intellectuals, were perpetuated in¶ texts, discourses, and public politics that were based on
notions of diff erence¶ and have since become lodged within both countries’ nationalist social¶ discourse..⁰¶ In
this construction of “perverse cities” and Ciudad Juarez’s stigmatization¶ as a border town, one of the
most pernicious stereotypes in our particular¶ case has been that of women—and not just Mexican
border women,¶ but also Anglo women. The cinema of the 1940s propagated a generalized¶ image of Anglo women as
“libertines” that continues to this day, as we will¶ see later. Nonetheless, after 1965, with the BIP now in full effect, the city started¶ to
become populated by other subjects: women who were incorporating¶ themselves into the city and the country’s productive life. Their
arrival in¶ masses produced a singular phenomenon in the people’s discourse: the maquila¶ was now
regarded as a “savior” because it took the women out of the¶ cabaret, but at the same time, there developed a stereotype of the
maquila¶ worker as a woman of dubious reputation, especially in the case of so-called¶ single mothers.
Trade agreements with Mexico turn womyn and the lower class into targets through a
"blame-the-victim" strategy that relies on gendered and classist tropes. Ignoring
gender obscures the machinations of state power and ensures the continuation of an
ongoing war over the public sphere.
Wright 11
( Melissa W. Spring 2011. Necropolitics, Narcopolitics, and Femicide: Gendered Violence on the MexicoU.S. Border. Departments of Geography and Women’s Studies, Pennsylvania State University.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/657496)
In 1993, a group of women shocked Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, with the news that
dozens of girls and women had been murdered and dumped,
like garbage, around the city during the year.
As the numbers of murders grew over the years, and as the police forces proved unable and unwilling to find the
perpetrators, the protestors became activists. They called the violence and consequent impunity for the crimes “femicide,” and they demanded that the Mexican government, at the local, state, and federal levels, stop the violence
and prosecute the murderers.¶ Nearly two decades later, the city’s infamy as a place of femicide is giving way to another terrible reputation, now as a place of unprecedented drug violence. Since 2006, more than six thousand
people have died in the city, and more than twenty-eight thousand across the country, in relation to the violence associated with the restructuring of the cartels that control the production and distribution of illegal drugs across
Mexico. As with the femicides, the principal targets of the violence associated with the drug trade come from the city’s working poor, whose productive labor established Ciudad Juárez’s reputation as a profitable hub of global
In response to the public outcry against the violence, the
Mexican government has deployed thousands of troops to numerous cities, Ciudad Juárez being prominent among them, as part of a
military strategy to secure the state against the cartels. The violence has worsened under the army’s presence, however, with the
city becoming one of the most violent in the world (Mora 2009; Miglierini 2010). Moreover, domestic and international human rights organizations have documented
industrialization in the era of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).¶
record-breaking numbers of human and civil rights violations on the part of Mexican federal forces (LaFranchi 2009; Human Rights Watch 2010). As a result, the Mexican federal government is facing a political crisis as debates
ensue over the meaning of the violence for the viability of the Mexican state. On one side, growing numbers of people are declaring that the violence represents, as the noted Mexican historian Víctor Orozco (2009) has written, “a
failure of state.” On the other, supporters of the president and his governing coalition claim that the violence demonstrates the state’s success in disrupting the drug trade, such that the increase in violence directly reflects an
“a war of
interpretations” is central to the state’s response to the violence, an argument first made (as he notes) by the
increase in state power (Wilkinson 2008). These debates reveal how, as the Mexican public scholar, activist, and Chihuahua legislator Victor Quintana (2010) has recently written,
antifemicide activists who called the government’s response to the femicides tantamount to a war
against civil society (Wright 2006, 151–70). At the heart of such wars lies the question, Do the dead bodies in Ciudad Juárez’s streets indicate a failing state, as the activists argue, or a stronger one, as the
government contends? To address that question, I argue that the politics over the meaning of the drug-related murders and femicide
must be understood in relation to gendered violence and its use as a tool for securing the state.¶ To that end, I
examine the wars over the interpretation of death in northern Mexico through the concept of necropolitics as elaborated by the postcolonial scholar Achille Mbembe. Mbembe defines necropolitics to be politics as a “work of
death” (2003, 12), which he presents as a corrective complement to Michel Foucault’s widely used idea of biopolitics (Mbembe 2002). Foucault argues that modern liberal governance differed from previous absolutist versions in
that it controlled the population not through the threat of death but through techniques for controlling living populations. Biopolitics, he writes, consists of “numerous and diverse techniques for achieving the subjugations of
” (Foucault 1979, 140). The justification for modern governments, he continues, rests on the reproduction of living subjects. While using Foucault’s argument as a point of departure, Mbembe
bodies and the control of populations
argues that biopolitics is not sufficient for explaining how the threat of violent death continues to prevail as a technique of governance in contemporary settings, and he challenges Foucault’s reliance on Western European
examples to develop his theory of the kinship binding the production of states to the reproduction of their subjects. Mbembe instead draws examples from the more politically volatile states of the postcolonial context to insist that
they provide insights through which we can understand politics as a form of war in which the sovereign emerges through the determination of who dies or who does not die and, therefore, lives. Mbembe, however, employs
Foucault’s analysis to turn attention to how the meaning of death in necropolitics, like the meaning of life in biopolitics, emerges through interpretations of embodiment—of corpses, of who kills, and of who is targeted for death.
Biopolitics is intimately wound into necropolitics, since governments protect the lives of some by justifying the deaths of others (Braidotti 2007). Thus, he argues, addressing “the relationship between politics and death” is essential
for understanding how states emerge through the reproduction of death, including its meaning and representation, as the counterpart to life (Mbembe 2003, 16 ).1¶ With this concept of necropolitics in mind, I examine how the
wars over the political meaning of death in relation both to femicide and to the events called drug violence unfold through a gendering of space, of violence, and of subjectivity. My objective is twofold: first, to demonstrate how
the antifemicide movement illustrates the stakes for a democratic Mexican state and its citizens while governing elites argue that the violence devastating Ciudad Juárez is a positive outcome of the government’s war against
a politics of gender is central to this kind of necropolitics. I am not the first feminist theorist to point out that gender politics are foundational not
the formation of the liberal democratic institutions that emerged out of the destruction of absolutist states but also to the organization of states as the legitimate
arbiters of violence (Landes 1988; Melzer and Rabine 1992; McMillan 2009). For instance, as historian Joan Landes has written, “a pervasive gendering of the
organized crime; and second, to show how
only to
public sphere” operates as a “mechanism of violence” for defining and controlling the modern liberal
subject around the exclusion of “the feminine” from the public sphere of politics, economy, and
culture
(1988, 2).
Gender,
in other words
, is central to the violent dynamics linking the production of states to
the reproduction of their subjects . As the proliferation of gendered violence around the world
indicates, this kind of violence is constitutive of necropolitics: the politics of death and the politics of
gender go hand in hand (United Nations 2006). As the antifemicide movement clearly demonstrates, however, the neglect of gender so prevalent in discussions such as
Mbembe’s
limits the political possibilities for subverting the relations of power reproduced through
gendered necropolitics as people encounter the violence of gender in their daily lives (Ahmetbeyzade 2008).2¶ The relevance of these issues for contemporary Mexico and for the governance of
its shared border with its northern neighbor has surfaced repeatedly in my research into the antifemicide movement in Ciudad Juárez over the past twelve years and, more recently, in my studies of the experience of statesponsored militarization along the Mexico-U.S. border. Several authors have published extensively on the antifemicide movement.3 However, no work to date has analyzed the movement in relation to the challenges for organizing
against the government’s response, or lack of response, to what is commonly called drug violence. Drawing on interviews I conducted with political, corporate, and activist leaders, as well as on ethnographic material collected in
2004, I present a discourse analysis arguing that the connections between the two antiviolence movements are essential to understanding and confronting the violence that the movements combat. Because of the present
escalation of violence and attacks against scholars, activists, and civic leaders in Ciudad Juárez, I have taken extra precautions to hide the identities of some key informants. Many Mexican journalists are no longer signing their own
articles, and many scholars are refusing to publish their findings for fear of violent reprisal (Castillo 2010).4 For this reason, the analysis here also relies more heavily on newspaper accounts for interview material than is usual in my
work. A study of the necropolitics of gendered violence could not be more timely, as the activists and scholars struggling against governing justifications for the deaths in northern Mexico find their own lives in danger. ¶
Cuba
Influx of foreign capital into Cuba produces economic inequality and forces
prostitution
Cabezas 04
Amalia L. Cabezas, Department of Women’s Studies in the University of California, Riverside. Between
Love and Money: Sex, Tourism, and Citizenship in Cuba and the Dominican Republic: Signs, Vol. 29, No. 4
2004
At the end of the 1980s, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the socialist trading bloc obliged Cuba to move
quickly from state‐controlled central planning to a mixed‐market economy that emphasizes social
welfare. As with its neoliberal Dominican neighbor, the Cuban state has implemented neoclassical economic reforms,
including the general retrenchment of the state, a move toward export‐oriented zones,
implementation of incentives to attract foreign capital, privatization of utilities, and labor
restructuring (Susman 1998). Notwithstanding these radical and contradictory changes, the state has continued to support an
infrastructure that stresses social well‐being and that acts as a safety net for the most vulnerable
segments of society. As Paul Susman asserts, “what makes the Cuban response to crisis conditions so interesting is that it appears to accept many
capitalist economic practices, but with restrictions aimed at maintaining its commitment to socialism” (Susman 1998, 185). Despite a tightening of the U.S.
embargo that has caused resource scarcities, epidemics, and shortages of food and medicine, Cuba has held fast to its health and educational programs, continuing
to make them universally available. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, “social indicators for Cuba continue to be
4
outstanding in comparison to the regional average, despite the economic difficulties the country has been experiencing since 1989.” But the
dollarization
of the economy has spawned new social classes and inequality, which for the first time in more than
forty years have fueled the reintroduction of two vile vestiges of the old capitalist social order—
internal prostitution among Cubans and the reinstitution of domestic services. The rapid move to a mixed‐market
system during the past ten years, coupled with the dollarization of the economy, has resulted in an inverted social pyramid that privileges workers in the tourist
industries over professionals in all other economic sectors.
Cuba’s high dependence on tourism opens up the way for tour guides to solicit sex to
visitors
Cabezas 04
Amalia L. Cabezas, Department of Women’s Studies in the University of California, Riverside. Between
Love and Money: Sex, Tourism, and Citizenship in Cuba and the Dominican Republic: Signs, Vol. 29, No. 4
2004
The tourism industry is the primary economic development strategy in both Cuba and the Dominican Republic, creating local direct employment as well as a number
of other multiplier effects within both countries (Harrison 1992).11 Identified as the
most significant “social impact” of tourism,
tourist‐oriented prostitution, known as sex tourism, is a growing phenomenon with far‐reaching
social, political, and economic implications for countries that depend heavily on tourism. Both tourism and remittances represent the
major earnings for the state, signifying a continual reliance on former colonial powers and outside forces for economic stability.12 The lack of viable
work and the dependence on foreign exchange drive young men and women to migrate to tourist
areas to earn a living. Sex with tourists is one of a broad spectrum of services and activities in which people engage to procure earnings. But sex
tourism is not just about sex and money; it is about other kinds of opportunities as well. Liaisons with
tourists provide recourse to get by and to get ahead: not just to supplement low wages but also to procure opportunities for recreation,
consumption, travel, migration, and marriage. Because of these opportunities, any liaison, sexual or
not, is perceived as a potential boon for the local participant. Therefore, sex tourism is more than an
illicit activity; it involves socially acceptable behaviors and values . It is a contingent and open‐ended activity whose blurred
boundaries are intertwined with elements of romance, leisure, consumption, travel, and marriage. While many of the participants in the sexual economy trade
sexual services for cash, many others do not. outlaws.
Increasing Cuba’s connection to the global political economy disproportionally harms
women.
Weissman 11
(Research professor of law at the University of North Carolina School of Law “Feminism in the Global Political Economy: Contradiction and
Consensus in Cuba” Baltimore Law Review pg 237 27 September 2011
http://law.ubalt.edu/academics/publications/lawreview/volumes/6_Weissman.41.2.pdf DA: 2013-7-9)
The globalization of feminism enabled Cuban women to employ ¶ strategies to reduce the possibilities of creating a false dichotomy ¶ between
national interests or identities and gender interests or ¶ identities. International relationships and transnational networks ¶ facilitated the
development of broader discourses around issues of ¶ concern to Cuban women. At the same time, the consequences of a ¶ dominant
neoliberal global political economy have contributed to the ¶ reversal of some gains and created
disproportionate burdens borne by ¶ Cuban women in day-to-day life. These setbacks confirm feminist ¶ scholarship that
has argued that globalization is not a gender-neutral ¶ phenomenon.¶ 97 Women throughout the world have
¶ disproportionately suffered bleak working conditions, forced ¶ migration, sex and labor trafficking,
changes to family structures, and ¶ violence as a consequence of the processes of global capitalism.¶ 98
This is a decision rule – we must place values over survival, especially in the context of
contemporary human slavery that takes the form of human trafficking.
Schmitz 2004 (Joseph E., Inspector General of the Department of Defense, “Implementing the Department of Defense “Zero
Tolerance” Policy With Regard to Trafficking in Humans”, http://www.dodig.mil/fo/JES_TIP_Testimony_092104.pdf)
A more fundamental answer might be that to
confront modern day human slavery forces us all to focus on “first
things first,” that is, we need to focus on the principles that are worth fighting for, in order that we
might better focus on “second things,” which include survival. “[T]he principle of ‘first and second things,’ as C. S.
Lewis calls it . . . [is] that when second things are put first, not only first things but second things too are lost. More exactly, when there are
greater goods, or ultimate ends and proximate ends, if we put lesser goods, like survival, before greater goods, like values to survive for, then
we lose not only the greater goods, the values, but even the lesser goods that we’ve idolized . . . . [T]he
society that believes in
nothing worth surviving for beyond mere survival will not survive.”5 Our currently available legislative tools for
suppressing human trafficking include, of course, the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 and its 2003 reauthorization,
which together prescribe a model “zero tolerance” standard not only for all Americans but for our Western Alliance partners as well. There is
another legislative tool for combating trafficking in persons, less known but equally potent for those of us serving in the Department of
Defense, known as the “Exemplary Conduct” leadership standard.
Venezuela
Neoliberalism’s increasing presence in Venezuela increases the amount of patriarchy
in Venezuela.
Motta 13
Sara C. Motta, Latin American Perspectives 2013 40: 35, “''We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For''
: The Feminization of Resistance in Venezuela” (Sara C. Motta is a senior lecturer in politics at the
University of Newcastle in Australia.) JU
Women-headed households, informal unions, and single motherhood were common, and such households tended to be among the poorest even during the
petrodollar boom of the 1970s. This system began to disintegrate with the economic downturn initiated by Black Friday in 1983. Poverty rates climbed, and by 1996
65 percent of Venezuelans lived in poverty. The
implementation of neoliberal policies after 1989 reinforced the
gendered nature of inequality and exclusion and, in Venezuela as elsewhere, resulted in a marked and
increas- ing feminization of poverty (rantala, 2009: 6). Urban shantytowns such as La Vega have a high
concentration of feminized poverty, but they also have rich histories of struggle characterized by the
high participation of women—many of them single mothers facing the double bur- den of domestic
and informal labor (motta, 2009; 2011a; Ontiveros, 2008: 91-93; ramírez, 2007). Through these experiences women ensured
their survival and created sociability and solidarity for themselves and their dependents. The structures of
solidarity formed in these struggles were characterized by suspi- cion and often rejection of political parties (of both the Punto Fijo and the left) and suspicion of the
state for its exclusionary and gendered political culture and institutionalization of power and privilege. At the same time, they were heavily influenced by traditions
of direct democracy and community-led change and cultures shaped by liberation theology and popular education. This resulted in processes that politicized the
everyday, community, and family (Fernandes, 2010; motta, 2009; 2011a).
LABOR
Neutrality- Value V waste
Their affirmative assumes a neutral form of labor that gains value as it gains skill however the female body is an inherent state of wasting. The aff performs this
wasting through reiterating the narrative of cultural victimization.
Wright 11
( Melissa W. Spring 2011. Disposable Women¶ and Other Myths of¶ Global Capitalism. Departments of
Geography and Women’s Studies, Pennsylvania State University. p.101-102)
In a March 1999 interview, a research psychiatrist from Texas Tech¶ University who specializes in serial murders commented to the El¶ Paso
Times that these Juárez murderers “tend to ‘discard’ their victims¶ once they get what they want from them” (Stack and Valdez¶ 1999). Such a
vision of the Mexican woman as inevitably disposable¶ is common to both the murder and the turnover narratives. At
the¶ heart of
these seemingly disparate story lines is the crafting of the¶ Mexican woman as a figure whose value
can be extracted from her,¶ whether it be in the form of her virtue, her organs, or her efficiency¶ on
the production floor. And once “they,” her murderers or her supervisors,¶ “get what they want from” her, she is discarded.¶ The vision
of her disposability, the likelihood that this condition¶ could exist in a human being, is what is so valuable to those who¶ extract what they want
from her. When she
casts the shadow of the¶ consummate disposable laborer whose labor power is not
even worth¶ the expense of its own social reproduction, she is a utopian image.¶ In this particular
manifestation, the Mexican woman is the utopian¶ image of a culturally victimized variation of labor who guarantees her¶ replacement—after
being worn down by repetitive stress syndrome,¶ migraines, or harassment over pregnancies—with fresh recruits who¶ are, perhaps, leaving
another place of employment for one of the same¶ reasons. That the same women are turning over as they move from¶ one place to another
does not disrupt the utopian image of their constant¶ decline as part of their progression toward disposability. Quite¶ to the contrary, their
value circulates through their continual flow¶ from one factory to the next, since as a woman leaves one place of¶ work, perhaps having been
dismissed for missing a menstrual period,¶ and then enters another once her menstrual flow resumes, she again¶ represents value. Her
fluctuation between value and waste is part of¶ her appeal for her employer.¶ This image of her as the subject formed in the flux between
waste¶ and value provides her contours as a variation of capital. With such a¶ constitution, she can be nothing other than a temporary worker,
one¶ whose intrinsic value does not mature, grow, and increase over time.¶ And therefore, as a group, Mexican women represent the
permanent¶ labor force of the temporarily employed. The individual instances¶ of this subject come and go as women deemed wasteful to a
firm’s¶ project are replaced by new recruits. Her cultural constitution is¶ internally driven and immune to any diversionary attempts by the¶
industry to put Mexican women on a different path. Instead, she will¶ repeat the pattern like women before her and perpetuate the problem¶
of turnover so valuable to the maquilas.¶ Such a utopian image of the Mexican woman as a figure permanently¶ and ineluctably headed toward
decline, always promising that¶ her labor power will be worth less than the cost of her own social¶ reproduction, evokes Benjamin’s elaboration
of the fetish. Benjamin¶ renovated Marx’s analogy of the fetish as phantasmagoria to refer not¶ only to the social relations of the market
embedded in the commodity¶ but also to the social relations of representation that were sustained in¶ the commodity. According to Susan
Buck-Morss (1989, 82), Benjamin’s¶ concern with “urban phantasmagoria was not so much the commodity-¶ in-the-market as the commodityon-display.” Benjamin’s point is¶ that the mechanics of representation are as critical to the creation of¶ value as the actual exchange of use
values in the marketplace.¶ The fetish of the Mexican woman as waste-in-the-making offers¶ evidence for Benjamin’s view of the fetish as an
entity “on display.”¶
really
As a figure of waste, she represents the possibility of a human existence¶ that is
worthless, and this representation is valuable in and of itself.
condition, then she opens up a number of valuable possibilities for¶ numerous people.
perhaps
If we really can see and believe in her wasted¶
For the managers of the maquiladora
industry, her worthlessness means they can count on the temporary labor force¶ that they need in
order to remain competitive in a global system of¶ flexible production. The image of the murder
victims —many of them¶ former maquila employees abducted on their commutes between¶ home and work— also represents
value for the industry as cultural¶ victims.
Through the descriptions of Mexican cultural violence,¶ jealous machismo, and
female sexuality, maquiladora exculpation¶ finds its backing.
No degree of investment in public infrastructure¶ to
improve transportation routes, finance lighting on streets, boost¶ public security, or hold seminars in
the workplace will make any¶ difference . Others can also benefit from the widespread and believable¶ representation of the
Mexican woman as waste-in-the-making.¶ The perpetrators of serial murders, domestic violence, and random¶ violence against women can
count on a lack of public outrage and¶ on official insouciance with regard to their capture. And the city and¶ state officials in Chihuahua who
are concerned about their political¶ careers under the public scrutiny of their effectiveness in curbing¶ crime can defer responsibility .
The
stories of this wasting and wasted figure must always be told¶ since , to adapt Butler’s calculation to my purposes,
the naming of her¶ as waste is also “the repeated inculcation of the norm”
(Butler 1993,¶ 8).
The
repetitive telling of the wasting woman in the turnover and¶ murder stories is requisite because of
her ambiguity: the waste is never¶ stable or complete . The possibility of her value—of fingers still
flexible¶ or of a murdered young woman who was cherished by many—¶ lurks in the background, and
so the sorting continues as we search for¶ evidence of the wasted value. Her dialectic constitution is suspended¶
through the pitting of the two antithetical conditions that she invariably¶ embodies. We find this dialectic condition through the questions¶
that ask, Is she worthy of our concern? Are her fingers nimble or stiff,¶ her attitude pliant or angry, her habits chaste or wild? Through the¶
posing of such questions, her ambiguity is sorted as if it were always¶ present for the sorting. Meanwhile, she hangs in the balance.
Wasting DA
Their “neutral” view of labor obscures the fact that gender marks women as
disposable workers who can only lose worth over time.
Wright 11 ( Melissa W. Spring 2011. Disposable Women¶ and Other Myths of¶ Global Capitalism.
Departments of Geography and Women’s Studies, Pennsylvania State University. p.87)
“Turnover” refers to the coming and going of workers into and¶ out of jobs, and it often comes up during interviews in relation to the¶ problem
of worker unreliability. Industry analysts and administrators¶ cite turnover as an impediment to a complete transformation of the¶ maquila
sector from a low-skilled and labor-intensive industry to one¶ with more sophisticated procedures staffed by highly skilled workers¶ (see
Villalobos, Beruvides, and Hutchinson 1997). Workers who¶ turn over, that is, who do not demonstrate job loyalty, are not good¶ prospects for
the training necessary for creating a skilled base. This¶ form of variable capital is therefore the temporary kind. However,¶ the turnover
problem has not completely inhibited the development¶ of a higher technological base in the maquilas since some workers are¶ not of the
turnover variety. Training programs, combined with an¶ emphasis on inculcating loyalty among workers, have created a twotiered¶ system
within maquila firms for distinguishing between the¶ “untrainable” and “trainable” workers.
differentiating between these worker brands.¶
Gender is a critical marker¶ for
Benjamin provides a good point of departure for this feminist¶ interrogation
into one of Marx’s staple concerns: the dehumanizing¶ process behind forming variable capital, which, he writes, “converts¶ the worker into a
crippled monstrosity” (Marx 1977, 481). Through¶ the image of dialectical stillness, Benjamin helps explain
how this¶ process
involves the creation of not only value at the worker’s expense¶ but also a value that is valorized only
insofar as it is counterposed to¶ what it is not: waste. The kinship between discourse and materiality¶
is key. In the maquilas, managers depict women as untrainable laborers;¶ Mexican women represent
the workers of declining value since¶ their intrinsic value never appreciates into skill but instead
dissipates¶ over time. Their value is used up, not enhanced . Consequently, the¶ Mexican woman personifies wastein-the-making, as the materials of¶ her body gain shape through the discourses that explain how she is¶ untrainable, unskillable, and always a
temporary worker.3¶ Meanwhile,
her antithesis—the masculine subject—emerges as¶ the emblem of that other
kind of variable capital whose value appreciates¶ over time. He is the trainable and potentially skilled
employee¶ who will support the high-tech transformation of the maquila sector¶ into the twenty-first
century. He maintains his value as he changes¶ and develops in a variety of ways. She, however, is stuck in the endless¶
loop of her decline. Her life is stilled as her departure from the¶ workplace represents the corporate death that results logically from¶
her demise, since at some point the accumulation of the waste within¶ her will offset the value of her labor. And after she leaves
one factory,¶ she typically enters another and begins anew the debilitating journey¶ of labor
turnover.¶
The wasting of the Mexican woman, therefore, represents a value¶ in and of itself to capital in at least two respects. First, she
establishes¶ the standard for recognizing the production of value in people and in¶ things: value appreciates in what she is not. Second, she
incorporates¶ flexibility into the labor supply through her turnover. To use Judith¶ Butler’s formulation,
this process reveals how
discourses of the subject¶ are not confined to the nonmaterial realm or easily shunted off¶ as the
“merely cultural” (Butler 1997a). Rather, and as I endeavor to¶ show here, the managerial discourses of
noninvolvement in the serial¶ murders of young female employees are indeed linked to the
materialization¶ of turnover as a culturally driven and waste-ridden phenomenon¶ attached to
Mexican femininity. The link is the value that¶ the wasting of the Mexican woman—through both her
literal and her¶ corporate deaths—represents for those invested in the discourse of¶ her as a cultural
victim immune to any intervention.¶ In what follows, I begin by describing some of the stories commonly¶ told to provide
explanation for the murders. I then present an¶ analysis of the turnover narratives.
The discourse surrounding the maquila workers refigures our narrative of all
marginalized women. It is crucial to make connections between the women of Juarez
and labor conditions worldwide.
Wright 11
(Melissa W. Spring 2011. Disposable Women¶ and Other Myths of¶ Global Capitalism. Departments of
Geography and Women’s Studies, Pennsylvania State University. p. 180)
¶ In
1999, when I first published the essay that constitutes this chapter, a¶ crime wave against women in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, was just
gaining¶ international attention. At that time, more than a hundred women¶ and girls had been murdered, many of them tortured and
discarded¶ in the city’s marginal areas, since 1993. There is evidence, however,¶ that this violence and dumping of female bodies in the desert
began¶ years earlier (Monárrez 2005). At the time of this writing in 2006, that¶ number has increased at least twofold, and hundreds of other
women¶ and girls are missing. I have chosen to reprint this essay in its original¶ version rather than to revise it to account for events that have
occurred¶ in the last several years. I provide a more updated version in chapter 7¶ of the events surrounding the crimes and the social
movement that has¶ grown as a protest to the violence against women in northern Mexico.¶ In this chapter, however,
I keep my focus
on the connections linking¶ a discourse of third world female disposability to the forces that treat
women as if they were real instances of disposable humanity.¶ Here I make these connections between
the internal dynamics of factory¶ production and the urban violence that has, over the last twenty¶ years,
transformed Ciudad Juárez into one of the most violent cities, especially for women, in the Western Hemisphere. In doing so,¶ I
revisit some of the themes discussed in previous chapters, particularly¶ with regard to the discourses of an essential feminine condition¶ and
the high labor turnover that derives from it, and relate them to¶ events occurring beyond the factory walls. My intent is to illustrate¶ how
the myth of a disposable third world woman worker travels outside of the
global
factory system and
interacts, often in extremely cruel ways, with other stories that degrade women, especially those
who work for low wages around the world . Perhaps, my biggest hope¶ for this chapter is to dispel any doubt regarding the
innocence of the¶ myth of the disposable third world woman and to set the scene for¶ the following chapters, in which I discuss how many
people expose¶ the tale for what it is and fight against its many dangers.¶ In this chapter, I shall use Walter Benjamin’s notion of a dialectical¶
image to examine the figure of the Mexican woman worker¶ formed within the narrative of her general disposability.1 The dialectical¶ image is
one whose apparent stillness obscures the tensions¶ that actually hold it in suspension. It is a caesura forged by clashing¶ forces. With this
dialectical image in mind, I
see the Mexican woman¶ depicted in the murder narratives as a life stilled by the
discord of¶ value pitted against waste. I focus on the narrative image of her,¶ rather than on the lives of the murder victims, to
reveal the intimate¶ connection binding these stilled lives to the reproduction of value in¶ the maquiladoras located in Ciudad Juárez. Through
a comparison¶ of a maquiladora narrative of categorical disavowal of responsibility¶ for the violence with another maquila narrative explaining
the¶ mundane problem of labor turnover, the Mexican woman freezes as¶ a subject stilled by the tensions linking the two tales.
DRUG TRAFFICKING
WOD
The presumption of rational male actors and gendering of public space results in a
passive citizenry in the name of social stability.
Wright 11
Melissa W. Spring 2011. Necropolitics, Narcopolitics, and Femicide: Gendered Violence on the MexicoU.S. Border. Departments of Geography and Women’s Studies, Pennsylvania State University.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/65749
¶ The U.S.
government, despite its initial warnings that the violence represented a threat to civilians, has since begun to corroborate the
Mexican government’s story of success against the cartels. For instance, in a recent Voice of America report, the director of national
intelligence, Dennis Blair, assured, “Mexico is in no danger of becoming a failed state. The violence we see now is the result of Mexico taking
action against the drug cartels. So it is in fact the result of positive moves, which the Mexican government has taken to break the baneful
influence that many of these cartels have had on many aspects of Mexican government and Mexican life” (Homeland Security Newswire2009).
Blair’s statement was recently echoed by the U.S. deputy assistant secretary for counternarcotics, who announced, “We firmly believe the
Mexican government is taking the steps that it needs to take and is being quite courageous as it confronts a significant problem. … The Mexican
people are paying a very high price because drug-fueled organized crime groups are killing each other. But I believe, and I think the Mexican
government believes, that only through this sort of very effective, systematic work can they retake the streets” (Whitesides 2009). Again,
more violence on the streets means more security, and based on its confidence in the Mexican
military strategy the U.S. government has authorized the largest military aid package to Mexico in the
history of the two countries.¶ The Mexican government urges faith in its rationality argument through direct communications with
citizens, like a 2009 advisory issued by the Department of Municipal Civil Protection in Chihuahua City. Titled “How to Behave with Hit Men and
in Shootouts,” the advisory assures, “Although it may seem incredible, the hit men never confuse [their targets] upon making sure that the
[intended] victims are in the car. In case they doubt it, they prefer to stop the car to make sure. And if the person is not the one they are
looking for, then they will let him [or her] go” (Quezada Barrón 2009, A1; translation mine). According to the newspaper coverage of this report,
the advisory urges its readers to stop their cars, raise their hands, and comply with the hit men’s instructions, which may include providing
identification and other personal information. It also reminds the reader that those who owe nothing have nothing to fear (A1). As the
newspaper account explains, the advisory offers further advice for people who are stopped by military patrols, which is identical to the advice
for how to behave with hit men. People are advised to stop their cars, raise their hands, and provide identification upon request.
Soldiers,
like narco hit men, are rational actors and will only take you if you have given them a reason to do
so .23 At no point does the communiqué advise people to contact authorities, to request identification from those
stopping them, to resist, to scream, or to do anything but freeze and calmly comply.¶ The government
communiqué illustrates a key element of necropolitics as described by Mbembe when he observes that the power
of the state materializes in the struggles of armed gangs pitted against armed soldiers, all targeting
the civilian population, designated as such by their unarmed status . But it also reveals
necropolitics that Mbembe leaves unaddressed,
the role of gender in creating,
as Landes identifies,
an aspect of
a mechanism of
violence fundamental to the concept of rational states and subjects. The gendering of public and
private space creates the social and political context that gives rise to the rational men, whether in
soldiers’ units or narco gangs, who carry guns as evidence of social and political stability .¶ At the time of
this writing, the most concerted critique of Mexican necropolitics is developing in a protest against the president’s reaction to a January 31,
2010, massacre of teenagers at a residential birthday party. In response to the news of the carnage the president announced that the violence
appeared to be the result of “a rivalry between gangs” (Ellingwood 2010). Protests immediately erupted in the city as the families of the victims
refuted the accusation, and they grew as activists joined the families in impromptu press conferences that captured headlines around the world
(Cardona 2010). Through their protests, the story of impunity gained strength against the government’s story of narcos killing narcos, and the
Calderón administration organized a meeting between the president and the protestors in the city. President Calderón’s arrival was met with
further protests, led largely by victims’ families. Several mothers of the slain children stood with their backs to the president and received
boisterous applause when one yelled out: “Enough with your war!” (Wilkinson 2010).¶
The distinction between US/Mexican forces fighting drug trafficking and narcoterrorist violence is a false one. Fighting drug trafficking intensifies an ongoing war
against civilians in LA.
Wright 11
Melissa W. Spring 2011. Necropolitics, Narcopolitics, and Femicide: Gendered Violence on the MexicoU.S. Border. Departments of Geography and Women’s Studies, Pennsylvania State University.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/65749
However, shortly after the United States expressed concerns that Mexico was on the verge of becoming a failed
state, the newly elected President Felipe Calderon declared “war” against the cartels (Debusmann 2009). Within the year, he deployed thousands of
troops to Ciudad Juárez, among other cities, and vowed to quash any doubts regarding the strength of the Mexican state. Since then, the violence has only
intensified, each year revealing more horrific murders than the previous, with the body count
surpassing all records since the 1910 Revolutionary era.¶ As the violence worsens, civil and human rights activists, many of them from antifemicide organizations,
have challenged the government’s story of rational drug violence with the narrative of impunity . Their story
is the same as the one told as part of the antifemicide activism: they contest the government’s claims that the victims are guilty of the crimes perpetrated against them and that the violence
Rather than a violence that could be justified as cleansing society of
criminals, activists have pointed to the violence as evidence of the government’s complicity in
creating the conditions for it to occur in the first place. As one scholar and activist explained in a May 2008 interview, “They try to say that the
illustrates an intrinsic logic (Human Rights Watch 2010).
narcos only kill each other. That’s a lie. But people have believed it because it gives false assurances.”19 While the activists do not articulate an explicitly gendered discourse, as when
confronting the government’s story of public women, they nevertheless critique the intrinsically masculinist analysis of the violence as the work of rational acctors. As the informant above put
it, “Really what we have are a bunch of crazy men with guns and a state that lets them get away with it. And
violence by narcos and the violence by the soldiers.
“
we can’t tell the difference between the
What we do know is that the victims are not guilty.” As another informant explained,
There is no difference right now between the troops and the narcos. They both have guns and point
them at civilians. That’s all the logic we have here. That is our state .”20 Or another: “If someone tells me to freeze, then I’ll freeze. I
don’t need to know if its anarco or a soldier. Right now, they are the same. We have nothing but impunity for criminals, and so the state is a criminal too.”21¶ In May 2009, in a call to protest
sparked by the murder of a popular university professor, Manuel Arroyo Galván, organizers sharply resisted the government’s lumping of the murder into the category of narcoviolence. “Meny
[Manuel Arroyo] was not involved. He is not guilty of anything. He was another innocent killed in this city full of death, full of corpses, full of fear. We are a city dying in fear and sadness,”
explained another scholar in a phone conversation in June 2009. In the days after Dr. Arroyo’s murder, protestors organized a march to challenge the explanation of his death as evidence of
another criminal taken care of by narcoviolence. Protesters pushed the message of impunity: “We demand justice for all of the murders, kidnappings, and the state of impunity that we suffer
in this city!” one activist Web site declared.22¶ Still, even with the protests mounting against the discourse of a rational, businesslike narcoviolence, political leaders from the president to the
The general in
charge of the government’s military strategy for the state of Chihuahua even boasted to activists who protested the military’s killing of some fourteen people in
a public shootout that “there are 14 fewer delinquents” (La Jornada 2008). He then went on to dismiss the activists as too soft for the hard
business of fighting a war. The gendered undertone of his dismissal was not lost on many activists. However, as protests
and reports of impunity began to have an impact, political leaders have added a new twist to their story, explaining that the
current upsurge in violence represents success of the federal government’s war that has disrupted the
quiet coveted by the criminal business leaders. As the federal Attorney General Eduardo Medina told a BBC interviewer in 2008, the violence is
indicative of the success that the military presence is having in various Mexican cities (BBC News 2008). Thus, the old discourse of the violence as
Ciudad Juárez mayor stuck to their story, repeating in interview after interview that the narcos are killing each other off (BBC News 2008; Wilkinson 2008).
stemming from sources internal to the drug trade has changed to one that identifies the violence as
stemming from government actions that have disrupted the trade . The benefits, however, remain the same. As the mayor of Ciudad
Juárez explained to the Los Angeles Times, the drug war “will end only when both sides have ended up killing each other [off]” (Wilkinson 2008). And then there will be no more violence.
US immigration policies on the Mexican border are meant to stabilize the dichotomy
between “North” and “South”.
Ramlow 06
Todd R., “Bodies in the Borderlands: Gloria Anzaluda's and David Wojnarowicz's Mobility Machines,”
MELUS, Volume: 31(3), Fall, p. 171-172 MI
Today, however, after nearly twenty years of US immigration policies, neoliberal economic transactions, and never-ending
revisiting of politics based on the perception of drug trafficking (narco-politics), we can see how those borderlands
have been the subject of state and citizen anxieties. The defining condition of border politics today is the
maintenance of a violent distinction between "North" and "South," between "Us/US" and "Them."
Since the 1990s, the US government's Operation Gatekeeper (1994), Operation Hold the Line (1995),
Operation Rio Grande (1998), and Operation Safeguard (1999), have steadily increased INS and military
patrolling of the US/Mexico border from Brownsville/Matamoros to San Ysidro/Tijuana. This focused attention to policing
the borderlands has been given spectacular visual representation in the military fences erected literally on the
border, and in the case of the San Ysidro/Tijuana fence, built, tellingly, of armor plating cast off from the first Persian Gulf War.
This upswing in Homeland Security surveillance has done little to alter illegal immigration patterns,
however, despite the fact that crossing northward has become increasingly deadly. The drive of the US government to
"secure" this border, and its repeated failures to do so, make Anzaldia's border theory and mestiza consciousness, and
Wojnarowicz's extensions of the same, more urgent than ever and might help us find, or re-imagine, alternatives to
ineffective institutional violence in the US/Mexico borderlands.
The drug war is a proxy war against Latin America, fueling dozens of regional conflicts
around the world which will grow into major world wars.
Mooers 6
Collin, THE NEW IMPERIALISTS: IDEOLOGIES OF EMPIRE, Chapter 6, Chair of the Department of Politics and School
of Public Adminstration at Ryerson University, Toronto MI
The demise of the formal territorial empires in the second half of the twentieth century and the consequent decoupling of political power from
the extensive reach of capital accumulation has posed special advantages and problems of its own. For the American empire, from Woodrow
Wilson onward, it was taken for granted that economic prosperity could be secured without territorial aggrandizement.5 The
lack of a
formal empire has allowed the American state to present itself to the world as a non- or even antiimperialist power. It has been able to “conceal its imperial ambition in an abstract universalism . . . to
deny the significance of territory and geography altogether in the articulation of imperial power.”6 But
policing U.S. interests has had its own costs and perils. The dogma of economic “openness”7 was dependent on either
the cooperation of compliant local regimes or, failing that, an increasing number of “small wars”
which, as one recent champion of such conflicts admits, “might as well be called imperial wars.”8 In
the twentieth century alone, it is estimated that the United States sent troops or sponsored local
forces to fight in sixty such “small wars.” The hazard of “small wars” of empire is that they can turn
into major ones, resulting in the perennial danger of “imperial overreach” as happened most
spectacularly for the U.S. in Vietnam. American defeat at the hands of the Vietnamese famously established the conditions for
the “Vietnam syndrome” – the belief that the U.S.A. could not and should not fight wars it could not
guarantee it would win. And winning in military terms meant the deployment of overwhelming force,
preferably against much weaker enemies as in the Grenada or Panama invasions. The same guiding principle
was in force in the 1991 Gulf War. It may have been premature for George Bush Sr. to declare an end to the Vietnam syndrome after that
conflict since the very small number of allied deaths had not yet sufficiently tested the American public’s willingness to accept a larger number
of casualties. The Vietnam syndrome proved alive and well in the aftermath of the Somalian debacle of 1993 where 1,200 U.S. troops were
routed by local warlords and forced to withdraw. The “Clinton Doctrine,” which dominated military policy for the rest of the 1990s, sought to
avoid U.S. casualties at all costs. Economic “openness,” now enshrined under the equally euphemistic ideology of “globalization,” would be
secured by means of “a modern equivalent of old-fashioned ‘gunboats’ in cruise missiles and aircraft armed with precision-guided munitions.”9
OIL
Generic
An influx oil wealth restructures economies along gendered lines by crowding out all
other forms of economic production that offer entry level positions for poor women.
Entering the workplace is a pre-requisite for improved conditions and rights.
Vedantam 8
-Science Correspondent @ npr, staff reporter @ the Washington Post [Shankar, The Washington Post,
“Petroleum Feeds Patriarchy,” 3/10/2008, http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2008-0310/opinions/36922469_1_oil-prices-oil-producing-countries-oil-profits, DKP]
Climate change. Pollution. Financial expense. Our gas-guzzling ways have long been associated with a variety of problems, but disturbing evidence now points to a
oil prices hurt the political, social and economic
development of millions of women in oil-producing nations.¶ You read that right. The more gas you pump and the higher
oil prices get, the more likely you are to harm women's empowerment.¶ The surprising finding, [is] based
on more than four decades of data from 169 countries, provides a novel explanation of why women in Middle Eastern countries
such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates still do not have the right to vote. Oil wealth, not Islam, is the primary reason that these
nations have regressive gender policies, said political scientist Michael Ross at the University of California at Los Angeles. ¶ As implausible as
the connection between oil wealth and gender rights might seem, Ross's work is based on a widely observed pattern: As oil prices soar to more than $100
a barrel, oil-producing countries get rich atop a tidal wave of foreign currency. The tsunami of cash
strengthens their currencies and makes it cheaper for them to buy everything from textiles to cars from other
nations, instead of manufacturing such goods at home.¶ As a result, the economies of oil-producing
nations invariably have stunted manufacturing sectors while boosting construction and services sectors. This pattern is now so familiar
new dimension of our love affair with petroleum: Oil consumption and high
that it has a name -- the "Dutch Disease" -- following the reshaping of the Dutch economy after natural gas discoveries set off a boom in the Netherlands. ¶ Ross's
insight is that this
realignment punishes women, because low-wage manufacturing jobs -- especially in the textile industry -have long been the entry point into the workforce for millions of poor women across the world. Oil
booms cause these jobs to vanish. By contrast, the boom in construction helps men, because the industry is heavily maledominated. Oil booms do create retail jobs, but in many countries these are also closed off to poor women,
either because they are uneducated or because traditional mores frown on women interacting with strangers. ¶ The loss of jobs has profound consequences on
women's political engagement and power. Several studies
show that across the world, leaving home and entering the workplace
produces greater political awareness and participation among women. These, in turn, help produce
egalitarian family and inheritance laws, and increased voting, economic and legal rights.¶ "Patriarchal norms are often very deeply embedded
in society, and it takes a very powerful force to begin to break them up," Ross said. " Women's employment in these industries has
historically been that powerful force, that foot in the door, that first rung on the ladder."¶ Ross's data show that when a nation's oil profits
soar, the number of women in the workforce invariably declines the next year. In turn, this leads to reduced political clout. For every $1,280 increase in per capita
that is powerful because it grows
cumulatively over time. Oil wealth -- and perhaps mineral wealth in general -- similarly explains many other social, economic and political disparities
oil profits, Ross shows there is a 2 percent decrease in the number of elected female leaders, an effect
between men and women in nations ranging from Azerbaijan and Russia to Chile, Botswana and Nigeria. ¶
The aff’s desperate search for oil uses politicized framings of other countries to
perpetuate western imperialism—these ethnologized and masculinized discourses
legitimize ethnic violence in the name of justice
Turcotte 11
(Heather, Professor of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at UConn, Contextualizing Petro-Sexual Politics,
Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 8/24/2011)
The construction of the Niger Delta as a homogenous, dehistoricized, and ‘‘terrifying’’ place follows ¶ a larger traditional western representation
of politics and social order in Africa. As a rule, depictions¶ and studies
of petro-violence are framed within a rubric of
‘‘ethnic conflict,’’ which carries with it¶ racial, ethnic, and gendered stereotypes of violence. Such representations facilitate
state repression¶ of anticolonial, anticapitalist, and anti-imperialist bodies and movements.7 There is, in Western¶
political thought and practice, a long colonial history of ‘‘ethnologizing’’ 8 and racializing African¶ bodies as a way to
mark such bodies as violent, requiring discipline and salvation from ‘‘their¶ nature.’’9 Within international
studies, ethnic conflict is constructed as ‘‘internal,’’ an unfortunate¶ result of long-standing ethnic and
racial differences that flare into fear, hatred, and war. Only¶ very rarely is such violence recognized as
a condition of systemic inequality and colonial state¶ structures, a consequence of capitalism’s
restructuring .10 Such a representational politics is confined¶ not only to the parameters of formal political economy discourse, to come
to fruition, a¶ constant exchange between the state and the social imaginary is also necessary. As both Angela¶ Davis and Aline Helg have
argued,11 the state mobilizes the language of threatening black men as¶ a mnemonic practice to conjure up the images and imaginations of
racial threat within the U.S.¶ public, which is then reproduced and projected onto African societies.12 These ethnologized,¶
racialized, and masculinized discourses historically generate public support for the hegemonic¶ project
of whiteness, which necessitates the criminalization of communities of color in order¶ to secure U.S.
citizenships.13
In the contemporary ‘‘wars on terror,’’ production of violent brown and black male bodies as¶ threats to
national and interpersonal security
has been accomplished by naming such bodies ‘‘terrorists’’ ¶ and ‘‘gangs,’’ an
approach that has proven productive for U.S. geopolitical agendas of fear¶ mongering, war making, and global citizenship production.14 In the
United States, contemporary¶ narratives of petro-violence in the Delta have circulated these representations, an
approach that¶ elides
the historical context of petro-violence and the U.S. mnemonic use of ethnic conflict to frame¶ the
‘‘principal’’ concern about violence in the region.15 Such language and imagery of ‘‘threat’’¶ strongly informs
representations of, and knowledge produced about, petro-politics. The ease and¶ readiness through which these representations are consumed
by the U.S. public illustrates their¶ power to cow as well as to obliterate more complex understandings.
// K turns the case—gender is the political tool used by states to justify war
The reduction of domestic violence into foreign spectacle serves as a backdrop hiding
institutionalized gendered violence and justifies international imperialism
Turcotte 11
(Heather, Professor of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at UConn, Contextualizing Petro-Sexual
Politics, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 8/24/2011)
Contemporary U.S. narratives of gender violence have emerged from longer histories of the production¶ of bodies through state regulation and
discipline and, in particular, women’s bodies as the¶ spectacle of violence.23 Such histories are rarely, if ever, incorporated into discussions of
state policies¶ addressing gender violence within petroleum relations. Yet,
women in ‘‘conflict zones’’
argued, this focus
the spectacularization of violence against
often arises and is a main focus for the state. However, as many¶ critical transnational feminists have
conceals the historical and systematic gender violence practices of the state system. 24
Often, the state’s and media’s focus on violence against¶ women meets what Elizabeth Goldberg describes
as the new market
economies of violence readily consumed by U.S. social imaginaries .25 Such a focus on spectacular forms of
violence rarely invokes¶ radical change in the daily and systemic relationships giving rise to violence; rather, ‘‘markets of/for ¶ violence’’
maintain segregated understandings and practices of violence.¶ In its spectacular form, gender
violence is framed as rape and
mutilation in ‘‘public’’ battles and¶ ‘‘private’’ homes. Separation into sites of public and private
silences the ways in which the framework¶ of the state is premised upon gender and sexual violence, during times
of explicit war and¶ imperial and colonial expansion as well as times of ‘‘nonwar’’ or ‘‘low intensity
conflict,’’ a constant¶ state of war that blurs the boundaries between public and private violence.27 Such segregations¶ offer only
limited ways in which to see and understand sexual and gender violence in the coexistent ¶ spaces of
public–private and war/nonwar. For example, the international legibility of gender violence¶ has been framed
as rape-as-a-tool-of-war, which is legible only through the lenses of war¶ crimes, crimes against
humanity, and crimes of genocide. Gender violence is thus represented as¶ exceptional moments of
sexual violence in the public sphere of war rather than as and integral part¶ of the daily systemic
practices of capitalist accumulation and state building. While this involved¶ important and complicated struggles within
academic and legal circles to make gender and sexual¶ violence legible within international law, such a legalistic approach produces an
understanding of¶ gender violence as an effect of war and not as a condition that makes war possible.¶ Discourses of domestic violence operate
as another legible representation of gender and sexual¶ violence in the international system. Over the years, a great deal of feminist work has
drawn attention¶ to domestic violence, linking it to systemic state practices.28 In the United States, however, the¶ dominant focus on domestic
violence is limited, framed around individual and personal instances of¶ violence considered exceptional acts in the private sphere. In this way,
the United States plays on¶ tropes of domestic violence, representing certain communities as abusing
their women and criminalizing¶ them as part of the effort to garner public support for the wars and
interventions
of the United¶ States (e.g.,
invading Afghanistan to free Afghani women).
These discourses drive discussions away from state abuse but creates petro-states as a
site of unsolvable spectacularized violence—that provides the backdrop for
hegemonic state building
Turcotte 11
(Heather, Professor of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at UConn, Contextualizing Petro-Sexual Politics,
Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 8/24/2011)
My conceptualization of petro-sexual politics is rooted in the statist junctures of conflict–war,¶ through
which sexual violence is linked to the security of petroleum production, and which pushes¶ the realms of gender–
sexual violence beyond rape-as-tool-of-war into multiple frames of nationbuilding.¶ Not only does the state
justify sexual violence in times of War, the existence of both the state and the petroleum industry, the latter the
main source of the former’s growth , is possible only through gender and sexual violence.
War becomes a
moment of rupture in which linkages between¶ petroleum and the conditions of sexual–gender violence are made visible and material.
Through histories¶ of War writ large,
international discourses
and practices of ‘‘security’’
reconfigure the Delta as¶ a
constant site of naturalized and spectacularized gender violence. Women’s bodies then become the¶
means of
and justification for
securitization of both oil
and state through intervention, suppression,¶ and ‘‘protection.’’
This
state juncture locates petro-geographies in a constant state of conflict –War–¶ terror and shrinks the spaces
between the public and private violence so often fabricated in the media¶ and other locations. War is a venue for explicitly institutionalizing
state violence in the private realm¶ without having to address the state as a condition of sexual–gender violence.¶ Critical transnational and
Africana feminisms argue that the nation-state, configured through¶ unequal and systemic relations of race, gender, sexuality and nation, relies
routinely upon capitalist¶ and colonial violence.36 Transnational feminisms draw attention to gender violence as a fundamental¶ condition of
nation-state building—in Nigeria as well as the United States. Importantly, transnational¶ feminisms also specify the ways in which women’s
movements and feminist interventions¶ have shifted the frameworks of knowledge production, state policy, and global capital.37 By
desegregating¶ that which is conventionally considered ‘‘distinct,’’ critical transnational feminisms
provide¶ analytics to see how petroleum and gender violence are co-constructed through larger
market economies¶ of violence that make up and perpetuate current global orders.
Ethic and sexual violence is a part of petro-violence—the idea that fighting for oil is
different from gender violence breeds passivity
Turcotte 11
(Heather, Professor of Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at UConn, Contextualizing Petro-Sexual Politics,
Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 8/24/2011)
In other words, today, as in the past, the
security forces of the state and interstate system protect¶ the oil
industry through the regulation of petro-communities.57 Regulation relies on a constant fear¶ of injury
and danger, which are substantiated as ‘‘real’’ through material acts of ethnoracial, gender,¶ sexual,
environmental, economic, and political violence.58 The militarization of the Delta, under the¶ rubric of petro-security,
exacerbates violence and extends it into the multifaceted spaces of Delta¶ life, as the interstate system rapes, kidnaps,
beats, burns, and kills in petro-communities in order¶ to secure global petroleum interests.59 These are
some of the systemic practices of postcolonial¶ state-building that create and maintain explicit links
among the United States, Delta communities,¶ and petro-sexual violence.¶ However, if we can disentangle (or disabuse) the
perception that sexual–gender violence¶ and petroleum violence are separate and distinct entities, we
can also destabilize claims that petro-violence is the result of ethnic–terrorist–gang activity endemic to the Delta. Instead, we see¶ how
petro-violence has been institutionalized, throughout history and continuing today, through¶ racial, gender, ethnic,
sexual, and national violence. In other words, gender and petroleum must¶ be considered systemic threads
of petro-violence.
Petroleum produces patriarchy
Prof. Michael Ross, August 2006, Oil and Patriarchy (Michael L. Ross. Ross is Professor of Political
Science at the University of California, Los Angeles and Director of the Center for Southeast Asian
Studies.) JU
Petroleum perpetuates patriarchy: oil production tends to reduce the number of women who enter
the work force, and hence reduces the likelihood they will gain political influence. Without large
numbers of women participating in the economic and political life of the country, traditional
patriarchal institutions will go unchallenged. This dynamic can help explain the surprisingly low influence of women in
mineral-rich states in the Middle East (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Algeria, Libya), Latin America (Chile), Africa (Botswana, Gabon, Mauritania,
Nigeria), and the former Soviet Union (Azerbaijan, Russia).
Skeptics may argue that oil production cannot be socially harmful if it merely causes women to stay at home and “consume more leisure.” But
while an individual may prefer leisure to work, the
failure of women to enter the formal labor market can have
profound social costs: a reduced incentive to lower fertility rates, a reduced incentive to invest in
female education, reduced opportunities for women to influence household decision making,
reduced opportunities to develop new, non-familial social networks, and reduced opportunities to
organize politically.
A strong oil industry strips women of their political power and influence.
Ross 61.
Michael L. Ross Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Los Angeles and Director of
the Center for Southeast Asian Studies. PhD in Politics from Princeton University., . 1961. “How
Petroleum Wealth Shapes the Development of Nations”.
Under these conditions, oil
can have the opposite effect as manufacturing: while manufacturing draws
women out of the home and into the workforce, oil wealth encourages them to remain at home,
erasing a key pathway toward economic and political empowerment.24 A rise in oil income will have two
effects—one on the supply of female labor, and the other on the demand for it. Figure 4.1 summarizes these
links. We know from chapter 2 that the exceptional size of oil revenues leads to exceptionally large government budgets. Chapter 3 explains
that rulers distribute much of this revenue to households—through government jobs, welfare programs, subsidies, and tax cuts—to buy
political support. These government
transfers may make daily life more comfortable, but they also
discourage women from seeking work outside the home by diminishing their families' need for a second income. The
scale of the government's oil revenues, when transferred to households, reduces the supply of women looking for jobs. Oil can also
reduce the demand for female labor by shrinking the number of jobs in export-oriented factories.
Chapter 2 describes how oil wealth can lead to the Dutch Disease, which causes a country's ex-change rate
to rise, and its agricultural and manufacturing sectors to lose their overseas markets . Factories that produce
goods for the domestic market might still survive if they receive government support. But the kinds of factories that are most
likely to hire women are export-oriented companies that rely on low-wage labor, and the Dutch
Disease will make them unprofitable. While oil booms create new jobs, they are mostly in the service sector, including
construction and retail, and government. If women can find jobs in these sectors, they will be unharmed. If they cannot, a booming oil
industry will "push" them out of the labor force, or discourage them from joining it in the first place.
The size of oil revenues, in short, will boost government budgets and hence household transfers, which will discourage women from seek-ing
work, and oil will lead to the loss of a key part of the private sector—low-wage, export-oriented manufacturing—that would otherwise draw
women into the workforce.
More oil leads to fewer paychecks for women. And because entering the
workforce is a critical route to political power, oil wealth can also diminish female influence in
government.
Oil production causes women to be isolated from social and political structures
Ross 08
Michael L. Ross. “Oil, Islam, and Women”. The American Political Science Review, Vol. 102, No. 1 (Feb.,
2008), pp. 107-123.
In the Middle East, fewer women work outside the home, and fewer hold positions in government, than in any other region of the world.
According to most observers, this troubling anomaly is due to the region's Islamic traditions (e.g., Sharabi 1988; World Bank 2004). Some even
argue that the "clash of civi lizations" between the Islamic world and the West has been caused, in part, by the poor treatment of Muslim
women (Inglehart and Norris 2003a; Landes and Landes 2001). This paper suggests that women
in the Middle East are
underrepresented in the workforce and in gov ernment because of oil?not Islam. Oil and mineral
production can also explain the unusually low status of women in many countries outside the Middle
East, including Azerbaijan, Botswana, Chile, Nigeria, and Russia. Oil production affects gender relations by reducing the presence of women in
the labor force. The failure of women to join the nonagricultural labor force has profound social
consequences: it leads to higher fertility rates, less education for girls, and less female influence
within the family. It also has far-reaching po litical consequences: when fewer women work outside
the home, they are less likely to exchange information and overcome collective action problems; less
likely to mobilize politically, and to lobby for expanded rights; and less likely to gain representation in government.
This leaves oil-producing states with atypically strong patriarchal cultures and political institutions. This argument challenges a common belief
about economic development: that growth promotes gen der equality (e.g., Inglehart and Norris 2003b; Lerner 1958). Development institutions
like the World Bank often echo this theme, and it is widely accepted among development experts (World Bank 2001). This paper instead
suggests that different types of economic growth have different consequences for gender rela tions: when growth encourages women to join
the for mal labor market, it ultimately brings about greater gender equality;
when growth is based on oil and min eral
extraction, it discourages women from entering the labor force and tends to exaggerate gender
inequalities. It also casts new light on the "resource curse." Oil and mineral production has previously been tied to slow economic growth
(Sachs and Warner 1995), au thoritarian rule (Ross 2001a), and civil war (Collier and Hoeffler 2004). This paper suggests that oil extraction
has even broader consequences than previously recognized: it not only affects a country's
government and economy but also its core social structures. Finally, it has important policy implications. The
United States and Europe consume most of the world's oil exports, and hence have strong effects on
the economies of oil-exporting states. One of these effects is to reduce economic opportunities for
women; another is to reduce their political influence. A third effect may be to foster Islamic fundamentalism: a re cent
study of 18 countries found that when Muslim women had fewer economic opportunities, they were more likely to support fundamentalist
Islam (Blaydes and Linzer 2006). Changes in Western energy policies could strongly affect these outcomes.
Mexico
The oil industry in Mexico displaces indigenous women, pushing them into poverty.
Government programs don’t help them, most are impoverished beyond government
aid, and those that receive benefits are ridiculed and belittled.
Kellog 05
Susan Kellogg, scholar of Mexican and Latin American history focusing on indigenous peoples, law, and
women in Latin America, particularly Mexico. Received doctorate (in anthropology) from the University
of Rochester, Chair and Director of Graduate Studies in the History Department, currently Director of
the Latin American Studies Program at UT Houston.2005. “Weaving the Past : A History of Latin
America's Indigenous Women from the Prehispanic Period to the Present”
Oscar Lewis, on the other hand, sees the era from the 19205 through the 19405 as the critical period of change. Transformations in
population patterns and forms of communication and transportation, increased access to education, and the introduction of the
automated corn-grinding mill were particularly important, in his view." For Gulf Nahuas, Veronica Vazquez Garcia argues that marked
change came somewhat later, from the 19505 on, as cattle ranching and later the growing oil industry transformed the region's economy.
Each of these new
economic activities affected women, as agricultural land was converted to
pasturage for animals and as the oil industry influenced local labor patterns. Women found
whatever access to land they had declining, while their need for cash grew as the economy became
increasingly monetarized. As larger numbers of men began to migrate out of the communities of
the Pajapan region, greater numbers of women started to migrate as well.'" The migration of
indigenous women to urban areas became relatively common in many parts of central Mexico. This
pattern is especially characteristic of the second half of the twentieth century, because the number of women, single or married, who must
fend for themselves and their children has increased as the growing impoverishment of rural communities worsens. Population pressure,
shortages of arable land, and male outmigration may well be related factors contributing to a feminization of indigenous poverty, both
rural and urban.
The demographic, technological, and economic changes driving indigenous and rural
impoverishment in the second half of the twentieth century led to a virtual super exoloitation of
women desperate to help themselves and their children and families by performing a vari-ety of
kinds of work for extremely low wages. This army of impoverished, displaced, single, married, or widowed indigenous
women, the "Marias," can be found in the streets of Mexico City and many other urban areas. Many of them are Nahuas, others are
Mazahuas or Otornis, and they and their children, who often accompany them, sell fruits or vegetables, gum, or crafts such as dolls in the
city's markets, historical centers, and other tourist areas. In other regions, permanent male outmigration has left communities of extremely
poor women and children in great need of social programs that would provide economic development and education. But government
programs have proven to be a mixed blessing, with some Mazahua women complaining, for example, that doctors associated with the
Mexican social program Oportunidades (Opportunities) treat them like servants. They "tell us to bring water so they can bathe. The doctors
call those of us who don't speak Spanish stupid." Because Nahua and other central Mexican indigenous groups are exposed to a greater
degree of integration into the market economy and are widely dispersed over a large landscape, the material factors driving economic and
cultural change loom particularly large in understanding how women's lives, work patterns, political participation, and family lives have
changed. While Nahua women experience a greater level of exposure to the dominant mestizo society, with accompanying language loss,
their lack of educational access also hampers their efforts to better their own and their families' lives." As we turn to southern
Mesoamerica, we come to regions where stronger indigenous ethnic identities and political organizations exist and where native groups
may be somewhat better equipped to appeal to outsiders for material and political support.
VIEW FROM NOWHERE
Without personal disclosure of the aff's position, they maintain a distant form of
intellectualism that presents itself as universal to glorify a genealogy of white
saviorhood.
Dowler and Sharp 01
LORRAINE DOWLER and JOANNE SHARP, Space & Polity, Vol. 5, No. 3, 165± 176, 2001, “A Feminist
Geopolitics?” (Lorraine Dowler is an Associate Professor of Geography and Women's Studies at Penn
State. Sharp is lecturer in geography at the University of Glasgow.) JU
Moreover, there are limitations of the type of critiques offered by critical geopoliticians. A number of commentators have noted that, just as
the formal actors of international politics have been disembodied, offering a `spectator’ theory of knowledge, so too are their critical
geopolitical commentators undiffer- entiated by the marks of gender, race, class, sexuality or physical ability (Sharp, 2000b). Critics
stand
at an ironic distance, constantly critiquing the representa tions with which they engage. The critics
open up the spaces of representation in the text without having to disclose their own location. The
language of critical geopolitics is presented as being as universal as that which it seeks to create, and
yet it is a Western form of reasoning, dominated again by white, male academics. Women and others
omitted from this tradition have not generally been included on the pages of the international texts
(see Sharp, 2000b). Thus they remain invisible to critical geopoliticians for whom resistance is a textual
intervention, a subversion of a sign or displacement of meaning . A few women are allowed into the
footnotes of some works, but still the central narrative is one of the exploits and thoughts of men. Thus,
political geography the history of struggles for space, identity and political representation is reduced
to a genealogy of heroic men, signi® cantly not just when discussing the masculinist history of geopolitical strategies of eÂlite
practitioners, but also in the interven- tions of `critical geopoliticians’ themselves (see OÂ Tuathail, 1996b; Sharp, 2000b).
Visuality is a scopic regime -- The politics of visibility distance the subject while
excercising power over it-- this social control is a requisite for modernity
ESCOBAR 95
Arturo, Encountering Development: The Making and Unmaking of the Third World pg 155 – 156 Kenan
Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, UNC-Chapel Hill MI
For example, intergrated rural development was conceived by experts as a strategy to correct the biases of the green gevolution. Did the inclusion of a new client
category, small farmers, modify in any significant way the development discourse? How were peasants represented? What were the consequences for them? It is
worth examining in detail the specific representations that “packaged” the peasantry for the development apparatus. The
inclusion of the
peasantry was the first instance in which a new client group was created en masse for the apparatus,
in which the economizing and technologizing gaze of the apparatus was turned on a new subject. From the late 1970s until today, another client group of even
larger proportions has been brought into the space of visibility of development: women. It was thus that the women in development (WID) discourse achieved a
certain preeminence. Finally, in the 1980s, the objectifying gaze was turned not to people but to nature—or, rather, the environment—resulting in the by now
in/famous discourse of sustainable development.
This chapter follows the displacement of the development gaze across the terrains in which these three social actors move. The
gaze
turned peasants, women, and the environment into spectacles. Let us remember that the apparatus (the dispositif) is
an abstract machine that links statements and visibilities, the visible and the expressible (Deleuze 1988). Modernity introduced an
objectifying regime of visuality—a scopic regime, as it has been called (Jay 1988)—that, as we will see, dictated the manner
in which peasants, women, and the environment were apprehended. New client categories were brought into the field of
vision though a process of enframing that turned them into spectacles. The “developmentalization” of peasants,
women, and the environment took place in similar ways in the three domains, a reflection of the existence of discursive regularities at work.
The production of new discourses, however, is not a one-sided process; it might create conditions for resistance. This can be gleaned in the
discourse of some peasants, feminists, and environmentalists; it is reflected in new practices of vision and knowledge, even if these resistances
take place within the modes of the development discourse.
Why emphasize vision? The phrase panoptic gaze—the gaze of the guard who, in his tower, can watch over all the prisoners in the building
without being seen—has become synonymous with apparatuses of social control. But the role of vision extends far beyond
technologies of control to encompass many modern means for the production of the social. The birth of science itself was marked by an
alliance that almost two centuries ago “was forged between words and things, enabling one to see and to say”(Foucault 1975, xii). This alliance
was enacted by the empirical clinician upon opening the corpse for the first time “to really see” what was inside. The spatialization and
verbalization of the pathological inaugurated regimes of visuality that are still with us. From the analysis of tissues in nineteenth-century
medicine through the microscope and the camera to satellite surveillance, sonography, and space photography the importance of vision has
only grown:
have been used to signify a perverse capacity—honed to perfection in the history of science
tied to militarism, capitalism, colonialism, and male supremacy—to distance the knowing subject
from everybody and everything in the interest of unfettered power. … The visualization technologies
are without apparent limit.… Vision in this technological feast becomes unregulated gluttony; all
The eyes
seems not just mythically about the god trick of seeing everything from nowhere, but to have put the
myth into ordinary practice.
(Haraway 1988, 581)¶ This affirmation about visualization technologies applies to the politics of
discourse in more than metaphorical ways.
To bring people into discourse — as in the case of development— is
similarly to
about exercising “the god trick of seeing everything from nowhere .” As we
will see, this assertion describes well the work style of the World Bank. The development discourse maps people into
certain coordinates of control. The aim is not simply to discipline individuals but to transform the
consign them to fields of vision. It is also
conditions under which they live into a productive, normalized social environment:
in short,
to create
modernity . Let us see in detail what this means, how it is achieved, and what it entails in terms of the possibility of shifting visibilities.
BORDERS
Generic
Geopolitical mapping is a method of domesticating political space to dominate the
external environment
Ticker 92
J. Ann Tickner, Prof of IR at USC, M.A. Yale and Ph.D Brandeis, ’92, “Gender in International Relations:
Feminist Perspectives on Achieving International Security,” 109-10 MI
The mechanistic attitude toward nature that began in seventeenth-century Europe and was subsequently globalized through
imperialism led to a fundamental shift in the conceptualization of geographical space. Merchant notes that in the
case of early America a breakdown of the Native American way of life began with the mapping of their homeland onto geometric space by
European explorers and mapmakers. As
space was reorganized, fixed boundaries between wild and civilized
appeared, boundaries unknown to Native American cultures. The mapping of the world by European explorers led to similar
processes of reconceptualizing and organizing geographical space on a global scale, a process that has
lent itself to projects of management, control, and domination of the environment. The history of spatial
changes is also the history of power changes.29 The interrelation between geographical space and power politics noted by Hans Morgenthau
and other contemporary international relations scholars was developed more comprehensively by the Western geopolitical tradition of the
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although it fell from favor in Western international relations scholarship in the post-World War II
period, owing to its association with Nazism, geopolitical thinking had considerable influence on United States containment policies of the Cold
War era.30 In his study of Western geopolitical thought, Geoffrey Parker defines geopolitics as the study of international relations from a
spatial viewpoint; geopolitics views the world as an interlocking mechanism, an assumption that links it to the Enlightenment view of nature as
a machine.31 While looking
at the globe as a totality, geopolitics sees a world divided into bounded
political entities competing for control over their environment. Citing Friedrich Ratzel's description of the state as an
organism engaged in a competitive struggle of evolution and decay, Parker notes the Darwinian influence on nineteenth-century geopolitical
thinking.32 The German school of Geopolitik, of which Ratzel was a member, was founded on environmental determinism: the power that any
state could command depended on its geographical circumstances. In geopolitical terms, spaces are contested areas populated by colonists,
soldiers, navies, and traders. As
geopolitical thinkers along with mapmakers were effecting this transformation in our
perception of the global environment, the native inhabitants of these spaces were being marginalized, just as
women were increasingly being confined to the private space of the family. By the end of the nineteenth century,
the expansion of the European state system had brought the entire world into an integrated space
upon which the geopolitical tradition imposed the hierarchical notion of order and power that has
been fundamental to traditional international relations theory and practice. While geopolitics made explicit the
domination that states have attempted to impose on their natural environment, modern science's mechanistic view of nature provided the
framing assumptions basic to the Western tradition of international relations theory. Hobbes's Leviathan, his solution to the dangers inherent in
this system, is a mechanistic model of society in which order can be guaranteed only by an absolute sovereign operating the machine from
outside.33 The
lack of such a sovereign in the state of nature leads to disorder, which results from unbridled
competition for scarce resources. As discussed in a previous chapter, this condition of "anarchy" has been used
by realists as a metaphor to portray the international system; the wildness of nature beyond the
boundaries of an orderly "domesticated" political space demands that states try to control and
dominate this external environment through the accumulation of national power that can protect
their attempts to appropriate necessary natural resources.
US/Mex Border Security
The aff's shift to border security creates a metaphorical framing of contamination. The
metaphors and framing we use ultimately determines the policy that’s created– we
must reject these representation in every instance.
Cisneros 08
(J. David. Winter 2008. Contaminated Communities: The Metaphor of "Immigrant as Pollutant" in Media
Representations of Immigration. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Volume 11, Number 4, Winter 2008, pp. 569601. Published by Michigan State University Press. Assistant Professor in the Department of
Communication Studies @ Northeastern University.)
metaphors are more than¶ linguistic ornamentation; they are
“significant rhetorical tools that affect political¶ behavior and cognition.”4 Metaphors create
conventional understandings by¶ connecting phenomena with familiar cultural assumptions and
Rhetorical theory and cognitive science teach us that
experiences.5¶ Not only are they essential cognitive tools, but metaphors participate in creating¶ fundamental understandings of texts and the
rhetorical contexts in which¶ they are situated.6 Metaphors are cultural indices with which “Americans build¶ their commonplace
understanding[s]” and attitudes.7 Scholars have mapped¶ the historical metaphors used to talk about the immigration “problem” as a¶ means
to identify the underlying cultural assumptions of these representations.¶ Mark Ellis and Richard Wright offer examples of metaphors that
encapsulate¶ different perspectives on the assimilation of immigrants into American society¶ such as the “melting pot,” the “quilt,” the
“kaleidoscope,” or the “salad bowl.”¶ They describe how metaphors of immigration serve
as conceptual tools with¶ which
scholars build research, society establishes group relationships, and government¶ creates public
policy: [Metaphors] represent competing views, some more distinct than others, of¶ the consequences of
immigration, interethnic contact, and societal coherence.¶ In using metaphors . . . we run the risk of being confined to
particular ways of¶ interpreting immigration and demographic trends. As they become entrenched¶ in theoretical
discourse, they influence how we formulate our hypotheses about¶ the impacts of immigration and
ethnic group behavior—about how different¶ immigrant groups fit into U.S. society.8¶ As repositories of
cultural understandings, metaphors are some of the principal¶ tools with which dominant ideologies and prejudices are represented and¶
reinforced. For example, as George Lakoff and Sam Ferguson note, the
“illegal aliens,”
framing¶ of immigration discourse in the terms of
“ border security ,” and¶ “amnesty” “focuses entirely on the immigrants and the administrative agencies¶ charged with
overseeing immigration law.” This framing
is “NOT neutral” but¶ “dehumanizes” immigrants and “pre-empts” a
consideration of “broader social¶ and economic concerns” (such as foreign economic policy and
international¶ human rights) .9¶ The task, then, is to examine the ways in which conventional understandings¶ of immigration are
made concrete through metaphor. Examining these¶ discursive representations can “unmask or demystify” dominant assumptions¶ about
immigrants, assumptions that can have potentially deleterious effects on¶ social relations.10 Before discussing these contemporary metaphoric
representations¶ or their ideological implications, however, I review the extant literature¶ on metaphors of immigration.
Defines immigrant bodies as a pollutant, this leads to systemic dehumanization
Cisneros 08
(J. David. Winter 2008. Contaminated Communities: The Metaphor of "Immigrant as Pollutant" in Media
Representations of Immigration. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Volume 11, Number 4, Winter 2008, pp. 569601. Published by Michigan State University Press. Assistant Professor in the Department of
Communication Studies @ Northeastern University.)
The metaphor of immigrant as pollutant articulated in popular discourse¶ is significant for the ways in
which it constructs immigrants, through racial¶ and xenophobic stereotypes, as objects, aberrations,
and dangers. This discourse¶ propagates overly simplistic understandings of immigration that suggest¶
equally simplistic solutions. Metaphors serve as terminological filters on¶ reality. Our observations and actions
“are but implications of the particular terminology¶ in terms of which observations are made .”87 The ways in which news¶ media images and
textual fragments construct immigration as a danger is problematic,¶ for they inform society’s relationship to immigrants and they influence¶
the direction of public policy on immigration.¶ Analysis of the metaphor of immigrant as pollutant uncovers how popular¶ discourse of
immigration contributes to understandings of immigrants as¶ individuals and notions of immigration as a social phenomenon. The discursive¶
construction of the other as a threat, in the words of David Campbell,¶ “naturalize[s] the self (as normal, healthy, civilized, or something
equally¶ positive) by estranging the other (as pathological, sick, barbaric, or something¶ equally negative).”88 Images
of immigrants
as dangerous and destructive¶ pollutants dehumanize immigrants by constructing them as
threatening¶ substances, denying them agency and reinforcing common stereotypes.¶ Immigrants’
primary identity is marked by their racial difference and illegal¶ migrant status. Their brown bodies
are portrayed as dirty and dangerous¶ because of their ethnicity.89 Their legal status as outsiders is marked by their¶
sneaking and seeping through borders as well as their apprehension by law¶ enforcement officials.90¶ Even as this metaphoric articulation
divides immigrants from mainstream¶ America, “immigration as pollution” also serves a unifying function, bringing¶ together disparate groups
of Americans under the banner of protecting¶ the sanctity and integrity of the nation. People of all ages and economic backgrounds¶ are on the
front lines protesting and working together to stop the¶ influx of illegal immigration.
The metaphor of pollution normalizes
American¶ identity, an identity based on racial and cultural “purity.” The construction¶ 592 Rhetoric & Public
Affairs¶ of self and other through the metaphor of immigrant as pollutant makes this¶ normalized American identity visible while painting
immigrants as contaminants.¶ Alan Nadel notes that “the container and the contained” are “each in¶ themselves fluid and not discrete
entities.”91 As such their identities must be¶ redrawn and reaffirmed through narratives and discourses of contamination¶ and cleanup. The
metaphor of immigrant as pollutant present in media discourse¶ pushes immigrants to the periphery—threats to be feared and problems¶ to
be dealt with—to draw a border between differing identities. These images¶ of contamination license popular stereotypes and “institutional
discrimination.”¶ 92 As Donald Macedo writes, the result is often that¶ both documented and undocumented immigrants materially experience
the¶ loss of their dignity, the denial of their humanity, and, in many cases, outright¶ violence. . . . Language such as “border rats,” “wetbacks,”
“aliens,” “illegals,” “welfare¶ queens,” and “non-White hordes,” used by the popular press not only dehumanizes¶ other cultural beings, but
also serves to justify the violence perpetrated¶ against subordinated groups.93¶ The identities of self and other constructed by the metaphoric
representations¶ of immigrants as pollutants encourage social relationships that, as Macedo¶ notes, materially affect immigrants and nonimmigrants alike.¶ Every selection is also a “reflection ” and “deflection ” of reality; thus metaphors¶ of immigration close off other possibilities
for understanding immigration.¶ 94 The “metaphorical plot” becomes so standard that other explanations¶ or alternatives begin to seem
“unrealistic or ridiculous.”95 Popular media portray¶ immigrants as threats that must be isolated and removed rather than as¶ subjects with
concrete human stories. Likewise, immigration is portrayed as¶ an encroaching danger that precludes consideration of immigration as a
natural¶ effect of a shrinking global society. Considerations of the reasons underlying¶ migration or the potentially positive contributions of
immigrants are often¶ ignored in the face of the metaphoric language of danger and threat. Instead,¶ news media discourses often portray
immigrants as toxic substances polluting¶ the country. Migration
is depicted as a kinetic seepage of another area’s
social¶ problem into America. These narratives of contamination and pollution create¶ a moral order.
Mary Douglas explains this organizing function of pollution¶ metaphors:¶ ideas about separating, purifying, demarcating and
punishing transgressions¶ have as their main function to impose system on an inherently untidy
experience.¶ It is only by exaggerating the difference between within and without, above and¶ below,
male and female, with and against, that a semblance of order is created.96¶ Contaminated Communities: The
Metaphor of “Immigrant as Pollutant” 593¶ These metaphoric understandings of the immigration “problem” create conceptual¶ and societal
hierarchies that lend themselves to particular solutions.
The¶ best option to deal with the mobile threat presented in
news media discourse is¶ to corral and quarantine the pollutants . The process of rounding up and
deporting¶ immigrants seems the “natural” solution, just as cleaning up and disposing ¶ of the toxic
waste of Love Canal seemed the only logical option. Metaphors of¶ pollution and contamination are also evident in
popular narratives concerning¶ the need to secure the border with a fence. In this case, the metaphoric understanding¶ of immigrants as
dangerous waste is not only evident in recent news¶ media discourse but influences government initiatives and legislative debate¶ on
immigration reform, as well. For example, the Secure Fence Act of 2006,¶ which called for the building of a 700-mile border fence along areas of
the U.S.–¶ Mexico border, arguably draws on an understanding of immigrants as invaders¶ or pollutants that must be restrained behind a
barrier. Plans for extended¶ fences as well as stricter border patrols and more stringent deportation efforts¶ continue to constitute debate
about immigration reform.97 As a terminological¶ filter, the metaphor of immigrant as pollutant in popular news discourse reifies¶ popular
stereotypes of immigrants and strengthens institutional responses that¶ deal with immigrants
Terrorism
Be skeptical of their terrorist claims – this rhetoric is shored up to justify xenophobic
government responses.
Cisneros 08
(J. David. Winter 2008. Contaminated Communities: The Metaphor of "Immigrant as Pollutant" in Media
Representations of Immigration. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Volume 11, Number 4, Winter 2008, pp. 569601. Published by Michigan State University Press. Assistant Professor in the Department of
Communication Studies @ Northeastern University.)
¶¶
The concrete dangers of immigration are usually traced to heightened crime,¶ economic burden,
and the threat of terrorism.
Many of the stories during the¶ time period analyzed featured images of immigrants in crowded jails being¶ detained and processed by police officers and border
officials.66 Nevertheless,¶ in the context of metaphoric framings of immigrants as stationary and mobile ¶ pollution, metaphoric meanings of pollution and contamination are activated.¶ Immigrants collect on street corners
According to reports by Fox News and CNN, immigrants can¶ pollute society
by taking jobs and contributing to crime and delinquency.¶ In addition to images of crime and
terrorism, there is also a subtle environmental¶ dimension to these images of immigration. For example, several¶
supposedly contaminating our way of life¶ and our culture.
reports show video of trash and debris left in the desert by moving groups of ¶ immigrants. Whether a can of Fiesta cola or a pile of tattered clothes, these ¶ images convey a literal sense of pollution that accompanies the
metaphorical¶ pollution of culture and lifestyle these immigrants supposedly bring. Often news coverage shows these physical traces of pollution through extremely close¶ shots, contributing to a sense that the contamination left
. Not only
are images of crime and terrorism used to¶ connote the dangers of unchecked illegal immigration,
they also provide avenues¶ for media to call for particular governmental actions to address these¶
problems. Images of the governmental response to immigration form the third¶ dimension of the
metaphor immigrant as pollutant.
in the wake of immigration¶ is palpable. These images of immigration’s consequences add to the¶ general sense of disarray, disorder, and defilement conveyed by discourses of ¶ immigration’s dangers
Metaphors of biological invasion create reactive policies that violently purge the
immigrant body from American society.
Cisneros 08(J. David. Winter 2008. Contaminated Communities: The Metaphor of "Immigrant as
Pollutant" in Media Representations of Immigration. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Volume 11, Number 4,
Winter 2008, pp. 569-601. Published by Michigan State University Press. Assistant Professor in the
Department of Communication Studies @ Northeastern University.)
California’s Proposition 187, which restricted undocumented immigrants¶ from accessing social
services such as medical care and public education, provides¶ a central focus of the scholarship on
metaphoric discourse . Hugh Mehan,¶ for example, identifies metaphors of criminality and social deviance central to¶ the Proposition 187 campaign.11 Kent Ono and John Sloop focus on a different¶
group of metaphors in rhetoric surrounding Proposition 187. The “civic”
rhetoric emanating from government
and mainstream media sources
dominant assumptions about the danger of “illegal” immigration by focusing on
for immigration restriction.¶ The discourse of the Proposition 187 campaign accomplished this character ¶ ization through
reinforced¶
nativist, racist, and xenophobic justifications
metaphors of “‘pollution,’ ‘infection,’ and
‘infestation.’ ”12 These¶ clusters created images of biological invasion or contamination that
structured discourse about immigration and fueled the Proposition 187 movement .13 In addition to studying specific
immigration controversies, scholars have created¶ overarching taxonomies of metaphoric representations. Though they differ ¶ in their scope, most of these studies share similar metaphoric clusters as Mehan ¶ and Ono and
Sloop. Dorothy Nelkin and Mark Michaels, for example, identified¶
and¶ eugenics metaphors
that
in the public discourse about immigration a pervasive use of biological
were used to portray immigrants as dangers to the¶ “purity” of
American society
and culture.14 Examining public policy research,¶ Ellis and Wright identified the metaphor of “balkanization,” through threats of¶ societal fracture and ethnic strife, as another way that
the “dangers” posed by¶ immigrants are articulated.15 Leo Chavez provided a more systematic and indepth¶ discussion of the representations of immigration by cataloguing the different¶ ways in which immigrants are portrayed
in popular media. He examined¶ magazine covers from major publications such as Time and Newsweek , focusing ¶ on cover images and titles, to identify the metaphor of “immigrants as invaders”¶ as the driving articulation of
immigration in popular discourse.16
Border Reps k
Visual metaphors, particularly when used as objective evidence, have to be examined
as rhetorical artifacts to interrupt the fantasy of pure American identity.
Cisneros 08(J. David. Winter 2008. Contaminated Communities: The Metaphor of "Immigrant as
Pollutant"¶ in Media Representations of Immigration. Rhetoric & Public Affairs, Volume 11, Number 4,
Winter 2008, pp. 569-601. Published by Michigan State University Press. Assistant Professor in the
Department of Communication Studies @ Northeastern University.)
Attention to the visual elements¶ of immigration rhetoric is important because of the centrality of
images¶ in modern public discourse, particularly news discourse.18 As Robert Hariman¶ and John Louis Lucaites argue, “the
widely disseminated visual image provides¶ the public audience with a sense of shared experience
that anchors the necessarily¶ impersonal character of public discourse in the motivational ground of¶
social life.”19 Though their discussion centers on iconic photography, Hariman¶ and Lucaites make clear that journalistic images, whether
photos or videos,¶ “can underwrite polity by providing resources for thought and feeling that are¶ necessary for constituting people.”20 Visual
images create social visions, constitute¶ identities, create publics, and influence individual and group interrelationships.¶ Images
are not
comprehensive by any means, as they are situated within¶ textual and verbal contexts, yet the
importance of analyzing the visual components¶ of news messages is evident in the authenticity and
evidentiary status¶ often culturally attributed to news rhetoric. As Cori Dauber notes,¶ Because these images
are presented in a context of “authenticity,” they tend to be¶ read not as representation but as
evidence. Although our guard may be up when¶ we encounter visual images (even photographic images) presented as advertisement¶ or
fiction, we tend not to utilize such defenses while watching or reading¶ the news. Their very design encourages the reader to forget that images
are constructed¶ artifacts. . . . If imagery is powerful, it is all the more powerful when presented¶ as “objective.”21¶ Therefore, since
news
media are a “cultural product” that construct our “social¶ reality,”22 analyses of metaphoric
representations of immigrants in news media must examine how visual images either co-construct or
challenge dominant¶ discourses of immigration and the social relations that imbricate these¶
discourses.23
POMO/EPISTIMOLOGY
Discourse/Contingency focus
Focus on otherness/knowledge production misses the boat-- it is materiality that
structures the discursive and should be our focus. Their optimism is a misplaced form
of substitutionary politics that only pays lip service to the oppressed while
marginalizing structures remain intact.
Taft-Kaufman 95
Jill Taft-Kaufman, “Other ways: Postmodernism and performance praxis,” The Southern Communication
Journal, Volume 60, Issue 3, Spring, Available Online to Subscribing Institutions via ProQuest Research
Library Professor in the Department of Speech Communication And Dramatic Arts at Central Michigan
University, 1995 MI
If the lack of consistency between postmodernism's self-styled allegiance to the oppositional and its collaboration with the existing state of
academic practice were its only shortcoming, it should be enough to prevent us from unquestioningly embracing it as a theory. More
disquieting still, however, is its postulation of the way the world around us works. Theory
that presumes to talk about culture
must stand the test of reality. Or, as Andrew King states, "culture is where we live and are sustained. Any
doctrine that strikes at its root ought to be carefully scrutinized" (personal communication, February 11, 1994). If
one subjects the premise of postmodernism to scrutiny, the consequences are both untenable and
disturbing. In its elevation of language to the primary analysis of social life and its relegation of the
de-centered subject to a set of language positions, postmodernism ignores the way real people make
their way in the world. While the notion of decentering does much to remedy the idea of an essential, unchanging self, it also presents
problems. According to Clarke (1991): Having established the material quality of ideology, everything else we had hitherto thought of as
material has disappeared. There is nothing outside of ideology (or discourse). Where Althusser was concerned with ideology as the imaginary
relations of subjects to the real relations of their existence, the connective quality of this view of ideology has been dissolved because it lays
claim to an outside, a real, an extra-discursive for which there exists no epistemological warrant without lapsing back into the bad old ways of
empiricism or metaphysics. (pp. 25-26) Clarke explains how the same disconnection between the discursive and the extra-discursive has been
performed in semiological analysis: Where it used to contain a relation between the signifier (the representation) and the signified (the
referent), antiempiricism has taken the formal arbitrariness of the connection between the signifier and signified and replaced it with the
To the
postmodernist, then, real objects have vanished. So, too, have real people. Smith (1988) suggests that
postmodernism has canonized doubt about the availability of the referent to the point that "the real
often disappears from consideration" (p. 159). Real individuals become abstractions. Subject positions
rather than subjects are the focus. The emphasis on subject positions or construction of the discursive
self engenders an accompanying critical sense of irony which recognizes that "all conceptualizations
are limited" (Fischer, 1986, p. 224). This postmodern position evokes what Connor (1989) calls "an absolute
weightlessness in which anything is imaginatively possible because nothing really matters" (p. 227). Clarke
(1991) dubs it a "playfulness that produces emotional and/or political disinvestment: a refusal to be engaged" (p. 103). The luxury of
being able to muse about what constitutes the self is a posture in keeping with a critical venue that
divorces language from material objects and bodily subjects. The postmodern passwords of
"polyvocality," "Otherness," and "difference," unsupported by substantial analysis of the concrete
contexts of subjects, creates a solipsistic quagmire. The political sympathies of the new cultural critics,
with their ostensible concern for the lack of power experienced by marginalized people, aligns them
with the political left. Yet, despite their adversarial posture and talk of opposition, their discourses on
intertextuality and inter-referentiality isolate them from and ignore the conditions that have
produced leftist politics—conflict, racism, poverty, and injustice. In short, as Clarke (1991) asserts,
postmodern emphasis on new subjects conceals the old subjects, those who have limited access to
good jobs, food, housing, health care, and transportation, as well as to the media that depict them .
Merod (1987) decries this situation as one which leaves no vision, will, or commitment to activism . He notes that
abolition of the signified (there can be no real objects out there, because there is no out there for real objects to be). (p. 26)
academic lip service to the oppositional is underscored by the absence of focused collective or
politically active intellectual communities. Provoked by the academic manifestations of this problem Di Leonardo (1990)
echoes Merod and laments: Has there ever been a historical era characterized by as little radical analysis or activism and as much radical-chic
writing as ours? Maundering
on about Otherness: phallocentrism or Eurocentric tropes has become a lazy academic
substitute for actual engagement with the detailed histories and contemporary realities of Western racial
minorities, white women, or any Third World population. (p. 530) Clarke's assessment of the postmodern elevation of language to the "sine
qua non" of critical discussion is an even stronger indictment against the trend. Clarke examines Lyotard's (1984) The Postmodern Condition in
which Lyotard maintains that virtually all social relations are linguistic, and, therefore, it is through the coercion that threatens speech that we
I can think of few more striking indicators
of the political and intellectual impoverishment of a view of society that can only recognize the
discursive. If the worst terror we can envisage is the threat not to be allowed to speak, we are
appallingly ignorant of terror in its elaborate contemporary forms. It may be the intellectual's
conception of terror (what else do we do but speak?), but its projection onto the rest of the world would be
calamitous....(pp. 2-27) The realm of the discursive is derived from the requisites for human life, which
are in the physical world, rather than in a world of ideas or symbols.(4) Nutrition, shelter, and
protection are basic human needs that require collective activity for their fulfillment. Postmodern
emphasis on the discursive without an accompanying analysis of how the discursive emerges from
material circumstances hides the complex task of envisioning and working towards concrete social
goals (Merod, 1987). Although the material conditions that create the situation of marginality escape the purview of the postmodernist, the
situation and its consequences are not overlooked by scholars from marginalized groups. Robinson (1990) for example, argues that "the
justice that working people deserve is economic, not just textual" (p. 571). Lopez (1992) states that "the starting
point for organizing the program content of education or political action must be the present
existential, concrete situation" (p. 299). West (1988) asserts that borrowing French post-structuralist discourses
about "Otherness" blinds us to realities of American difference going on in front of us (p. 170). Unlike
enter the "realm of terror" and society falls apart. To this assertion, Clarke replies:
postmodern "textual radicals" who Rabinow (1986) acknowledges are "fuzzy about power and the realities of socioeconomic constraints" (p.
255), most writers from marginalized groups are clear about how discourse interweaves with the concrete circumstances that create lived
experience. People
whose lives form the material for postmodern counter-hegemonic discourse do not
share the optimism over the new recognition of their discursive subjectivities, because such an
acknowledgment does not address sufficiently their collective historical and current struggles
against racism, sexism, homophobia, and economic injustice. They do not appreciate being told they
are living in a world in which there are no more real subjects. Ideas have consequences. Emphasizing
the discursive self when a person is hungry and homeless represents both a cultural and humane
failure. The need to look beyond texts to the perception and attainment of concrete social goals keeps
writers from marginalized groups ever-mindful of the specifics of how power works through political
agendas, institutions, agencies, and the budgets that fuel them.
Postmodern feminist epistemology leads to the displacement of feminist struggles
through an alienation of self from the material earth.
Mann, 05 (Bonnie Mann, "WORLD ALIENATION IN FEMINIST THOUGHT" ETHICS & THE
ENVIRONMENT, 10(2) 2005 PROJECT MUSE) MI
The alliance between feminism and postmodernism1 in the American academy has brought about a revolution in feminist epistemology. The
early feminist epistemology of unmasking, of sorting through appearances to get to the real underneath, has been discredited as
“essentialist.”2 Feminist standpoint epistemology was an attempt to respond to this accusation by using social location as a “standpoint” from
which at least local and situated knowledge could be articulated.3 More recently, many feminists have taken on the epistemology of the
simulacrum. Here “the real” plays a part only as that which dissolves into the appearances themselves. Behind the appearances, if there were
such a place, would be only an abyss of absence.¶ With
this revolution in feminist epistemology comes a wholesale
displacement of the feminist project. Others have argued that the feminist political project is displaced in the alliance with
epistemological and political displacements accompany and instantiate an
even deeper level of dispossession. The ultimate price we pay for the feminist alliance with postmodernism may well
be a material displacement, in which we are dispossessed of our ability to inquire into and articulate
our relationship to the earth itself. We find this planet we inhabit, this physical place that sustains us moment by
moment, to be effectively shut out of what now passes as “good” feminist inquiry. In 1958, Hannah Arendt wrote
postmodernism.4 On my view, the
already of “the advent of a new and yet unknown age,” marked by world-alienation, a “twofold flight from the earth into the universe and from
the world into the self” (1958, 6). The “unknown age” has now been named. Postmodernity takes this flight one step further than Arendt
foresaw, however, and even folds
the universe and the self into discourse. World-alienation has taken the
form of the self-enclosed universe of the text. Our sojourn in the world of signs is so paradigmatic of
“the postmodern condition,” that asking the question of our relationship to the physical planet we
inhabit seems naive and nostalgic . Anything we might say about the earth, after all, is already in language, already bound up in
discourse. To speak of an “earth” or “nature” that exceeds discourse is to find oneself locked, even so, within discourse. Having lost our belief
in the referentiality of language, in the relation between words and things, we are stuck with signs that refer only to other signs.¶ A capitulation
to our very real physical and phenomenological experience of world-alienation finds here its theoretical form. We
give in to
placelessness. As Edward S. Casey writes, “To say ‘I have no place to go’ is to admit to a desperate circumstance. Yet we witness daily the
disturbing spectacle of people with no place to go: refugees from natural catastrophes or strife-torn countries, the homeless on the streets of
modern cities, not to mention ‘stray’ animals. In fearing that ‘the earth is becoming uninhabitable’—a virtual universal lament—we are fearing
the earth will no longer provide adequate places in which to live. The incessant motion of postmodern life in
Intellectually, we find ourselves in equally
desperate circumstances, trapped as we are inside a language that can refer only to itself. This selfenclosure becomes a kind of no place, a world-alienated space without place,5 and feminist thinking is set adrift
that
late-capitalist societies at once echoes and exacerbates this fear” (Casey 1993, xiii).
from the physical places that give feminist thinkers our moment by moment sustenance. In its alliance with postmodernism, feminism has
capitulated to the placelessness that so marks our phenomenological experience at the turn of the millennium.6
No liberatory potential--women's survival and emancipation is rooted in the
necessary, the material. Intellectual freedom is a white masculine construct used to
justify domination.
Mann 05
(Bonnie "WORLD ALIENATION IN FEMINIST THOUGHT" ETHICS & THE ENVIRONMENT, 10(2) 2005
PROJECT MUSE) MI
Yet there is another philosophical question that plays itself out in the essentialism debate, the question of necessity and freedom.25
Approaching the problem of essentialism in terms of this paradox does not foreclose inquiry into common conditions. This approach can
provide insight into the positive motivation driving the “disciplining out” of biology, ontology, intransigent social structures, and the
referentiality of language; which seems to be a fear of anything that would reattach women to the realm of necessity. Elizabeth Grosz
suggests this, when she writes of masculinist theory, “In claiming that women’s current social roles and positions are the effects of their
essence, nature, biology, or universal social position, these theories are guilty of rendering such roles and positions unalterable and
in the dominant Western
philosophical tradition, the realm of necessity has been intimately bound up with the feminine, the
feminist flight from this realm is understandable. The realm of necessity has also been that which must be
necessary and thus of providing them with a powerful political justification” (Grosz 1994, 85). Given that
overcome in order to philosophize at all , from Plato to Marx to Shulamith Firestone, emancipation from this realm is the
precondition for a life that is “fully human.”26 Overcoming necessity has meant a masculinist transcendence of
the feminine, and has defined “freedom” in the Euro-masculine tradition. Women’s attachment to
the realm of necessity has justified all manner of male supremacy. In its most recent postmodern form, a
radical emancipation from the realm of necessity as determinacy is operative. Determinacy itself seems to constitute
oppression on this view. Discursive contingency is now equated with freedom. A kind of
deconstructive affirmative action makes this transcendent freedom available to all subjects, but
the Euro-masculinist structure of freedom as emancipation from the realm of necessity (now as
remains intact . And now “good feminism” is theorized precisely in these terms. An emphatically antiessentialist feminist epistemology, where a sublime melting of determinacy into discursive
contingency takes center stage, sets women free from any realm of necessity, by doing away with
that realm entirely in favor of discourse.
determinacy)
Freedom is not merely the right to contingency, but the right to access material
resources. postmodern emancipation from the "real" would be planetary destruction.
Mann 05
Bonnie Mann, "WORLD ALIENATION IN FEMINIST THOUGHT" ETHICS & THE ENVIRONMENT, 10(2)
2005 PROJECT MUSE MI
As understandable as our fear of reattaching women to the realm of necessity may be, it hardly
justifies the wholesale disregard of this realm that has become hegemonic in the feminist alliance with postmodernism. After all, the
postmodern emancipation from the realm of necessity is no less a fantasy than the pre-modern or modern emancipation was. Feminists must protest the continued strong association
of women with this realm, whether it is argued biologically or socially. At the same time
we must protest the dissociation of human beings
in general from this realm. The Euro-masculinist fantasy that associates the realm of necessity with the feminine, and emancipates the (Euro) masculine from it,
is really just silly, given the simple daily truth that men, even white men, have to breathe, drink, and eat like everyone else. It only demands to be taken
seriously because the real historical consequences for women, other peoples, and the planet,
have been devastating. The feminist move must be to de-gender this dependence rather than repudiate it. In her book, Love’s Labour: Essays on Women, Equality,
and Dependency, Eva Kittay takes the universality of the human condition of dependence (that all of us at least begin our lives dependent for our very survival on others), to found new
notions of equality in an ethics of care. She focuses on dependency work as a kind of labor that is both necessary and sustaining for human life, though marginalized in areas of social
thought that have taken the autonomous individual as their model of normalcy. 33 Kittay’s work primarily addresses intersubjective dependence, but has important implications for
another kind of dependence, that of all humans on the Earth. Even the “original” dependence of the embryo on the human mother is “nested” in a prior and on-going dependence of
the mother on the Earth itself. Kittay’s epistemological move is to see the experience of human dependence34 as a place from which we can and should know what is essential to just
, our dependence on the earth can be understood to be a place from which we can
and do know, and articulate, our relationship to it. Ironically, it will be the postmodern effort to understand the freedom of the agent in the
social policies. Similarly
chain of signification that will provide us with our first and most important step toward a new feminist understanding of our relationship to the physical realm of necessity. The central
postmodern insight, whereby discourse is understood to subject the subject, in the double sense of bound and make, must be subjected to a Marxian turn on its head. If we understand
the realm of necessity as not simply what bounds the subject, though it does, but what produces the subject, the paradox of freedom and necessity can be reworked on a material level.
Just as postmodern theory has claimed that discourse constructs the subject, we see that outside of and prior to discourse the earth itself “constructs” and sustains the subject,
moment by moment. Human beings are so radically dependent on the earth, we still cannot survive for more than four minutes without “taking in” the earth as breath. Where is this
dependence? It is precisely on the porous boundary between our bodies and the immediate places we find ourselves (Casey 1993). The earth sustains us only by crossing over this
The things that sustain us moment by moment; air, water, food,
light, and warmth, do not cease to sustain us because of a Euro-masculinist fantasy of
emancipation from them. Our life-sustaining relationship to the places we inhabit may be
“disciplined out” of feminist theory in the academy, but it can never be disciplined out of our
lives.35 It is important to reconsider how intensively we define our dependence on the earth as “necessity,” and to elevate and re-value the other aspect of this dependency
relationship. The earth is not our prison, but a productive place we inhabit, that constitutes and enlivens
us moment by moment.“Freedom” from the earth, from this perspective, is suicidal. And indeed,
the ongoing ecological destruction of our planet has been pointed out by many to be a kind of
“suicide.” Philosophizing the connection between the earth and the human body has become a critical endeavor in the current ecological crisis. The resurgence of interest in
porous boundary, only by entering and leaving our bodies.
the categories of space and place in postmodern theory seems to reflect this need.36 Edward Casey traces the history of conceptions of place in The Fate of Place: A Philosophical
History, and pays particular attention to the relation between the body and the earth. He differentiates the scientific “experience” of the earth from the phenomenological. “Galileo’s
apothegm, ‘It moves!’ (archly inverted by Edmund Husserl: ‘the earth does not move’) is superceded by Merleau- Ponty’s operative dictum ‘I move.’ The movement of the earth,
Galileo’s prized premise, cedes place to the movement of the lived body—a body that Husserl (precisely in opposition to Galiliean physics) had considered to be ‘phenomenally
stationary,’ that is, unmoving in its very movement, resting in its own place” (Casey 1997, 230). Though Casey begins with an emphasis on “The body itself [as] place-productive” (236),
We are living at a time when it is
important to ask an extremely naive question: What is it that enlivens the body, that moment by
moment, literally breath by breath, materially produces this body as a lived body to begin with?
From “It moves,” to “I move,” we pass over into an emphasis on the “It moves me,” that bespeaks human dependence on the earth. Places are
themselves subject-productive.
he later makes an important contribution to decentering the subject by insisting on the priority of place.
Play/Pastiche/Parody
The aff's method of parody and playfulness has become commodified and now
participates in the colonial machine.
Sandoval 2k-Associate Professor in Chicano Studies @ UC Santa Barbara, PhD in Philosophy @ UC-Santa Cruz [Chela, Methodology of the
Oppressed, 2000, Section I, pg. 35-36 http://caringlabor.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/methodology-of-the-oppressed-chela-sandoval.pdf, DKP]
The preceding modernist Euro-American cultural epoch was, in part, eclipsed through its own proliferation. Modernist
aesthetic
forms once were capable of engaging, parodying, and reproducing life. They worked by creating and inspiring
resistant and oppositional responses to dominant cultural forms. But today, modernist works can no longer similarly
stimulate or engage a first world sensibility. Instead, such works sit “cobwebbed” in museum
corridors, Jameson writes, their formerly challenging messages long absorbed into everyday U.S.
advertising culture. Moreover, within the postmodern neocolonial cultural machine, even new, dissident,
and emergent aesthetic formations are continuously made obsolete, cannibalized into the system’s
need for novelty. Today, Jameson despairs, the production of oppositional forms is encouraged, but these are
soon used up and thrown away like any other commodity of which we have grown tired. Picasso and van
Gogh are two modernist artists among Jameson’s examples who produced effectively oppositional and parodic aesthetic expressions (58).
Jameson argues that the power of their works derived from the artists’ alienation and distance from dominant cultural mores and forms. Under
globalizing postmodernism, however, this kind of “critical distance” from the dominant has been erased (85). In its place,
the citizen-subject has become submersed in an “exhilaratory” but superficial affect, “schizophrenic” (61) in function, which perceives aesthetic
representations as just continuing examples of a plethora of differences available for consumption under advanced capitalist social formations.
Parody, the art form that under modernism mimicked the dominant in order to challenge it, has become extinct. It has been
replaced by a new aesthetic whose manifestation is replication, varying example after example, fragmentation that
Jameson names “pastiche.” Jameson asserts that the pastiche postmodern aesthetic has invaded and taken
over all cultural forms, even intellectual production itself; in this way, knowledge, scholarship, and the
academy itself are caught up in the imperatives of postmodernism.
Native Informants
their theory fails to confront their invisible privilege, systems that condition our ability
to absorb the testimony of the other are still present in the 1AC - they fail to ask who
we choose to listen to in the first place, or how these voices even arrive to us - leaving
us open to the false testimony of native informants that directs us to continue
practices of imperialism
Kapoor '08
Ilan, Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, “The Postcolonial
Politics of Development,” pg. 64-66
Spivak never shies from implicating herself in her critique of the above-mentioned historical, geographic, cultural, and class positionings, often
confessing, for instance, to being a privileged Third World academic working in the West (e.g. 1990a: 57, 60, 75-94). It is perhaps for this reason
that she also devotes quite a bit of space in her writings to what she calls the
‘native informant’, not hesitating once again to implicate
herself. She borrows the admittedly problematic7 term from ethnography to denote a person positioned to speak on behalf
of his/her ethnic group or country, typically for the benefit of the Western investigator or audience (1999: 6,
ix; cf. Khan 2001). The term refers specifically to informants from the Third World or Third World diasporas living in the West8 (like Spivak, I fit
the latter category). Spivak is skeptical of the now fashionable celebration of ‘marginality’ and multiculturalism, and the increasingly important
role that native informants play in/for the West. She is weary of these individuals’ uncritical embrace of the West’s validation of
multiculturalism. The problem is that the
native informant can too readily don ethnicity as a badge. S/he may
indeed be a well-informed and prepared investigator, but ‘clinging to marginality’ (1993: 9) also runs the
risk of essentializing one’s ethnic identity and romanticizing national origins. It can lead, for example,
to ahistorical or fundamentalist claims (e.g. ‘feminism is un-Islamic’) which, in turn, may be used by those in
power to justify the repression of women or subalterns (e.g. censorship of progressive Muslim women’s groups). It can
also lead to shaky claims about the native informant as keeper of esoteric ‘ethnic’ or subaltern
knowledge. Being postcolonial or ‘ethnic’, according to Spivak, does not necessarily or naturally qualify one as
Third World expert or indeed subaltern (1999: 310); in fact, valorizing the ‘ethnic’ may end up rewarding those who are already
privileged and upwardly mobile, at the expense of the subaltern. While defending identity-based movements’ attempts at recognition and
protection of minority group rights, Spivak is critical of privileged diasporics capitalizing on postcoloniality by claiming comparative advantage
or disadvantage. She states that, in the academic or political sphere, the ‘diasporic’ or ‘subaltern’ has become a ‘kind of buzzword for any group
that wants something that it does not have’ (1996: 290). Similarly, in the economic/business sphere, ‘difference’ is increasingly becoming
commodified, with ethnic culture now being packaged and ‘niche’-marketed. She sees upwardly mobile Third-Worlders and Western diasporics,
spurred by the desire to assist their ‘home’ culture, playing a greater role in this commodification process: as ‘well-placed Southern diasporic[s]’
or natives, they help advance corporate multinational globalization through the patenting of indigenous knowledge and agricultural inputs,
microcredit programmes for women, or population control (1999: 310; 2003a: 611). She therefore concludes that this
new-found
‘nativism’ yields a reverse ethnocentrism: ‘It is as if, in a certain way, we are becoming complicitous in the
perpetration of a “new orientalism ”’ (1993: 56; cf. 277). But Spivak is quick to examine the other side of the equation. She
reproaches Western researchers/academicians for sometimes too easily distancing themselves from
postcoloniality by uncritically situating the native informant as authentic and exotic ‘insider’: they say
‘“O.K., sorry, we are just very good white people, therefore we do not speak for the blacks.” That’s
the kind of breastbeating that is left behind at the threshold and then business goes on as usual’ (1990a:
121 ). By placing themselves as ‘outsiders’, they duck their own complicity in North–South politics, often hiding
all the while congratulating themselves as the ‘saviors of marginality ’ (1993:
61). This inside/outside separation either helps contain and depoliticize ethnicity, or puts the onus for
change and engagement exclusively on the Third World subaltern (or on the native informant as its
representative). Thus, for Spivak, it is dangerous to assume that one can encounter the Third World, and especially
the Third World subaltern, on a level playing field. Our interaction with, and representations of, the
behind naïveté or lack of expertise,
subaltern are inevitably loaded. They are determined by our favourable historical and geographic
position, our material and cultural advantages resulting from imperialism and capitalism, and our
identity as privileged Westerner or native informant. When the investigating subject, naively or
knowingly, disavows its complicity or pretends it has no ‘geo-political determinations’, it does the
opposite of concealing itself: it privileges itself (1988a: 272, 292). It is liable (as discussed above and detailed further
below) to speak for the subaltern, justifying power and domination, naturalizing Western superiority,
essentializing ethnicity, or asserting ethnocultural and class identity, all in the name of the subaltern.
In so doing, it is liable to do harm to the subaltern. As Linda Alcoff writes, ‘Though the speaker may be trying to materially improve the situation
of some lesser-privileged group, the effects of her discourse is to reinforce racist, imperialist conceptions and perhaps also to further silence the
lesser-privileged group’s own ability to speak and be heard’ (1991: 26).
TERRORISM
The aff reduces terror to a conflict between the masculine technological state and
natural, emotional female body—this flawed representation of warmaking can’t
respond to gendered constructions of terror. The aff’s imperialistic rhetoric towards
countries housing terror is locked into a system of gender—developing countries are
feminized into vulnerable victims who require imperialistic intervention
Oliver 5
(Kelly, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, Women as Weapons of War,
Colombia University Press, 2007)
In other contexts and historical periods (e.g., British colonialism in Egypt¶ and India, French occupation of Algeria, and republican
reformers in the¶ Ottoman Empire) feminist scholars have persuasively argued and forcefully¶ demonstrated
that gender, sexual difference, and sexuality are essential¶ elements of nationalism and imperialism. For centuries,
liberating women¶ and women's rights have been used as justifications for imperialist and¶ colonial missions
that shore up notions of nation and homeland or patriotism.¶ These missions also have been associated with the
normalization of¶ sexuality against the sexual deviance associated with those colonized from¶ the perspective of the colonizers or associated
with the colonizers from the¶ perspective of the colonized (especially in Western imperialistic enterprises¶ in countries identified with the
East—the West views the East as sexually¶ repressive while the East views the West as sexually promiscuous).¶ Notions
of nation and
homeland have been developed, propagated, and¶ justified through gender, including gendered metaphors of
motherland¶ and fatherland, or metaphors that feminized or masculinized countries or¶ territories, and
gendered notions of citizens or citizen-soldiers as masculine¶ along with the feminization of those colonized. Within the U.S. media¶
most recently Afghanistan and Burma have been figured as feminine, as¶ countries in need of
liberation or as fledgling democracies in need of protection.¶ 3 For example, as we have seen in the last chapter, in his
2002 State¶ of the Union address, President Bush refers to the mothers and daughters¶ of Afghanistan, not only
appealing to family but also to an association between¶ the country itself and femininity. Recent rhetoric in the United States through which
notions of nation,¶ patriotism, and homeland are formed continue to revolve around the¶ "question of woman." Specifically, the
force
of the discourses of freedom,¶ democracy, and security relies on the use of gender, sexual difference,
and¶ sexuality—defined in terms of women's dress—to construct a free, democratic¶ and secure West against an enslaved, theocratic and
infirm Islamic¶ Middle East. The current discussion continues the oppositional logic of imperialist¶ discourses
that pits "West" against "East," "civilized" against "barbaric,"¶ "backward" against "progress,"
measuring these qualities in terms¶ of women and sexuality. For example, in his 9/11 anniversary speech in¶ 2006,
President Bush said that we are fighting a war against "a radical Islamic¶ empire where women are
prisoners in their homes" and that this war¶ is "a struggle for civilization" against "evil" Islamic extremists.
Rhetoric is a weapon—the aff’s positioning of terrorist groups as barbaric and
religious opponents of the stable masculine nation state is a tool to justify
“accidental” violence and lopsided high-tech warfare
Oliver 5
(Kelly, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, Women as Weapons of War,
Colombia University Press, 2007)
In recent rhetoric, more than identifying a particular form of political¶ violence, the
label "terrorist" connotes a psychopath
who commits horrific¶ violence beyond the pale of human society and politics.27 Terrorists are figured¶
as monsters without any human compassion or ethical values. To call¶ an act a terrorist act, to call a person a terrorist,
to call an organization a¶ terrorist group expels them from the realm of the political into the realm ¶ of the pathological. There is
"normal," "civilized" violence and then there is¶ "abnormal," "sick," and "barbaric" violence. But, as
Ghassan Hage emphasizes,¶ "we need to question that way we are invited to uncritically think of a particular
form of violence as 'the worst possible kind of violence' merely¶ by classifying it as 'terrorist /" The
ways that the classification "terrorist"¶ is used normalize some forms of violence and pathologize
others. It thus¶ becomes an inflammatory term that not only describes a particular form¶ of violence but also legitimates another
form of violence, namely the hightech¶ warfare of Western militaries. Hage maintains that "the struggle between¶
states and opposing groups [is]: first, over the distribution of means¶ of violence and second, and more importantly, over the classification of¶
the forms of violence in the world, particularly over what constitutes legitimate¶ violence."28 The
fight operates on the material
level of the distribution¶ of wealth, in particular high-tech weaponry, and on the symbolic level¶ in terms of who has
the authority to define legitimate force. "Legitimate"¶ means legal; recently we have seen how the most powerful can redefine¶
what constitutes legitimate force by redefining torture and international¶ law. If it is simply a matter of the more
powerful defining the terms of engagement,¶ then it is merely a case of "might makes right," and our virtuous¶ stand is nothing more than
posturing on the part of the powerful.
Hage points out that what we call terrorist groups never call themselves¶ terrorists; rather they call themselves revolutionaries, rebels, martyrs,
nationalists,¶ or freedom fighters. He claims that terrorism
is a "violence of last¶ resort" that in many cases results
from the will to resist colonial domination¶ or foreign occupation in spite of a lack of resources or hightech weaponry.¶ He quotes a Palestinian Australian saying, "Let the Americans give¶ us the monopoly over nuclear power in the region
and the strongest army¶ there is, and we are happy to do 'incursions' and hunt down wanted Israeli¶ terrorists by demolishing their houses and
'accidentally' killing civilians.¶ Who would want to be a suicide bomber if such a luxurious mode of fighting¶ is available to us?"29 Part
of
the struggle, then, is precisely over who will¶ have and who won't have access to "luxurious" high-tech
weaponry. Those¶ that do have access, the wealthy nations, have not only the military might to¶ physically
force their case but also the symbolic capital to define the terms¶ of the struggle on an ideological
level. They are in the position of power in¶ terms of both the weapons of war and the rhetoric of war.
With high-tech¶ weapons they can dominate the material landscape, but with the power of¶ rhetoric they can also dominate the symbolic
landscape. They control and¶ distribute both the armaments of war and the ideology of war using hightech¶ weaponry and high-tech media.
This is to say, they
have the power not¶ only to execute deadly force but also to justify it with the rhetoric
of saving civilization from barbarians, good versus evil, humane versus monstrous, ¶ and legitimate
versus illegitimate violence.¶
That terrorist rhetoric is rooted in rational, technological warmaking—the “perfect”
masculine body is abstracted of its contextual roots while the “feminine” natural body
is excluded from politics
Oliver 5, (Kelly, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, Women as Weapons of
War, Colombia University Press, 2007)
Yet what is most remarkable about these bare bodies is that they are not¶ bare; they are not natural; they are not innocent. Rather, they are
armed and¶ dangerous. They are, as Cavarero suggests, young mothers who become¶ killers. In this regard, they are more than the return of
the repressed natural body within Western politics. What
is more dangerous than a natural body¶ is a body that
won't stay put, a body that moves between nature and culture,¶ a body become a political statement.
Indeed, what these women suicide¶ bombers make manifest that unsettles Western politics is the way in which¶ the body is always
political; there is no bare body, no natural body. The¶ greatest threat, then, is the ambiguity of the body
as existing between nature¶ and culture, between the physical and the technological.¶ As we have seen, in
her analysis of the role of the body in metaphors of¶ politics—e.g., the "body politic"—Cavarero shows how real flesh and blood¶
bodies have been associated with women and excluded from the realm of¶ the properly political while
properly political bodies are seen as male bodies¶ abstracted from everyday existence. Western polities'
valuation of abstract¶ or virtual bodies over the messiness of real ones is part and parcel of our¶ investment in advanced technologies. Our
psychic and material financial¶ investment in technology, in this case high-tech weapons with which to¶ defend our body politic,
both produces and reproduces the exclusion of real¶ bodies from the realm of politics. This is one
reason the body appears as a¶ threat to politics. Cavarero says, "Bodies embedded, as instruments of lowtech¶ level, in the
system of high-technology weaponry ... the body as such,¶ the mere body transformed into a moral weapon appears
instead as totally¶ irregular and, so to speak, disloyal, illegitimate, treacherous. This doesn't depend—as
we often are told—on the scandal of human beings who seem¶ to neglect the value of their individual life—
in Italian history [and the history¶ of the West in general], for example, there are many cases of patriotic¶ heroes,
martyrs of the nation, who immolate their life for the sake of the¶ community. It rather depends on the scandal
of lethal weapons that consist¶ of bare and non-technological bodies."31 What is disloyal and treacherous¶ about these bodies become
weapons, however, is not merely the fact that¶ they are bare and nontechnological—the exploding belt may be low-tech,¶ but it is still
technology. Rather, alongside
the threat of physical violence¶ comes the threat of the explosion of
ambiguity onto the scene of meaning.
The rhetoric of “wars of terrorism” engrained in far-off foreign conflicts is used to
preserve the constant state of domestic terror within patriarchy
Oliver 5,
(Kelly, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, The Good Infection, Parallax Vol 11
No 3, 2005)
What the Good versus Evil, Us versus Them logic attempts to conceal is the ambiguity at¶ the heart of
identity and subjectivity. Universal Principles are defense mechanisms against¶ this ambiguity that
threatens the clean and proper borders of all identity. Oncewe become¶ beings who mean, animals who signify, we
necessarily inhabit a world of ambiguity. The¶ Good is a tourniquet of sorts that attempts to stop the haemorrhaging of the animal into the¶
human. It is the place where the animal is sacrificed for the sake of the human;38 but,¶ repressed and abjected animality always returns; and
the more violently it is repressed, the¶ more violently it returns. The more forcefully the super-ego attempts to set up defenses¶ against
ambiguity in order to protect the borders of identity, the more haunted the ego¶ becomes. ‘Evil’ and the ‘Monstrous’ are nothing more than
defenses against the otherness¶ within – bodily drives and affects that hearken back to the timelessness of animality.¶ Even nowas the
United States engages in a war on terrorismin order to protect its (clean and¶ proper, civilized) way of
life against those who harbour terrorists (monstrous, evil barbarians), this¶ projection of terrorists in Third World
countries merely covers over the existence of¶ terrorism in our midst. We find out, for example, that the
‘terrorists’ have been trained in¶ the United States or armed by operatives of the CIA abroad; that they
use our airplanes and¶ technology to kill us, which of course is what their rhetoric of the Evils of
Western Culture or¶ American technology conceals. We are terrorized by the media and the
government’s¶ constant warnings. Moreover, and more importantly, we engage in killing and torture in¶ the
name of freedom, justice and democracy, which becomecliche´s that civilize violence in¶ order to
distinguish it from terrorism. We use ‘smart’ weapons for ‘surgical’ strikes to fight a¶ ‘clean’ war now
called ‘freedom fighting’ and ‘liberation’, while they use ‘dirty’ bombs for¶ suicide attacks that are called
monstrous and evil and are seen as unnatural and therefore¶ (paradoxically) outside of the realm of the human. Fanon’s insight regarding the
rhetoric of terror in the context of the Algerian¶ revolution couldn’t be more relevant today: ‘The European nation that
practices¶ torture is a blighted nation, unfaithful to its history. The underdeveloped nation that¶
practices torture thereby confirms its nature, plays the role of an underdeveloped¶ people. If it does not wish to be morally
condemned by the ‘Western nations’, an¶ underdeveloped nation is obligated to practice fair play, even while its adversary¶ ventures, with a
clear conscience, into the unlimited exploration of new means of¶ terror’.39 If they don’t practice ‘fair play’ – as defined by the dominant
government or¶ culture – then they confirm their ‘nature’ as deceitful, manipulative, cheaters and¶ criminals, or worse, unnatural pathological
terrorists, monsters and evil. The
ideal of¶ ‘fair play’, then, is already loaded such that those othered are
defined as incapable of it.
INTERNATIONAL LAW
Ag
International agreements on agriculture reinforce cycles of poverty
Ellinger-Locke 2011
Maggie "FOOD SOVEREIGNTY IS A GENDERED ISSUE" Buffalo Environmental Law Journal 18 Buff. Envt'l.
L.J. 157 J.D. from CUNY of Law in 2011, and her B.A. in ecofeminism from Antioch College. She is
admitted into the Missouri Bar where she is a practicing criminal defense attorney MI
Food production has been regulated through a series of international agreements. In 1961, global North
countries initiated the first international regime for the protection of plant varieties called the International Union for the Protection of New
Varieties [*170] of Plants (UPOV). 72 This convention, which has been amended several times, provides for plant breeders' rights (PBRs), giving
plant breeders the sole right to create, reproduce, commercialize, and sell protected plant varieties. 73 In order to qualify for a PBR, a plant
variety must be new, distinct, uniform, and stable. 74 Whether the variety qualifies as new depends not on whether it existed previously, but
rather if it had been previously commercialized--that is, sold or marketed. 75 The 1991 amendment to the UPOV made optional a "farmers'
privilege" exception that had been mandatory before and allowed farmers to save and exchange seed with other farmers. 76 Making this
provision optional amounts to forbidding this practice by farmers in countries that choose to eliminate it, abandoning 10,000 years of farming
practices.¶ Following these first regulatory efforts, the
oil crises of the 1970s caused the price of oil to spike beyond
the reach of global South countries. 77 These price spikes forced such countries to procure loans from
domestic banks so they could pay for the fuel and petroleum-based agricultural inputs. 78 Then,
agricultural commodity prices fell just as interest rates on these loans spiked upward and these
countries were unable to pay their debts. 79 By the mid-1980s, two-thirds of African countries and three-quarters of
Latin American countries had accepted the structural adjustment programs commanded by the
International Monetary Fund to restructure their existing economies and acquire new loans. 80
Structural adjustment required countries to increase agricultural exports to create revenue that
would be used to pay for their debt . 81 However, this only further flooded the market, driving down
prices even more and continuing the cycle of poverty . 82¶ [*171] In 1983, the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organization (FAO) promulgated the International Undertaking on Plant Genetic Resources (IUPGR), 83 the first international instrument that
dealt with PGRs. The IUPGR declares that PGRs are part of the "heritage of mankind" and as such should be freely available. It also
recognized the concept of farmers' rights, meaning rights that arise "from the past, present and future
contribution of farmers in conserving, improving, and making available plant genetic resources,
particularly those in the centers of origin/diversity." 84 While this lip service was paid to the concept of
farmers' rights, in effect it had little impact. 85 However, it set the agenda for later international agreements.¶ The
Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) 86 was adopted at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (the Rio
Earth Summit). 87 The CBD described PGRs as "sovereign national property" 88 ending the "common heritage" regime. It also stated that
"informed consent" should be the standard for bilateral trade agreements pertaining to bioresource extraction to achieve "equitable benefit
sharing." 89 The CBD was innovative in recognizing the rights of subnational groups, such as indigenous peoples, to partake in "benefit sharing."
90¶ However, such gains of the CBD are tempered by its commitment to market-place solutions. The
CBD takes the position that
economic incentives are necessary to encourage global South countries to conserve their biodiversity
rather than seeking out short-term solutions such as clear cutting for the creation of grazing land. 91
The purpose of encouraging this conservation was to enable corporate interests to exchange cash for
[*172] bioresources. 92 The contract regime would occur between private actors or private actors and
government. 93 This profit-driven formula necessarily takes decision making power out of the hands
of the poor.
Nonetheless, CBD has provided a framework on which a future agreement can be built.
Regional Trade Agreements
The arguments for regional free trade emphasize economic growth over other
concerns, which means that maquila women are economically included but socially
excluded by a system that values integration into the US economy and culture
Marchand ’94 (Marianne H, “Gender and New Regionalism in Latin America: Inclusion/Exclusion”,
Third World Quarterly, vol. 15 no. 1 pp. 63-76)
Once the concept of integration has been grounded in the norm of reactive autonomy it takes on a
masculinist outlook. In the articles under discussion, two aspects stand out in particular: the economistic approach to the question of
regionalism resulting in the introduction of a dichotomised hierarchy and the inscribing onto the concept of regionalism/integration the dual
(implied) notion of concentration cum homogenisation. Obviously, when analysing the question of (economic) integration it is necessary to
discuss economics. However,
in discussions about NAFTA the economic logic (of regionalism) is assumed to be
prior to all other structures and relations. Consequently, in these debates NAFTA's economic aspects
are used as a point of reference. This is true for advocates as well as opponents of the agreement. For
instance, objections of environmental groups have concentrated on the effects of economic activities
on the environment. I am not suggesting here that economic issues should not be discussed nor that they are unimportant. However,
what I am arguing is that through the masculineist lens of reactive autonomy there is a tendency to prioritise
and dichotomise issues.40 This obviously makes it more difficult to see the interrelatedness among
oppositional viewpoints. The prioritising of the economy thus virtually forces opponents to
compartmentalise their objections and discuss them as 'separate issues', instead of showing the
equally interrelated but negative effects of NAFTA. A side-effect of this compartmentalisation is the introduction of a
certain hierarchy among objections. Needless to say, in this 'hierarchy of objections' gender dimensions are not a
first priority. For instance, the critical Barkin comments: They [Mexican policy makers] acknowledge that unemployment will grow, at least
in the short run, because the jobs created in export industries cannot keep pace with the jobs eliminated by cheap imports.41 It is important to
remember that Barkin is not speaking of just any kind of export industry. He is referring to the maquiladoras, which have a predominantly
female work force. However, he does not mention the inescapable impact of this restructuring on women's lives. In sum, for Barkin NAFTA's
negative effects on unemployment rates in the maquiladora industry are important, not the gendered nature of this unemployment. Thanks
to the assumed superiority of the economic logic (of regionalism), integration also implies a
'dichotomised hierarchy' as well as a process of concentrating cum homogenisation. Here the transnational
sector, as carrier- representative of the (neoliberal) capitalist logic, defines the parameters of integration. According to Baer the strategy of
production-sharing should be central to NAFTA: 'A North American production-sharing alliance will help US industries gain competitiveness in a
world where multipolar geoeconomic rivalry is supplanting bipolar geostrategic conflict.42 For Baer there is no doubt that the USA will assume
the leader's role in this production-sharing alliance. Pastor concurs: The regional, Hemispheric, and geopolitical implications of Salinas' proposal
also argue for an immediate, positive response by the United States. North America- Canada, the United States, and Mexico-have resources,
complementary labor skills, and a market of 350 million people. The United States sits in the middle, with its two neighbours anxiously circling
each other.43 Baer's
modernist narrative subscribes to a masculinist notion of integration which not only
emphasises hierarchy but which is also exclusionary in nature. He wants to exclude 'those outside
NAFTA': the Asian and Europeans. This 'us-them dichotomy' is also true for Pastor, who argues that:
Unlike the 1930s, when the US withdrew into Hemispheric isolation rather than face the new power
of Germany and Japan, today the new Hemispheric community could be a source of geopolitical
leverage.4 In contrast to Pastor, however, Baer also acknowledges and justifies the exclusionary nature of NAFTA for those living within its
bounds: Ultimately the three economies may blend into an integrated production network and share a universal, science-based culture that
traces its roots to Francis Bacon. The modem denizens of urban Mexico will have more in common with their counterparts in Toronto and
Chicago than with the campesinos in rural Oaxaca.4s It seems unlikely that the maquila women will pass Baer's test of 'modem denizens'.
Although they work in 'modem' factories, these women do not conform to the picture of 'modem cosmopolitan man'. In other words, they
find themselves economically included (read: exploited) while socially and politically excluded. The
masculinist inscription of homogenisation onto the concept of integration is also apparent in Baer's
economist narrative. According to him, 'NAFTA signifies that Mexico has become a North American country, ready to share Western
entrepreneurial values and participate in Western capital markets'. 46 Pastor appears to be less sanguine about Mexico adopting North
American values.47 Initially, he advocates a process of homogenisation in which both US and Mexican societies are undergoing some
transformations, rather than Mexico alone moving closer (to the USA) by adopting North American/US values. However, in the rest of the
article Pastor only mentions the difficult ongoing transitions in Mexican society while trying to modernise its economy and democratise its
politics. Because the transition of US society is never discussed in the article, it leaves the impression that the USA doesn't really need it!
Moreover, in its attempt to transform politically and economically, Mexico, not surprisingly, embraces North American values. In other words,
Pastor's ideas about the homogenising effects of NAFTA strongly resemble those of Baer after all. The
masculinist writing of
integration allows, then, for the silencing, exclusion and objectifying of women and feminist values.
The integration story being told is one that prioritises economic rationality, involves dichotomised
hierarchies, and equates integration with concentration cum homogenisation. Women can only
appear in this story in subordinate/subservient roles. They are among the ones who have to provide
the required 'flexible labour' which enables companies to become more competitive globally through
the introduction of jit-methods. They thus serve the geo-economic designs of North American transnational companies. Their
ongoing economic marginalisation is being accompanied by further social and political exclusion.
Likewise, any feminist concerns about the 'new regionalism' are being excluded. Embedding the
(theorising about) 'new regionalism' in the dual norm of reactive autonomy and minimal obligations
effectively entails a silencing of feminist concerns about relational autonomy and diffuse reciprocity.
Consequently, integration is being presented as a vertical, top-down form of cooperation whereby
horizontal relational autonomy is being excluded.
Criticizing the invisibility of gender within globalization is the starting point for any
effective movement against neoliberalism.
Ewelukwa 05
Uche U. " Centuries of Globalization; Centuries of Exclusion:
African Women, Human Rights, and the "New" International Trade Regime" Berkeley Journal of Gender,
Law & Justice 20 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 75, Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas School of
Law; Fellow, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs 2003-2004; S.J.D. 2003, Harvard Law
School MI
For these reasons, relevant trade for African women in particular must be people-centered, sustainable, empowering, transparent, inclusive,
and above all, participatory. 48 This calls
for a fundamental reform of international trade rules and structures
of governance of the global economy. 49 It also calls for a bold reinterpretation of international human
rights norms in light of the numerous challenges globalization poses. The starting point must be a
move away from [*84] what I call the "invisible theory of globalization" or the "inevitability syndrome"
-
the idea that globalization is a process of the invisible hand of the market driven by new technology. 50 Usually forgotten are "the
institutional and social mechanisms that manage and structure the marketplace and the agents who engage in market transactions." 51 At the
apex of the global economy, therefore, are the increasingly sophisticated regulatory frameworks such as the International Monetary Fund
("IMF"), 52 the World Bank Group ("World Bank"), 53 and the World Trade Organization ("WTO"); 54 next are new multilateral trade rules such
as those embodied in the Uruguay Round Multilateral Agreements on Trade in Goods and the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture; 55
and finally there are entities such as transnational corporations [*85] and private investors, the unofficial representatives of globalization that
exert considerable pressure on nation-states and multilateral institutions. 56¶ Local conditions must be constantly scrutinized in any effort to
unearth the root causes of women's marginalization from the global marketplace. 57 An adequate understanding of the impact of globalization
on African women inevitably calls for an understanding of the relationship between women, culture, and nation states in Africa. 58 Do
traditional customs constitute a stumbling block to the survival of women under capitalism? What has been the impact on women, in terms of
their vulnerability to global market forces, of the persistence of traditional values that view them as inferior to men and deny them access to
vital assets and markets? States in Africa, by embracing, endorsing, and ultimately preserving discriminatory customs and practices, deny
African women the right to effectively participate in the global economy. 59 Gwendolyn Mikell is right in her conclusion that the
new
international economic order is not only able to function very well within existing authoritarian
(including patriarchal) structures, but may, in fact, depend on the continuing existence of these
structures. 60 Moreover, internal conflicts, corruption, inept elite politics, and a host of other internal factors are trade-inhibiting rather
than trade-enhancing. 61
Structural inequities in trade destabilize the international system
Ewelukwa 05
Uche U. " Centuries of Globalization; Centuries of Exclusion:
African Women, Human Rights, and the "New" International Trade Regime" Berkeley Journal of Gender,
Law & Justice 20 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 75, Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas School of
Law; Fellow, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs 2003-2004; S.J.D. 2003, Harvard Law
School MI
Third, the Women's War highlights the problem that arises when some participants
in the global trading system are locked
into the position of producers and exporters of raw materials and cheap agricultural products which
are offered in exchange for more expensive manufactured products. Mass insecurity caused by
unstable or declining prices and unfavorable terms of trade for agricultural products creates a massive
distrust of external trade and deep-seated discontent among the loser that could destabilize the
international system.¶ [*107] Fourth, the Women's War teaches that the problems women experience in global
trade are not so much a result of overt discrimination in the rules regulating trade, but are frequently
a result of structural inequities and blindness of the law to these inequities. Colonial governments ignored the
fact that women, more often than men, were excluded from public service in the colonial administration and were forced to depend exclusively
on agriculture for survival. 188 Colonial governments also ignored the fact that women were dominant in the trade in palm produce and were
more likely to be affected by changes in price or changes in rules regulating trade in palm and palm products. 189
Trade liberalization leads to market flooding.
Ewelukwa 05
Uche U. " Centuries of Globalization; Centuries of Exclusion:
African Women, Human Rights, and the "New" International Trade Regime" Berkeley Journal of Gender,
Law & Justice 20 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 75, Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas School of
Law; Fellow, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs 2003-2004; S.J.D. 2003, Harvard Law
School MI
Trade liberalization also increases the likelihood that developing countries will become victims of
agricultural dumping. 320 Owing to factors such as industrialized production, access to better
technologies, and subsidies (both hidden and open), developed countries are in a position to send
cheap agricultural products into the Third World at prices below the local cost of production. 321 Although
in theory the AOA should give small farmers access to lucrative world markets, Spencer predicts that the agreement is "likely to spell
death for many small farmers who will lose much of the urban market of their major cities to
imported goods from other continents." 322¶ According to one study, real corn prices in Mexico have fallen
more than 70 percent since NAFTA began. 323 In India, the emerging picture is grim; an epidemic of farmers' suicide is
reported. 324 Vandana Shiva attributes the suicides to the pressures from globalization. According to Shiva, "the globalization of
non-sustainable industrial agriculture is evaporating the incomes of Third World farmers through a
combination of devaluation of currencies, increase in costs of production and a collapse in commodity
prices." 325 Because of competition from agro-businesses, prices of food have fallen drastically and cost
of production (seeds) has risen with dire consequences for local farmers who depend on their produce
for income. As Shiva notes:¶ ¶ Capital-intensive, corporate-controlled agriculture is being spread into regions where peasants are poor but,
until now, have been self-sufficient in food. In the regions where industrial agriculture has been introduced through globalization, higher costs
are making it virtually impossible for [*128] small farmers to survive. Farmers everywhere are being paid a fraction of what they received for
the same commodity a decade ago ... In India, from 1999 to 2000, prices for coffee dropped from Rs.60 to Rs.18 per kg and prices of oilseeds
declined by more than 30%. 326¶ ¶ Echoing the experience of Aba women in 1929, Sheelu Francis reports that in India, "coconut prices have
crashed down from Rs.10 to Rs.2, putting the coconut farmers' livelihoods at stake. Rubber has plummeted from Rs.60 to Rs.16 and coffee from
Rs.58 in 1999 to Rs.30 per kg in 2001. Even spices have not been spared, with pepper prices falling from Rs.2600 to Rs.1300 per quintal in the
consecutive period. The small tea growers association is demanding a better price for their green tea, whereas Government is importing green
tea." 327¶ At
first glance, flooding Third World countries with cheap products could arguably be a
blessing and may help end Third World hunger. Experts from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade
Policy 328 are, however, of the view that the long-term effect of dumping would be negative. 329 In an
August 2003 report, IATP warned that "developing-country agriculture, vital for food security, rural livelihoods,
poverty reduction and trade are crippled by the practice of major commodities sold at well below cost
of production prices in world market." 330 The report notes that "the U.S. is one of the world's leading
sources of dumped agricultural commodities."
331
Gender
Defines violence only in relation to the violation of a masculine public sphere. defines
womyn's rights through propriety values, thus making sexual violence the only human
rights abuse that women face, not the disproportionate impacts of conflict and
sanctions
Charlesworth 99
(Hilary, She is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, a professor in RegNet and Director of the Centre for International Governance
and Justice, ANU, “Feminist Methods in International Law”, The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 93, No. 2 (Apr., 1999), pp. 379-394,
JSTOR)//SK
The category of "human rights abuses" is a contested one from a feminist perspective. Analysis of the understanding of human rights in international law generally
has shown that the definition of human rights is limited and androcentric .50 The limitations of human rights law with respect to
women are intensified in the context of IHL. Take, for example, the way that it deals with rape and sexual assault. Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention places
states under an obligation to protect women in international armed conflict "against any attack on their honour, in particular against rape, enforced prostitution, or
any form of indecent assault."'
The provision assumes that women should be protected from sexual crimes
because they implicate a woman's honor, reinforcing the notion of women as men's property, rather
than because they constitute violence. This proprietary image is underlined by the use of the
language of protection rather than prohibition of the violence .52 Additional Protocol I replaces the reference to a woman's
honor with the notion that women should "be the object of special respect,"53 implying that women's role in childbearing is the source of special status.
Significantly, the provisions on rape are not specifically included in the category of grave breaches of international humanitarian law.54 In the context of
noninternational armed conflict, common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions does not specifically refer to sexual violence, generally prohibiting violence to life and
the person, cruel treatment and torture, and humiliating and degrading treatment. IHL, then, treats rape and sexual assault as an attack on (the warrior's) honor or
on the sanctity of motherhood and not explicitly as of the same order as grave breaches such as compelling a prisoner of war to serve in enemy forces. The statutes
of the two ad hoc Tribunals and the ICC, by contrast, provide much fuller responses to sexual violence, constructing it, depending on the circumstances, as
potentially a crime of genocide, a crime against humanity and a war crime. This recognition was the result of considerable work and lobbying by women's
organizations, but its limitations should be noted. In the statutes of the Yugoslav Tribunal and the ICC at least, all three categories of international crimes are
concerned only with acts forming part of a widespread, systematic or large- scale attack. Thus,
the "new" international criminal law
engages sexual violence only when it is an aspect of the destruction of a community . An example of this
characteristic was the invitation to the prosecution by a trial chamber of the Yugoslav Tribunal, when reviewing indictments against Radovan Karadzic and Ratko
Mladic, to consider broadening the characterization of the notion of genocide. It stated that "[t]he systematic rape of women .. . is in some cases intended to
transmit a new ethnic identity to the child. In other cases humiliation and terror serve to dismember the group."55 This comment suggests that the primary
problem with rape is either its effect on the ethnic identity of the child born as a result of the rape or the demoralizing effect on the group as a whole. This
understanding of rape perpetuates a view of women as cultural objects or bodies on which and through which
war can be waged. The decision in the 1998 Akayesu case by the Rwanda Tribunal that rape constituted an act of genocide if committed with the
intention to destroy a particular group56 also rests on this limited image of women. The emphasis on the harm to the Tutsi people as a whole is, of course, required
by the international definition of genocide, and the Akayesu decision on this point57 simply illustrates the inability of the law to properly name what is at stake:
rape is wrong, not because it is a crime of violence against women and a manifestation of male dominance, but because it is an assault on a community defined only
by its racial, religious, national or ethnic composition.58 In this account, the
violation of a woman's body is secondary to the
humiliation of the group. In this sense, international criminal law incorporates a problematic
public/private distinction: it operates in the public realm of the collectivity, leaving the private sphere of the individual untouched. Because the
notion of the community implicated here is one defined by the men within it, the distinction has gendered consequences. Another public/private
distinction incorporated (albeit unevenly) in international criminal law-via human rights law-is that
between the acts of state and nonstate actors. 59 Such a dichotomy has gendered aspects when mapped onto the reality of violence
against women. Significantly, the ICC statute defines torture more broadly than the Convention against Torture, omitting any reference to the involvement of public
officials.60 Steven Ratner has suggested, however, that some sort of distinction based on "official" involvement is useful as a criterion to sort out those actions
against human dignity that should engender state and individual international criminal responsibility and those (such as common assault) that should not.61 The
problem, from a feminist perspective, is not the drawing of public/private, or regulated/nonregulated,
distinctions as such, but rather the reinforcement of gender inequality through the use of such
distinctions. We need, then, to pay attention to the actual operation of boundary drawing in
international law and whether it ends up affecting women's and men's lives differently.
For example,
the
consequence of defining certain rapes as public in international law is to make private rapes seem
somehow less serious . The distinction is made, not by reference to women's experiences, but by the
implications for the male-dominated public sphere .62 A different type of silence that might be
identified in the legal protection of the human rights of women in armed conflict is the almost
exclusive focus on sexual violence .63 Insights generated by the "world traveling" method suggest that this emphasis obscures
many other human rights issues in times of armed conflict , particularly the protection of economic, social and cultural rights of
women
. Conflict exacerbates the globally unequal position of women and men in many ways.
example, of the distinctive burdens placed on women through food and medical shortages caused by conflict.64
When food is scarce , more women
than men suffer from malnutrition, often because of cultural norms that require men and boys to eat before women and girls.65
for the victims of conflict regularly
fails to reach women,
before, during or after armed conflict
We know, for
Humanitarian relief
as men are typically given responsibility for its distribution.66 Economic sanctions imposed
have had particular impact on women and girls , who are disproportionately represented among
the poor.67 Although the effect of these practices falls heavily on women, they are not understood by international law to be human rights abuses that would
engage either state or individual responsibility.
I-Law is founded upon a set of gendered dichotomies which favor masculine
characteristics. This allows I-Law to exclude violence against woman in the concept of
human rights because the inclusion of ‘feminine’ and ‘private’ sphere issues gets rid of
I-Law’s legitimacy.
Charlesworth 99
(Hilary, She is an Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, a professor in RegNet and Director of the Centre for International Governance
and Justice, ANU, “Feminist Methods in International Law”, The American Journal of International Law, Vol. 93, No. 2 (Apr., 1999), pp. 379-394,
JSTOR)//SK
Women are not completely absent from the international legal order: for example, a specialized area of women's human rights law has been
developed and there is some specific acknowledgment of women in other areas of international law. But, by and large, when women enter into
focus at all in international law, they are viewed in a very limited way, often as victims, particularly as mothers, or potential mothers, in need of
protection. Even the Platform for Action adopted by the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995 endorses this
circumscribed idea of womanhood. Debate in Beijing about what might constitute "balanced and non-stereotyped" images of women resulted
in a paragraph referring to women's experiences as including the "balancing [of] work and family responsibilities, as mothers, as professionals,
as managers and as entrepreneurs."9 Dianne Otto has noted that this list of women's major life experiences "neatly encapsulates the dominant
possibilities for women which are approved by the Platform: the traditional role of mother remains central, but is now augmented by the
addition of a role in the free market economy. "'l Many aspects of many women's lives are obscured in this account. One technique for
identifying and decoding the silences in international law is paying attention to the way that various dichotomies are used in its structure.
International legal discourse rests on a series of distinctions; for example, objective/ subjective,
legal/political, logic/emotion, order/anarchy, mind/body, culture/nature, action/passivity, public/private,
protector/protected, independence/dependence. Feminist scholars have drawn attention to the gendered coding of these binary
oppositions-the first term signifying "male" characteristics and the second "female."" Like many other systems of knowledge, international law
typically values the first terms more greatly than their complements. Carol Cohn has written of her "participant observation" study of North
American defense and security affairs analysts that "[c]ertain ideas, concerns, interests, information, feelings, and meanings are marked in
national security discourse as feminine, and are devalued."'2 For this reason, they are both difficult to say and difficult to hear. They seem
illegitimate, embarrassing and irrelevant.'3 In a similar way, the symbolic system and culture of international law is permeated with gendered
values, which in turn reinforce more general stereotypes of women and men. The operation of public/private distinctions in
international law provides an example of the way that the discipline can factor out the realities of women's lives and build its objectivity on a
limited base. One such distinction is the line drawn between the "public" world of politics, government and the state and the "private" world of
home, hearth and family. Thus, the definition of torture in the Convention against Torture requires the involvement of a public (governmental)
official.14 On this account, sexual
violence against women constitutes an abuse of human rights only if it can
be connected with the public realm; for example, if a woman is raped by a person holding a public
position for some type of public end. The Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women,
adopted by the General Assembly in 1993,15 makes violence against women an issue of international concern but
refrains from categorizing violence against women as a human rights issue in its operative provisions.
The failure to create a nexus between violence against women and human rights was due to a fear
that this might dilute the traditional notion of human rights. It was said that the idea of human rights
abuses required direct state involvement and that extending the concept to cover private behavior
would reduce the status of the human rights canon as a whole. 16 This type of public/private
distinction in international human rights law is not a neutral or objective qualification. Its
consequences are gendered because in all societies men dominate the public sphere of politics and
government and women are associated with the private sphere of home and family.
the experiences of many women and to silence their voices in international law.
Its effect is to blot out
WESTERN FEMINISM
Generic
Western feminism is essentialist and privileged because it relies on a homogenous
conception of the third world woman without analyzing historical and cultural
context.
Mohanty 84
(Chandra Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender
Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at
Syracuse University, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”, boundary 2,
Vol. 12/13, Vol. 12, no. 3 - Vol. 13, no. 1, On Humanism and the University I: The Discourse of Humanism
(Spring - Autumn, 1984), pp. 333-358, JSTOR)//SK
Beverly Lindsay's conclusion to the book Comparative Perspectives of Third World Women: The Impact of Race, Sex and Class states: ".... dependency relationships, based upon race, sex and
class, are being perpetrated through social, educational, and economic institutions. These are the linkages among Third World Women."'15 Here, as in other places, Lindsay implies that third
. If shared dependencies were all that was needed to
bind us together as a group, third world women would always be seen as an apolitical group with no
subject status! Instead, if anything, it is the common context of political struggle against class, race, gender and imperialist hierarchies that may constitute third world women as a
world women constitute an identifiable group purely on the basis of shared dependencies
strategic group at this historical juncture. Linsday also states that linguistic and cultural differences exist between Vietnamese and Black American women, but "both groups are victims of race,
sex and class." Again Black and Vietnamese women are characterized by their victim status. Similarly, examine statements like: "My analysis will start by stating that all African women are
politically and economically dependent."''6 Or: "Nevertheless, either overtly or covertly, prostitution is still the main if not the only source of work for African women."'7
All African
women are dependent. Prostitution is the only work option for African women as a group. Both
statements are illustrative of generalizations
sprinkled liberally through a recent Zed Press publication, Women of Africa: Roots of Oppression, by
Maria Rosa Cutrufelli, who is described on the cover as an Italian Writer, Sociologist, Marxist and Feminist. I wonder if, in 1984, anyone would write a book entitled "Women of Europe: Roots
What is it about cultural Others that make it so easy to analytically formulate them into
homogeneous groupings with little regard for historical specificities? Again, I am not objecting to the use of universal groupings for
of Oppression"?
descriptive purposes. Women from the continent of Africa can be descriptively characterized as "Women of Africa." It is when "women of Africa" becomes a homogeneous socio- logical
. Descriptive gender differences are
transformed into the division between men and women. Women are constituted as a group via
dependency relationships vis-a-vis men, who are implicitly held responsible for these relationships.
When "women of Africa" as a group (versus "men of Africa" as a group?) are seen as a group precisely because they are
generally dependent and oppressed, the analysis of specific historical differences becomes impossible,
because reality is always apparently structured by divisions-two mutually exclusive and jointly
exhaustive groups, the victims and the oppressors. Here the sociological is substituted for the biological in order, however, to create the same-a
grouping characterized by common dependencies or powerlessness (or even strengths) that problems arise
unity of women. Thus, it is not the descriptive potential of gender difference, but the privileged positioning and explanatory potential of gender difference as the origin of oppression that I
question. In using "women of Africa" (as an already constituted group of oppressed peoples) as a category of analysis, Cutrufelli denies any historical specificity to the location of women as
subordinate, powerful, marginal, central, or otherwise, vis-a-vis particular social and power networks. Women are taken as a unified "Powerless" group prior to the analysis in question. Thus, it
is then merely a matter of specifying the context after the fact. "Women" are now placed in the context of the family, or in the workplace, or within religious networks, almost as if these
. The problem with this analytic strategy is that it
assumes men and women are already constituted as sexual-political subjects prior to their entry into
the arena of social relations. Only if we subscribe to this assumption is it possible to undertake
analysis which looks at the "effects" of kinship structures, colonialism, organization of labor, etc., on
women, who are already defined as a group apparently because of shared dependencies, but
ultimately because of their gender. But women are produced through these very relations as well as being implicated in forming these relations. As Michelle
systems existed outside the relations of women with other women, and women with men
Rosaldo states: ". . . woman's place in human social life is not in any direct sense a product of the things she does (or even less, a function of what, biologically, she is) but the meaning her
activities acquire through concrete social interactions."' That women mother in a variety of societies is not as significant as the value attached to mothering in these societies. The distinction
between the act of mothering and the status attached to it is a very important one-one that needs to be made and analyzed contextually.
Oppression
Their creation of the ‘oppressed third world woman’ furthers eurocentrism by
retaining western women as subjects and objectifying third world women. This
justifies homogenization and paternalistic attitudes towards third world women.
Mohanty 84
(Chandra Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender
Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at
Syracuse University, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”, boundary 2,
Vol. 12/13, Vol. 12, no. 3 - Vol. 13, no. 1, On Humanism and the University I: The Discourse of Humanism
(Spring - Autumn, 1984), pp. 333-358, JSTOR)//SK
What happens when this assumption of "women as an oppresed group" is situated in the context of Western feminist writing about third world women? It is here that I locate the colonialist move. By focusing on the representation
Western feminists alone become the true
"subjects" of this counter-history. Third world women, on the other hand, never rise above their generality and their "object"
status. While radical and liberal feminist assumptions of women as a sex class might elucidate (however
inadequately) the autonomy of particular women's struggles in the West, the application of the notion of
women as a homogeneous category to women in the third world colonizes and appropriates the
pluralities of the simultaneous location of different groups of women in social class and ethnic
frameworks. Similarly, many Zed Press authors, who ground themselves in the basic analytic strategies of traditional marxism also implicitly create a "unity" of women by substituting "women's activity" for "labor" as
of women in the third world, and what I refered to earlier as Western feminisms' self-presentation in the same context, it seems evident that
the primary theoretical determinant of women's situation. Here again, women are constituted as a coherent group not on the basis of "natural" qualities or needs, but on the basis of the sociological "unity" of their role in domestic
Western feminist discourse, by assuming women as a coherent, already constituted group which
,
religious, and familial structures are treated as phenomena to be judged by Western standards. It is here that
production and wage labor.40 In other words,
is placed in kinship, legal and other structures, defines third world women as subjects outside of social relations, instead of looking at the way women are constituted as women through these very structures. Legal, economic
ethnocentric universality comes into play. When these structures are defined as "underdeveloped" or "developing" and women are placed within these structures, an implicit image of the "average third world woman" is produced.
This is the transformation of the (implicitly Western) "oppressed woman" into the "oppressed third world woman." While the category of "oppressed woman" is generated through an exclusive focus on gender difference, "the
oppressed third world woman" category has an additional attribute-the "third world difference
!" The "third world difference" includes a paternalistic
attitude towards women in the third world .4' Since discussions of the various themes I identified earlier (e.g., kinship, education, religion, etc.) are conducted in the context
of the relative "underdevelopment" of the third world (which is nothing less than unjustifiably confusing development with the separate path taken by the West in its development, as well as ignoring the directionality of the firstthird world power relationship), third world women as a group or category are automatically and necessarily defined as: religious (read "not progressive"), family-oriented (read "traditional"), legal minors (read "they-are-still-notconscious-of-their- rights"), illiterate (read "ignorant"), domestic (read "backward") and sometimes revolutionary (read "their-country-is-in-a-state-of-war-they- must-fight!"). This is how the "third world difference" is produced.
When the category of "sexually oppressed women" is located within particular systems in the third world which are defined on a scale which is normed through Eurocentric assumptions, not only are third world women defined in a
it reinforces the assumption that people in
the third world just have not evolved to the extent that the West has. This mode of feminist analysis,
by homogenizing and systematizing the experiences of different groups of women in these countries,
erases all marginal and resistant modes of experiences. It is significant that none of the texts I reviewed in the Zed Press series focuses on lesbian politics or the
politics of ethnic and religious marginal groups in third world women's groups. Resistance can thus only be defined as cumulatively reactive, not
as something inherent in the operation of power. If power, as Michel Foucault has argued recently, can really be
understood only in the context of resistance,4 this misconceptualization of power is both analytically as well as strategically
problematical. It limits theoretical analysis as well as reinforcing Western cultural imperialism. For in the context of
particular way prior to their entry into social relations, but since no connections are made between first and third world power shifts,
a first/third world balance of power, feminist analyses which perpetrate and sustain the hegemony of the idea of the superiority of the West produce a corresponding set of universal images of the "third world woman," images like
These images exist in universal, ahistorical splendor, setting in
motion a colonialist discourse which exercises a very specific power in defining, coding and
maintaining existing first/third world connections.
the veiled woman, the powerful mother, the chaste virgin, the obedient wife, etc.
Economic reductionism
Western feminist discourse on economic development is reductive because it
essentializes the third world woman’s problems and needs as homogenous and it is
stuck in analysis that is focused solely on gender identity without consideration of the
effects of social, class and ethnic identities.
Mohanty 84
(Chandra Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender
Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at
Syracuse University, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”, boundary 2,
Vol. 12/13, Vol. 12, no. 3 - Vol. 13, no. 1, On Humanism and the University I: The Discourse of Humanism
(Spring - Autumn, 1984), pp. 333-358, JSTOR)//SK
The best examples of universalization on the basis of economic reductionism can be found in the liberal "Women in
Development" literature. Proponents of this school seek to examine the effect of development on third world women, sometimes from feminist perspectives. At the
very least, there is an evident interest in and commitment to improving the lives of women in "developing" countries. Scholars like Irene Tinker, Ester Boserup, and
Perdita Huston 2 have all written about the effect of development policies on women in the third world. All three women
assume "development" is
synonymous with "economic development" or "economic progress." As in the case of Minces's patriarchal family, Hosken's
male sexual control, and Cutrufelli's Western colonization, Development here becomes the all time equalizer. Women are affected positively or negatively by
economic development policies. Cross-cultural comparison between women in different "developing" countries is made both possible and unproblematical by this
assumption of women as a group affected (or not affected) by economic policies. For instance, Perdita Huston states that the purpose of her study is to describe the
effect of the development process on the "family unit and its individual members" in Egypt, Kenya, Sudan, Tunisia, Sri Lanka and Mexico. She states that the
"problems" and "needs" expressed by rural and urban women in these countries all center around
education and training, work and wages, access to health and other services, political participation
and legal rights. Huston relates all these "needs" to the lack of sensitive development policies which
exclude women as a group or category. For her, the solution is simple: improved development policies
which emphasize training for women field workers, use women trainees, women rural development officers, encourage women's
cooperatives etc. Here, again, women are assumed to be a coherent group or category prior to their entry into
"the development process." Huston assumes that all third world women have similar problems and
needs. Thus, they must have similar interests and goals.
However, the interests of urban, middleclass, educated Egyptian
housewives, to take only one instance, could surely not be seen as being the same as those of their uneducated, poor maids.
Development policies
do not affect both groups of women in the same way. Practices which characterize women's status
and roles vary according to class. Women are constituted as women through the complex interaction
between class, culture, religion and other ideological institutions and frameworks.
They are not "women"-a
coherent group-solely on the basis of a particular economic system or policy. Such reductive cross- cultural comparisons result in the colonization of the conflicts
and contradictions which characterize women of different social classes and cultures. Thus, according to Perdita Huston, women in the third world countries she
writes about have "needs" and "problems," but few if any have "choices" or the freedom to act. This is an interesting representation of women in the third world,
one which is significant in suggesting a latent self-presentation of Western women which bears looking at. She writes, "What surprised and moved me most as I
listened to women in such very different cultural settings was the striking commonality-whether they were educated or illiterate, urban or rural-of their most basic
values: the importance they assign to family, dignity, and service to others."'26 I wonder if Huston would consider such values unusual for women in the West?
What is problematical, then, about this kind of use of "women" as a group, as a stable category of analysis, is that it assumes an ahistorical, universal unity between
women based on a generalized notion of their subordination. Instead of analytically demonstrating the production of women as socio-economic political groups
within particular local contexts, this
move limits the definition of the female subject to gender identity,
completely bypassing social class and ethnic identities. What characterizes women as a group is their
gender (sociologically not necessarily biologically defined) over and above everything else, indicating a monolithic notion
of sexual difference. Because women are thus constituted as a coherent group, sexual difference becomes coterminus with
female subordination, and power is automatically defined in binary terms: people who have it ( read:
men),
and people who do not
(read: women).
Men exploit, women are exploited . As suggested above, such
simplistic formulations are both reductive and ineffectual in designing strategies to combat
oppressions. All they do is reinforce binary divisions between men and women .
The state of the sexual division of labor in a society is not an indicator of progress or
impoverishment; it is dangerous as a metric because it homogenizes and disguises
further cleavages of racism and imperialism.
Mohanty 84
(Chandra
Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender
Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at
Syracuse University, “Under Western Eyes: Feminist Scholarship and Colonial Discourses”, boundary 2,
Vol. 12/13, Vol. 12, no. 3 - Vol. 13, no. 1, On Humanism and the University I: The Discourse of Humanism
(Spring - Autumn, 1984), pp. 333-358, JSTOR)//SK
There is no question that a claim such as "women are concentrated in service-oriented occupations in a large number of countries around the
world" is descriptively valid. Descriptively, then, perhaps the existence of a similar sexual division of labor (where women work in service
occupations like nursing, social work, etc., and men in other kinds of occupations) in a variety of different countries can be asserted. However,
the concept of the "sexual division of labor" is more than just a descriptive category. It indicates the differential value placed on "men's work"
versus "women's work."
Often the mere existence of a sexual division of labor is taken to be proof of the
oppression of women in various societies. This results from a confusion between the descriptive and
explanatory potential of the concept of the sexual division of labor. Superficially similar situations
may have radically different, historically specific explanations, and cannot be treated as identical . For
instance, the rise of female-headed house- holds in middle class America might be construed as greater independence and feminist progress,
whereby women are considered to have chosen to be single parents (there are increasing numbers of lesbian mothers, etc.). However, the
recent increase in female-headed households in Latin America where women might be seen to have more decision-making power, is
concentrated among the poorest strata, where life choices are the most constrained economically.33 A similar argument can be made for the
rise of female-headed families among Black and Chicana women in the U.S. The positive correlation between this and the level of poverty
among women of color and White working class women in the U.S. has now even acquired a name: the feminization of poverty. Thus,
while
it is possible to state that there is a rise in female-headed households in the U.S. and in Latin
America, this rise cannot be discussed as a universal indicator of women's independence, nor can it
be discussed as a universal indicator of women's impoverishment. The meaning and explanation for
the rise obviously varies according to the socio-historical context. Similarly, the existence of a sexual division of labor
in most contexts cannot be sufficient explanation for the universal subjugation of women in the work force. That the sexual division of labor
does indicate a devaluation of women's work must be shown through analysis of particular local contexts. In addition, devaluation of women
must also be shown through careful analysis. Concepts like the sexual division of labor can be useful only if they are generated through local,
contextual analyses.34 If such concepts are assumed to be universally applicable,
religious, cultural and historical specificities
the resultant homogenization
of class, race,
of the lives of women in the third world can create a false sense of
the commonality of oppressions, interests and struggles between and amongst women globally.
Beyond sisterhood there is still racism, colonialism and imperialism !
Sex Workers
Depictions of sex workers as defenseless victims in need of western intervention and
policy is a gendered frame that promotes imperialism through a white savior complex.
Doezema, 2001
Jo Doezema, PhD candidate at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex “Ouch!
Western Feminists’ ‘Wounded Attachment’ to the ‘Third World Prostitute’ Feminist Review, No. 67,
Spring 2001. JSTOR
In Barry's work, the subject of the prostitute is constructed partially through the lens of orientalism: in Liddle and Rai's words, she 'denies the
subject the opportunity for self-representation' (1998: 512). First world sex workers are both pitied and blamed for adopting a politics of sex
worker rights.ll While pitied for having to 'actively incorporate dehumanization into [their] identity' (1995: 70), first world sex worker activists
are at the same time held responsible for women's oppression: 'to "embrace" prostitution sex as one's self-chosen identity is to be actively
Third world sex workers, however, are not
even credited with knowing what sex worker rights are all about. Referring to third world sex workers, Barry writes: '
engaged in promoting women's oppression in behalf of oneself' (1995: 71).¶
"Sex work'' language has been adopted out of despair, not because these women promote prostitution but because it seems impossible to
conceive of any other way to treat prostitute women with dignity and respect than through normalizing their exploitation' (1995: 296).¶ As with
Victorian feminists and their campaign to rescue Indian women, third world
sex workers are seen as so 'enslaved' that
their only hope is rescue by others. The helplessness of Indian prostitutes was central to Victorian
feminists arguments, and the slavery trope served to demonstrate the need for intervention by
western feminists: 'Ideologies of slavery, whether pro- or anti-, were premised on the notion that the slave,
even when capable of resistance, was most often helpless in the face of either natural incapacity or
culturally sanctioned constraint' (Burton, 1998: 341). The helplessness of the Indian prostitute served as an effective foil to the
saving capabilities of British feminists (Burton, 1994). The same holds true now: 'In true colonial fashion, Barry's mission is to rescue those
whom she considers to be incapable of self-determination' (Kempadoo, 1998: 11).¶ Third world sex
workers' organizations
reject this racist portrayal of themselves as deluded and despairing (see Kempadoo and Doezema, 1998). Neither is
'sex work language', as Barry implies, a western concept picked up by ignorant third world sex workers who are incapable of understanding its
ramifications. While the term 'sex work' was coined by Carol Leigh, a western sex worker (Leigh, 1998), its rapid and wide-spread adoption by
sex workers the world over reflects not stupidity, but rather a shared political vision. As Kempadoo (1998) documents, sex workers in the third
world have a centuries-old history of organizing to demand an end to discriminatory laws and practices. Building on this history, sex worker
rights organizations are today flourishing all over the third world:¶ 'Sex workers' struggles are thus neither a creation of a western prostitutes'
rights movement or the privilege of the past three decades' (Kempadoo, 1998: 21). Third world sex workers have seen through the patronizing
attitude of those like Barry who would save them for their own good. It is worth quoting at length from the 'Sex Workers' Manifesto' (1997),
produced at the First National Conference of Sex Workers in Calcutta (attended by over 3,000 sex workers):
Development programs meant to rehabilitate are another form of masculine
moralizing, masquerading as care.
Doezema, 2001
Jo Doezema, PhD candidate at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex “Ouch!
Western Feminists’ ‘Wounded Attachment’ to the ‘Third World Prostitute’ Feminist Review, No. 67,
Spring 2001. JSTOR
Like many other occupations, sex work is also an occupation . . .we
systematically find ourselves to be targets of
moralizing impulses of dominant social groups, through missions of cleansing and sanitising, both
materially and symbolically. If and when we figure in political or developmental agendas, we are
enmeshed in discursive practices and practical projects which aim to rescue, rehabilitate, improve,
discipline, control or police us. Charity organizations are prone to rescue us and put us in 'safe' homes, developmental
organizations are likely to 'rehabilitate' us through meagre income generation activities, and the police
of controlling 'immoral' trafficking. Even when we are
inscribed less negatively or even sympathetically within dominant discourses we are not exempt from
stigmatisation or social exclusion. As powerless, abused victims with no resources, we are seen as
objects of pity. (Durban Mahila Samanwaya Committee (DMSC), 1997: 2-3) The 'hierarchy of civilization' I now turn to the second of
Liddle and Rai's contentions about the workings of orientalist power in feminist discourse: that orientalist power is invoked
discursively when male oppression and female resistance are characterized in such a way as to
reinforce a 'hierarchy of civilization'. Barry's work, and the campaign rhetoric of CATW, clearly locate trafficking within
'backward', traditional societies (Kempadoo, 1998). As in Victorian feminists' Indian campaign, 'traditional and religious practices'
are seen as the root of the problem of trafficking: 'Trafficking focuses particularly on indigenous and
aboriginal women who are from remote tribal communities where traditional family and religious
practices either devalue girl children or reduce girls to sex service, which enables and encourages
parents to sell their daughters' (Barry, 1995: 178). Referring to a remark by a Pakistani women's rights leader that Bengali girls
seem bent upon to regularly raid our quarters in the name
trafficked into Pakistan do not know what country they are from, Barry comes close to calling these women sub-human: 'Illiteracy and rural
village patriarchal feudalism abnegate human identity for many of these women' (1995: 171). Concerning Thai women, she remarks: 'In
Thailand, religious ideology and patriarchal feudalism reduce the value of women's lives to that of sexual and economic property, which in turn
validate prostitution' (1995: 182). Her analysis is based on that of Troung (1990), whose work, though of immense value, is not free from 'a
This attitude - that third world
women, and prostitutes in particular - are victims of their (backward, barbaric) cultures is pervasive in
the rhetoric of CATW and in those western feminist organizations that have joined CATW's lobby efforts around the Vienna
Protocol against trafficking. According to Planned Parenthood President Gloria Feldt: In the US, we tend to see the
issue of trafficking and forced prostitution through the lens of our affluent democratic society. In
many cultures, women and girls have no power and very limited rights so that their vulnerability to
sex trafficking is high. (quoted in Soriano, 2000: 3)
The co-director of CATW stated recently: 'In the global South and East, victims of the sex trade are often young
women and girls who are desperately poor in cultures where females are expected to sacrifice
themselves for the well being of their families and communities' (Leidhold, 1999: 4). In CATW-inspired feminist
discourses, the 'third world' sex worker is presented as backward, innocent and above all helpless - in
need of rescue (Doezema, 1998,2000; Murray, 1998). Through her, the superiority of the saving western body is
sense that non-modern cultures live in a different, backward, or eternal time' (Lyons, 1999: 3).
marked and maintained.
RENEWABLES
Establishing renewable energy efficiency projects are gendered—they assume women
as passive recipients of masculine technologies
Cecelski 4
(Elizabeth, Ph.D in Technology and Development Groups from the University of Twente, M.A in
International Studies in Economics and Policy Studies from Johns Hopkins University School, Re-thinking
gender and energy:¶ Old and new directions, ENERGIA/EASE Discussion Paper, May 2004)
A historical review of approaches to gender in two energy subsectors – biomass energy¶ and labour-saving energy technologies – shows that
gender and energy analysis as well as¶ project planning and policy have remained largely within a women and development¶ (WID) framework.
Women first became visible in the energy sector in the 1970s as¶ victims of the “rural energy crisis.” Improved
stoves projects initially treated women as¶ passive beneficiaries. Later, women were seen as contributors to meeting
targets for¶ stove dissemination that would reduce deforestation. Women’s own agency, and gender¶ relations (as opposed
to gender roles), were largely ignored. There has been minimal¶ participation by women at higher levels in
planning and management of stoves projects.¶ It is not clear that recent renewed interest in household energy - as a multi-sectoral¶
intervention and to address indoor air pollution and health issues - has necessarily¶ incorporated gender issues or other lessons of earlier
practice.
By the 1980s, the gender and development community was using time allocation studies¶ to argue that the “real energy crisis” was not biomass
fuel but rather women’s time and¶ drudgery in the subsistence economy. The energy
sector was unable to incorporate¶
human energy and women’s invisible and unpaid labour into its analysis though. Laboursaving¶ technologies in
household tasks such as water supply, grinding, and transport¶ emerged in appropriate technology (AT) and later, mainstream projects in the
water and¶ other sectors, rather than in the energy sector. Gender
and technology paradigms and¶ approaches to
gender analysis (e.g. the differential impact of new technologies on women¶ and men) were never really applied much in
the energy sector, while they have become¶ routinely applied in e.g. the drinking water sector. Benefits for women of both
grid rural¶ electrification and renewable energy for women have been simply presumed - while¶ negative effects have
been considered too far-fetched to take seriously. More recently,¶ women and women’s groups have been viewed
instrumentally, as possible contributors to¶ dissemination of renewable energy technologies. How rural
electrification could¶ contribute to poverty alleviation and gender equality has begun to receive more serious attention.
“Adding” energy merely replicates gender inequality—energy policymaking relies on a
masculine model devaluing the woman’s labor
Cecelski 1
(Elizabeth, Ph.D in Technology and Development Groups from the University of Twente, M.A in
International Studies in Economics and Policy Studies from Johns Hopkins University School, GENDER
AND ACCESS TO ENERGY SERVICES, Presentation at Energy, Environment and Development Germany,
May 2001)
Why does gender matter in access to energy services? This is the way we usually think¶ of women in
energy, this poor woman, carrying a heavy load of fuelwood that she works¶ on average 40 hours a
month to collect and probably she is taking it home to cook on a¶ smoky fire that may cause her and her family to develop respiratory
and lung disease.¶ She has many other responsibilities like carrying water, grinding grain and producing ¶
food that add up to a 14 hour or longer workday. In fact, as we heard from UNDP, her¶ life is getting more difficult, not less,
in many countries such as in India and Africa. 2.4¶ billion people still use traditional biomass fuels – wood, agricultural residues, and dung –¶ for
cooking and heating, and nearly 1.6 billion people do not have access to electricity.¶ With population growth these numbers are increasing, not
decreasing, in absolute terms –¶ for example in Africa by 2030 the IEA projects 996 million relying on traditional¶ biomass for cooking and
heating compared to 646 million in 2002, similarly in south¶ Asia. This burden is on women. This
is a gender issue. We would like to
help this¶ woman with improved energy sources like more efficient biomass stoves, grain mills and¶ modern fuels like kerosene, LPG and
electricity. But will
just “adding energy” improve¶ this woman’s life?
look at the complete picture, we see that this¶ woman is in a subordinate
position. She lives in a household, a community and a society¶ where gender inequality is more or less pervasive. Her labour is
considered less valuable¶ than that of her husband and he makes many of the important decisions about investments¶ in
We need to see the complete picture! If we
new appliances, about land use and what trees and crops are grown, about her mobility,¶ and about how she uses her time. She has less access
to education, less access to credit,¶ less access to land, and less access to power, than her male counterparts. The man¶ accompanying her may
actually be protecting her from sexual harassment that is common¶ during fuel collection in remote areas. The
woman faces both
cultural and institutional¶ obstacles – most of the people who are in energy institutions in her country the energy¶ policymaking, energy planning, electricity utilities, extension agents, even improved¶ stove designers – they
look like this (man’s picture), not like this (woman’s picture).¶ They don’t necessarily understand her
problems and constraints, or pay attention to them.¶ So more than just “add energy and stir” will be
needed to transform gender relations and¶ improve this woman’s life.
TECH
The aff’s treatment of technology as a harbinger of progress is masculine—Western
nations dominate production of goods and services while recipients are “feminine
recipients” of technology who “cannot understand it”
Bray 7
(Francesca, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh, Gender and Technology,
Annual Review of Anthropology, 2007, http://web.mit.edu/~shaslang/www/WGS/BrayGT.pdf)
One fundamental way in which gender is¶ expressed in any society is through technology.¶ Technical
skills and domains of
expertise¶ are divided between and within the¶ sexes, shaping masculinities and femininities:¶ Maybe the
iconic womanly skill is basketmaking,¶ whereas men should excel at hunting¶ (MacKenzie 1991); or boys must learn to clean¶ their fathers’
tools to get a feel for grease before¶ they are taught to use them (Mellstr ¨om¶ 2004); or poor women raise silkworms and¶ sell the cocoons to
rich households where¶ the mistress organizes the tasks of reeling,¶ spinning, and weaving among her servants¶ (Bray 1997); or boys
huddle around the computer¶ screen practicing hacking skills, while¶ girls develop new communication
codes using¶ emoticons (Lægran 2003b, Miller 2004).¶ In the contemporary world , or at any rate in¶ the Western
nations
which pioneered industrialization¶ and have thus been able for so long¶ to
dominate worldwide production of
material¶ and intellectual goods, services, and desires,¶ technology is firmly coded male . Men¶ are
viewed as having a natural affinity with¶ technology, whereas women supposedly fear¶
or dislike it. Men
actively engage with machines,¶ making, using, tinkering with, and loving¶ them. Women may have to use machines,¶ in the workplace or in
the home, but they¶ neither
love nor seek to understand them:¶ They are considered passive beneficiaries
of¶ the inventive flame. The modernist association¶ of technology with masculinity translates¶ into
everyday experiences of gender, historical¶ narratives, employment practices, education,¶ the design of new
technologies, and the distribution¶ of power across a global society in¶ which technology is seen as the driving
force¶ of progress.¶ “Since technology and gender are both socially¶ constructed and socially pervasive,
we¶ can never fully understand one without also¶ understanding the other” (Lohan & Faulkner¶ 2004, p. 319). A
dense web of debate within¶ the field of gender and technology studies, or¶ feminist technology studies (FTS),
catalyzes continual advances in studying what FTS¶ terms the coproduction of gender and technology.¶
Explorations of “constructive” tensions¶ in FTS (Lohan 2000) aim to develop¶ innovative analyses of the material worlds we¶ are creating
through technology, and of technology’s¶ role in shaping local and global configurations¶ of power, forms of identity, and¶ ways of living.
Although expressed in different¶ terms, this debate shadows current anthropological¶ concerns with the transformative role¶ and destabilizing
potential of technology in¶ emergent configurations of oikos (what are the¶ forms of human community?) and anthropos¶ (what is a human
being?) (Collier & Ong¶ 2005). Yet curiously the two debates are not¶ in dialogue but remain largely unconnected.
Specifically in energy sectors, technology is male-dominated—highly technical
concepts are associated with the masculine while barring the knowledge from
feminine recipients
Roehr 1
(Ulrike, Gender and Energy in the North, Background Paper for the Expert Workshop¶ "Gender
Perspectives for Earth Summit 2002: Energy, Transport, Information for Decision-Making, 1/12/2001)
energy is a highly male dominated issue4. Because of the predominating¶
division of labour by gender, women are represented marginally in this domain. Professional¶ access to the
energy sector is mainly based on a scientific or engineering education, in which women are extremely
under-represented. The fields of skilled trade relevant to the energy sector such as construction,¶ electric installation,
As a sphere related to technology,
plumbing, and installation of heating systems are male domains, too.¶ Therefore, the influence of women on concepts, planning,
decision-making, and implementation is¶ limited. This is true both for research and development, and for technical realization. (see chapter
II.6)¶ Moreover, energy
is considered as dangerous and risky, in terms of the risks of nuclear power , as well¶
expected to face and master these dangers. Whereas¶ they are
encouraged to get acquainted with electricity step by step, girls are kept away not only from¶ electric
power but also from the power of knowledge. (Conrads/Uhlenbusch 1990, Hoffmann 1990)¶ As a result of this
socialization, a clear gender separation is found as regards energy equipment and¶ environmental
friendly energy use in private households: Men are primarily considered to be responsible¶ for the technical side and the investments in
as for electricity in private households. Boys are
thermal insulation of homes, boilers, and hot water¶ installations. In contrast to this, women are expected to save energy based on behaviour,
and to¶ communicate the necessary rules of conduct to the rest of the family, such as abstaining from the use¶ of electric applications,
reasonable loading of washing machines and dishwashers, etc., similar to¶ other environmental fields5. (Doerr 1993, Buko 1995, SchwarauSchuldt 1990)
ENERGY SECURITY
Green Wars
Entering securitization into policy debate on energy provides foregrounds global
violence. This can’t be taken back –rejecting their political grammar is the only way to
avoid militarization.
Ciuta 10 (Felix, Lecturer in International Relations at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies
of University College London, “Conceptual Notes on Energy Security: Total or Banal Security?,” Security
Dialogue, April, vol. 41, no. 2, 123-144 MI)
Even casual observers will be familiar with the argument that energy
is a security issue because it is either a cause or an
instrument of war or conflict. Two different strands converge in this logic of energy security. The first strand focuses on energy as an
instrument: energy is what states fight their current wars with. We can find here arguments regarding the use of the ‘energy weapon’ by
supplier states (Belkin, 2007: 4; Lugar, 2006: 3; Winstone, Bolton & Gore, 2007: 1; Yergin, 2006a: 75); direct substitutions in which energy is
viewed as the ‘equivalent of nuclear weapons’ (Morse & Richard, 2002: 2); and rhetorical associations that establish policy associations, as
exemplified by the panel ‘Guns and Gas’ during the Transatlantic Conference of the Bucharest NATO Summit. 5 The second strand comes from
the literature on resource wars, defined as ‘hot conflicts triggered by a struggle to grab valuable resources’ (Victor, 2007: 1). Energy
is
seen as a primary cause of greatpower conflicts over scarce energy resources (Hamon & Dupuy, 2008; Klare,
2001, 2008). Alternatively, energy is seen as a secondary cause of conflict; here, research has focused on the
dynamics through which resource scarcity in general and energy scarcity in particular generate socioeconomic, political and environmental conditions such as population movements, internal strife, secessionism and
desertification, which cause or accelerate both interstate and intrastate conflict (Homer-Dixon, 1991, 1994, 2008;
Solana, 2008; see also Dalby, 2004). As is immediately apparent, this logic draws on a classic formulation that states that ‘a nation is secure to
the extent to which it is not in danger of having to sacrifice core values, if it wishes to avoid war, and is able . . . to maintain them by victory in
such a war’ (Lippmann, 1943: 51).
The underlying principle of this security logic is survival: not only surviving
war, but also a generalized quasi-Darwinian logic of survival that produces wars over energy that are
fought with ‘energy weapons’. At work in this framing of the energy domain is therefore a definition
of security as ‘the absence of threat to acquired values’ (Wolfers, 1952: 485), more recently reformulated as ‘survival in the face
of existential threats’ (Buzan, Wæver & de Wilde, 1998: 27). The defining parameters of this traditional security logic are therefore: (1)
an understanding of security focused on the use of force, war and conflict (Walt, 1991: 212; Freedman, 1998: 48); and (2) a focus on states as
the subjects and objects of energy security. In the war logic, energy security is derivative of patterns of international politics – often captured
under the label ‘geopolitics’ (Aalto & Westphal, 2007: 3) – that lend their supposedly perennial attributes to the domain of energy (Barnes, Jaffe
& Morse, 2004; Jaffe & Manning, 1998). The
struggle for energy is thus subsumed under the ‘normal’ competition
for power, survival, land, valuable materials or markets (Leverett & Noël, 2007). A key effect of this logic is to
‘arrest’ issues usually not associated with war, and thus erase their distinctive characteristics. Even
the significance of energy qua energy is abolished by the implacable grammar of conflict : energy
becomes a resource like any other, which matters insofar as it affects the distribution of capabilities in
the international system. As a result, a series of transpositions affect most of the issues ranked high on
the energy security agenda. For example, in the European context, the problem is not necessarily energy (or, more
precisely, gas, to avoid the typical reduction performed by such accounts). The problem lies in the ‘geopolitical interests’ of
Russia and other supplier states, whose strength becomes inherently threatening (Burrows & Treverton, 2007;
Horsley, 2006). Energy security policies become entirely euphemistic, as illustrated for example by statements that equate ‘avoiding energy
isolation’ with ‘beating Russia’ (Baran, 2007). Such ‘geopolitical’ understanding of international politics also habituates a distinct vocabulary.
Public documents, media reports and academic analyses of energy security are suffused with
references to weapons, battles, attack, fear, ransom, blackmail, dominance, superpowers, victims and
losers. It is therefore unsurprising that this logic is coterminous with the widely circulating narrative of
the ‘new’ Cold War. 6 This lexicon of conflict encourages modulations, reductions and transpositions in the meanings of both energy
and security. This is evident at the most fundamental level, structuring encyclopaedic entries (Kohl, 2004) and key
policy documents (White House, 2007), where energy security becomes oil security (security modulates energy into
oil), which becomes oil geopolitics (oil modulates security into geopolitics). Once security is understood in the
grammar of conflict, the complexity of energy is abolished and reduced to the possession of oilfields or gas
pipelines. The effect of this modulation is to habituate the war logic of security, and also to create a hierarchy between the three constitutive
dimensions of energy security (growth, sustenance and the environment). This hierarchy reflects and at the same time embeds the dominant
effect of the war logic, which is the militarization of energy (Russell & Moran, 2008), an argument reminiscent of the debates
surrounding the securitization of the environment (Deudney, 1990). It is of course debatable whether this is a new phenomenon. Talk of oil
wars has been the subject of prestigious conferences and conspiracy theories alike, and makes the headlines of newspapers around the world.
A significant literature has long focused on the relationship between US foreign policy, oil and war (Stokes, 2007; in contrast, see Nye, 1982).
The pertinence of this argument cannot be evaluated in this short space, but it is worth noting that it too reduces energy to oil, and in/security
to war. The
key point is that this logic changes not only the vocabulary of energy security but also its
political rationality. As Victor (2008: 9) puts it, this signals ‘the arrival of military planning to the problem of
natural resources’ and inspires ‘a logic of hardening, securing and protecting’ in the entire domain of
energy. There is, it must be underlined, some resistance to the pull of the logic of war, as attested for
example by NATO’s insistence that its focus on energy security ‘will not trigger a classical military
response’ (De Hoop Scheffer, 2008: 2). Yet, the same NATO official claims that ‘the global competition for energy and natural
resources will re-define the relationship between security and economics’, which hints not only at the potential militarization
of energy security policy but also at the hierarchies this will inevitably create. 7 New geographies of
insecurity will thus emerge if the relationship between the environment, sustenance and growth is
structured by the militarized pursuit of energy (Campbell, 2005: 952; Christophe Paillard in Luft & Paillard, 2007).
Framing energy diversification as a security issue sets the stage for preemptive
resource wars and conceals consumption as the real issue.
Campbell 05
David, PhD Professor at Australian National University, “The Biopolitics of Security: Oil, Empire, and the
Sports Utility Vehicle,” American Quarterly, Vol 57, No 3, September MI)
Most accounts of the role of oil in U.S. foreign policy embody economistic assumptions, rendering oil in
materialistic terms as an independent variable that causes states to behave in particular ways . In the prelude to
the invasion of Iraq, even the best commentaries represented oil as the real reason motivating the buildup to war.28 In this vein, a Greenpeace
campaign pictured the (oil) “drums of war” and invited people to read about “what’s really behind the war on Iraq.”29 In addition to
manifesting specific epistemological assumptions, these
views regard resource geopolitics as primarily a question of
supply. Before we move beyond this frame of reference to explore what goes unexplained by this focus, we need to appreciate the
infrastructure of oil resource geopolitics that makes this issue so important. Securing global oil supply has been a tenet of
U.S. foreign policy in the post–World War II era. Because the Middle East holds two-thirds of the
known reserves of oil, this objective has made the region an unavoidable concern for successive U.S.
administrations. As the largest and most economical supplier of Middle East oil, Saudi Arabia has had a central place in this strategic
calcu-lation, with the United States agreeing to defend (internally and externally) the Saudi regime in return for privileged access to Saudi oil.
Over the years, this arrangement has
cost the United States tens of billions of dollars in military assistance.30 This strategy
was formalized in the Carter Doctrine of 1980, which, in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, declared that any power
that threatened to control the Persian Gulf area would be directly challenging fundamental U.S.
national security interests and would be seen as engaged in an assault on the United States. None of
this would be required if the United States did not rely on imported oil for its economic well-being.
However, in 2002 oil imports fueled 53 percent of domestic consumption, and the U.S. Department of Energy forecasts only increasing
dependence. By 2025 oil import dependence is expected to rise to around 70 percent of domestic needs.31 These percentages mean the
United States will consume an additional 8.7 million barrels of oil per day by 2025. Given that total petroleum imports in 2002 were 11.4 million
barrels per day, this is a very substantial increase. In recent years, faced with increased dependence on oil imports, the United States has been
seeking to diversify supply, with some paradoxical outcomes. As the country was preparing to go to war with Iraq, the United States was
importing half of all Iraqi exports (which satisfied only 8 percent of America’s needs), even though this indirectly funded the regime of Saddam
Hussein.32 Some Republicans in Congress used this data to smear then-Democratic Senate leader Tom Daschle as an Iraqi sympathizer, arguing
that the Democrat’s failure to support drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)— as the Bush administration desired—forced
America into unholy commercial alliances.33 While this argument conveniently overlooked the fact that ANWR’s 3 billion barrels of reserves
could supply only six months of the United States’ total oil needs, it demonstrated how the
internalization of a cleavage
between business and environmental interests is sustained through an association with external
threat.34 The drive for diversification is now a major security objective. In the 2001 review of energy policy chaired
by Vice President Dick Cheney, the final chapter of the report focused exclusively on strengthening global alliances with energy producers to
achieve that goal.35 However, the
geopolitical pursuit of energy security is likely to produce new and intensive
forms of insecurity for those in the new resource zones, which are located in some of the most strategically
unstable global locations.36 As a result, the United States has been providing increased military support to governments in the
Caspian Basin area, Latin America, and sub-Saharan Africa—regardless of their ideological complexion or human rights record.37 A geopolitical
understanding of these developments is necessary but not sufficient. That is because the
geopolitical frame focuses solely on
the supply of oil without interrogating the demand for this resource that makes it so valuable.
Possession of a material resource is meaningless unless social networks value that resource . As such, an
analysis of the demand side, and attention to the politics of consumption as much as the problem of
production, is a first step toward understanding the biopolitics of security.
Environment
Resource security is flawed—it reduces the environment to a subordinate stockpile of
resources. This ignores the gendered dimensions of population growth, globalization
and inequality that cause scarcity.
Detraz 9
(Nicole, Ph.D. candidate in intersections of gender, security, and the environment, at Colorado State
University, Environmental Security and Gender: Necessary Shifts in an Evolving Debate, Security Studies
Vol 18 Issue 2, 2009)
Third, ecofeminists
will take issue with the assertion of a link between environmental conflict and
scarcity because they see that treatments of scarcity are largely anthropocentric , suggesting that the
environment is made up of resources for human consumption. This goes against the ecofeminist notion that the environment is made up of
human and nonhuman connections. Authors like Carolyn Merchant call for the acknowledgement of a dynamic relationship between human
and nonhuman nature, with each type having a degree of power over the other. 8
To use terms like “scarcity” implies that
the environment is something of a stockroom of resources for humans
that may become depleted; this disregards
the deeper relationship between the two entities.¶ Finally, feminists, in their concern for the gender-differential impacts of international
environmental conflict scholars' proposed causes of conflict are themselves gendered . The
factors often put forward as potentially contributing to resource scarcity and conflict in environmental conflict
literatures include population growth, human migration, globalization, and unequal resource
politics, believe that
distribution . Each of these topics has particular implications for gender analysis that are largely
unaddressed within the literature. For example, environmental conflict scholars argue that increases in human
populations can directly contribute to both supply-induced and demand-induced scarcities, which could result in
violent conflict. 9 This tells us very little if we do not consider the location and composition of these populations. Also, the issue of
population has specific gendered implications. Impacts may be different if populations have “youth
bulges” typically made up of young males. This group disproportionately engages in crime, commits suicide, or joins militias, all
of which are important security concerns. 10 Additionally, by identifying population increase as a contributor to environmental conflict, these
authors are automatically making women the potential target of policy solutions to environmental change because of their role as child
bearers. When issues are securitized, certain actions are seen as justifiable, and it is likely that men and women will
experience these actions differently. 11 Similar arguments can be made for the other causal factors privileged in the environmental conflict
approach. Instances of male/female differential impacts have implications for the security of particular individuals, if security is conceptualized
broadly.
Environmental security ignores gendered binaries—it separates the rational human
from nature in favor of securitizing policies
Detraz 9
(Nicole, Ph.D. candidate in intersections of gender, security, and the environment, at Colorado State
University, Environmental Security and Gender: Necessary Shifts in an Evolving Debate, Security Studies
Vol 18 Issue 2, 2009)
First, the
environmental security approach fails to note the gendered content of the human/nature
dichotomy. Ecofeminists warn of this approach's potential to de-link humans and the nonhuman
environment. Merchant recognizes that humans have a degree of control over nature through their behaviors; however, nature also has
the power to destroy and evolve with or without humans in many cases. Merchant therefore calls for “an earthcare ethic,
which is premised on this dynamic relationship, [and] is generated by humans, but is enacted by listening to,
hearing, and responding to the voice of nature.” 14
Second, environmental
security authors typically fail to recognize the gender dynamics that would
transform their analyses. For example, environmental security scholars pay substantial attention to sustainable development as a
way to combat environmental degradation and human insecurity simultaneously. 15 Feminists have pointed out that many
sustainable development programs have not been gender-sensitive. 16 Since different paths to development often have
survival implications for a population, a gender-sensitive approach to sustainable development that takes
into account the needs of women, the ecosystem, and future generations within a particular setting
appears necessary to ensure security. This means that if sustainable development or sustainability is
advocated as providing security, then the specific needs of women must also be addressed within that
framework.
FOOD SECURITY
Ag dumping
Economic cooperation on agriculture causes market dumping, which destroys food
security
Ewelukwa 05
Uche U. " Centuries of Globalization; Centuries of Exclusion:
African Women, Human Rights, and the "New" International Trade Regime" Berkeley Journal of Gender,
Law & Justice 20 Berkeley J. Gender L. & Just. 75, Assistant Professor, University of Arkansas School of
Law; Fellow, Carnegie Council on Ethics and International Affairs 2003-2004; S.J.D. 2003, Harvard Law
School MI
Why is dumping bad for Third World farmers?
In the first instance, a drop in farm prices can drive already poor,
indebted farmers off the land and trigger mass exodus from rural areas to already saturated urban
slums.
333 As the IATP report notes, "below-cost imports drive developing country farmers out of their local markets. If the farmers do not
have access to a safety net, they have to abandon their land." 334 As domestic
food production falls in the face of cheap
[*129] imports, experts predict that more and more people will be forced to depend on paid
employment rather than land to feed themselves. 335 In Mexico, the wages agricultural workers earned in the corn and
beans sector fell significantly between 1991 and 2003; "In 1991, self-employed farmers earned 1959 pesos per month, while in 2003, they
earned only 228 pesos for the same amount of work." 336 Ultimately,
the unregulated influx of cheaper goods from
the North could significantly displace local production, lead to the loss of traditional market domain of
small farmers, and threaten the livelihood of millions. While data is not currently available to demonstrate the effect of
dumping on farmers in rural communities in Africa, the problem in Mexico is replicated in many communities around
the globe. As the IATP report rightly notes, the displacement of farmers as a result of agricultural dumping "is happening around the world,
in places as far apart as Jamaica, Burkina Faso and the Philippines." 337¶ A second problem with dumping is that Third
World farmers who venture to sell their product to exporters "find their global market share
undermined by the lower-cost competition." 338 Additionally, dumping has important implications for a nation's food
security. 339¶ Trade liberalization also triggers changes in the supply and distribution of produce that
privilege large-scale producers and suppliers. Trade liberalization in services opens doors for foreign investors to establish
large grocery stores in place of the traditional open-air markets that are prevalent in Africa. As large grocery stores spring up, the
tendency would be for the stores to turn to agro-businesses for their supply of produce because local
farmers lack the capital and the know-how to meet the quality standards the grocery stores demand. In
Africa, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations ("FAO") reports that small farmers risk being swept out of agriculture by a
wave of supermarket expansion. 340 The FAO reports that the wave of supermarket expansion is not limited to major cities but has spread to
rural towns. FAO's Kostas Stamoulis predicts that "the onslaught of supermarkets will improve the quality and safety of food sold locally as
farmers strive to meet supermarket's quality standards for the domestic market," 341 and argues that supermarkets [*130] could provide "a
stable, dependable market for farmers' produce and may boost employment in cities and surrounding areas by providing jobs in transport and
distribution." 342 The impact on small farmers is likely to be catastrophic. For example,
giant corporations could institute new
quality and safety standards in order to wipe out local competition.
Increasing food trade floods markets, causing mass starvation and poverty while
benefiting white elites.
Ellinger-Locke 2011
Maggie "FOOD SOVEREIGNTY IS A GENDERED ISSUE" Buffalo Environmental Law Journal 18 Buff. Envt'l.
L.J. 157 J.D. from CUNY of Law in 2011, and her B.A. in ecofeminism from Antioch College. She is
admitted into the Missouri Bar where she is a practicing criminal defense attorney MI
The Green Revolution was a post-World War II philanthropic effort aimed at reducing hunger through
the increase of crop yields. 22 Through the support of such organizations as the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations,
international crop breeding institutions developed new varieties of rice, wheat, and corn that were
designed to thrive under the application of industrial agricultural inputs such as synthetic fertilizers,
petroleum-based pesticides, and irrigation equipment. 23 These varieties and the accompanying inputs
were presented to farmers, who were encouraged to use them without consideration of the possibly
prohibitive costs or consequences. 24¶ What came next is more controversial. From the point of view of certain scientists, 25 the
Green Revolution was a success as it more than doubled food production. 26 Fear of a Malthusian
catastrophe brought on by over-population left the world looking for new technologies as the answer
to the growing problem of hunger. 27 However, as Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen argues, hunger is not an issue of food
production being in proportion to population, but rather a social problem stemming from poverty. 28
The complexity of the problem cannot be overstated and simple fixes are not capable of addressing it . However
unintentionally, the Green Revolution has increased hunger and inequality in many ways , even as it increased the
food supply that was [*164] available to those who could afford to buy food. 29 It benefited wealthy farmers who could
afford the expensive inputs over poor farmers.
30
The flood of crops on the market drove down
prices, leaving many small farmers poverty-stricken.
31
When farmers abandoned traditional low-
input ecologically sustainable practices in favor of industrial agriculture, they harmed their
environment . 32¶ Meanwhile, agribusiness, much of it based in the United States, was prospering as never before. Agribusiness heralded
the idea that "one seed feeds the world." 33 Rather than adapting seeds to different locales, they were selling whole systems that adapted the
locales to the industrial agriculture model. In this way agribusiness
operated similarly to colonial powers; the
companies were profiting off the former colonies and making record profits, while the farmers, the
people, and the land, continued to suffer. 34 This is notable also for the racial dimensions that operate both historically and
currently in the global food system. Those without food are disproportionately people of color and those who
control the means of production are disproportionately white. This is a leftover remnant of an
agricultural system built on enslavement. 35
Food Security is an empty gesture that empowers masculine power centers and makes
them seem benevolent as they kill entire populations.
Ellinger-Locke 2011
Maggie "FOOD SOVEREIGNTY IS A GENDERED ISSUE" Buffalo Environmental Law Journal 18 Buff. Envt'l.
L.J. 157 J.D. from CUNY of Law in 2011, and her B.A. in ecofeminism from Antioch College. She is
admitted into the Missouri Bar where she is a practicing criminal defense attorney MI
As defined above, food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic
access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs, and food preferences for an
active and healthy life. 103 An example of food security is embodied in the UN's International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge,
Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD). 104 This groundbreaking assessment, sponsored by five UN agencies and the World Bank,
and authored by over 400 scientists and development experts from more than eighty countries, concluded that there is an urgent need to
increase and strengthen further research and adoption of locally appropriate and democratically controlled agro-ecological methods of
production. 105 The assessment relies on local expertise and farmer-managed, local seed systems, 106 and concluded that this local control of
the direction of the global food system is critical to the process of increasing food security, decreasing poverty, and reaching the UN's
Millennium Development Goals. 107¶ However, this
assessment fails to mention the process of bringing food to
plate, something which is fundamental to food sovereignty. Food security, while a laudable goal in itself, does not
encompass the deeper analysis being offered by social movements of power. Author, activist, and academic Raj Patel states,¶ You can
have food security under a benevolent dictator. Your dictator can provide you with meals and
McDonalds and a little bag of vitamins to compensate your body for the nutrition that McDonalds will
not provide. But that will be a situation of food security. In other words, what food [*177] security fails
to talk about is control and power. And that's what food sovereignty does. 108¶ From a policy perspective, 2009, was an
optimistic year for food security. In April, for the first time, Agriculture Ministers from the Group of Eight and the Group of Five, representing
the richest countries on the planet, met in Italy with food security at the top of the agenda. 109 Further, the actual G8 summit in June produced
the "G8 Joint Statement on Global Food Security - L'Aquila Food Security Initiative" (AFSI). 110 This twelve-point initiative commits $ 20 billion
over three years for agricultural development, 111 much higher than was expected. This raises world aid back to 1980 levels. 112 Since that
time investment in agricultural development had not exceeded $ 5 billion." 113¶ Concerns
have been raised about the source
of funding for these development agendas, which has not been identified. This causes some to
suggest that money may merely be redirected from other areas that have already been promised aid.
Also, many fear that the money simply will not materialize, as with the $ 50 billion pledged to fight world poverty in the
2005 G8 summit. 114 In the [*178] words of Eric Holt-Gimenez, Executive Director of Food First, an agricultural research institution based in
Oakland, California, "This is getting ridiculous. Every time the G-8 gets together, we
get new pledges and they never come
through. At best, it will bring them up to prior obligations." 115¶ Nonetheless, there is reason to be cautiously optimistic. The AFSI contains
encouraging language about biodiversity, sustainability, and localism. This shows a growing awareness on the part of the G8 that food security
is tied to the ecological dimensions of the planet and not an empty vacuum of agricultural inputs, as had been the language of development
experts for decades. Further, the document represents a real shift from mere food aid to actual agricultural investment. It demonstrates a
growing recognition that the world's hungry are not going anywhere and acknowledges that actions on the part of the world's richest countries
are necessary to address this life and death issue.¶ However, the document is not without limitations. Land
grabbing 116 is not
mentioned and biomass and land speculation are given only cursory attention. Further, it focuses on
increased production, which is code language for genetically modified organisms (GMOs), 117 and other
non-natural inputs such as chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The initiative fails on these points, prompting critics to
question what role agribusiness has played in the drafting. 118¶ The AFSI and other such initiatives have no avenues for
accountability. If the $ 20 billion does not materialize there is no [*179] international court to indict the
G8 and demand the funds. This is a major and predictable weakness in the document. The initiative does take some welcome steps
forward but it has not and arguably cannot address the underlying issues related to establishing food security.¶ Food security as a
policy objective simply does not take the necessary steps to look at the production of food and the
socioeconomic conditions that transport food from farmer to plate. Building a food secure world will
not achieve the democratic participation offered by food sovereignty, as food security sets the bar too
low.¶
Production
Increasing food production leads to starvation and violence against women.
Ellinger-Locke 2011
Maggie "FOOD SOVEREIGNTY IS A GENDERED ISSUE" Buffalo Environmental Law Journal 18 Buff. Envt'l.
L.J. 157 J.D. from CUNY of Law in 2011, and her B.A. in ecofeminism from Antioch College. She is
admitted into the Missouri Bar where she is a practicing criminal defense attorney MI
For the first time in history, more than one billion people on the planet are living with hunger. 1 Of these,
75% live in rural areas, 2 mostly earning their livelihoods from farming. 3 While they work in
agriculture, they are hungry. 4 There is irony in the juxtaposition of agriculture and poverty, in the lack
of access to food by the people who grow it. In June 2008, the World Bank reported that global food prices rose 83% over the
last three years 5 and the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) cited a 45% increase in just nine months. 6¶ While global
food prices were at an all time high, agribusiness was experiencing booming profits. In the last quarter of 2007, as the food crisis was just
beginning, Archer Daniels [*159] Midland realized an earnings increase of 42%, Monsanto of 45%, and Cargill of 86%. 7 Cargill's subsidiary,
Mosaic Fertilizer, saw a profit increase of 1,200%. 8¶ As capitalist agriculture has grown, hunger and poverty have increased. There is
a
tendency to see hunger connected to agricultural output and population. This is only a small part of the truth. In
fact, according to the FAO, there actually was enough food to feed everyone on the planet in 2008 due to the record grain harvests of 2007; 9
the amount of food produced was 150% of current demand. Over the course of the last twenty years, the rate of population growth has
dropped to 1.14% a year, yet food production has increased by over two percent per year. 10 Demand
is not exceeding supply;
people are simply too poor to afford enough food.¶ While rapid population growth can create a larger demand than supply,
this version of events misses the bigger picture. It is the concentration of power and profits in the global North that
has left the global South hungry. Fifty years ago the global South had an agricultural trade surplus of $ 1 billion; today it has a
deficit of $ 11 billion. 11 This imbalance of power between agribusiness and the growing numbers of hungry has led to the world food crisis.¶
According to the World Food Summit of 1996, food
security exists when all people, at all times, have access to
sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and
healthy life. 12 La Vía Campesina, 13 the Peasant Way, an international federation of [*160] peasant farmers, looked at this concept and
saw limitations in its failure to address the power dynamics and imbalances within the food system, such as who controls how food is produced
and distributed, and the question of power in turn implicates gender. This
focus on power frames the question as one of
food sovereignty rather than food security. Food sovereignty is defined as "the right of peoples to
healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable
methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems." 14 Food sovereignty penetrates
much deeper than food security and is the subject of this article. Moreover, the use of gender as a lens to understand the global food system,
based on the similarities between patriarchy's control over the agricultural system and its control over women's bodies and reproductive
capacity, creates a perspective that has not been sufficiently offered elsewhere.¶ In 2008 in Maputo, Mozambique, La Vía Campesina held its
fifth international conference called "Feeding the World and Feeding the Planet." At this conference a policy letter was drafted called "An Open
Letter from Maputo," which included a call for a new program of action under the slogan "food
sovereignty is about an end to
violence against women." 15 That statement is the [*161] inspiration for this paper. The power of this statement is perhaps not
immediately recognized, yet there is profundity in what it can offer. In not only building a food secure world, but also, by
changing relationships on an interpersonal level between individuals sitting across a table, food
sovereignty offers an alternative to our current food system and a more profound analysis of power
than food security. Food sovereignty, literally people's self-government over the food system, argues
for a complete transformation of society, or nothing less than food revolution. This article demonstrates the
key role that the set of practices known as food sovereignty can play in rebuilding democratic systems of food production. Food sovereignty is
also a feminist issue and applying a gendered lens to the food system reveals the failings of food security as a goal for food system
transformation. This article will examine the role of social movements, such as La Vía Campesina, in changing the framework governing food
production, and advocates looking to these movements for leadership.¶ As explained above, the
economics and power dynamics
of the current food system exacerbates hunger and poverty. Part II explores the relevant legal regimes that form the
foundation of the current system. Part III explains the concepts of food security, the right to food, and food sovereignty; it will explore why food
security is a limited concept and must be broadened to ensure democratic control over the food system. Part IV will explore gender and
ecofeminism, 16 explaining how a gendered lens can transform the way food is produced and distributed. Part V discusses some of the work
that food sovereignty is accomplishing and suggests that these efforts provide a path forward for the current food system towards one
organized around food sovereignty. And finally the conclusion, Part VI, explains how La Vía Campesina, which some claim to be the world's
largest social movement, 17 offers the vision of how legal regimes must be guided by the principles of food sovereignty, and emphasizes the
need for [*162] urgency in restructuring the global food system in light of the climate crisis.
ENVIRONMENT
Market solutions
Commercial approaches towards environmental management assume androcentric
views of nature—that’s fundamentally incompatible with environmental protection
Merila¨inen et al 00
(Susan, research fellow in the Department of Management and Organization at the Helsinki School of
Economics and Business Administration, THE MASCULINE MINDSET OF¶ ENVIRONMENTAL¶
MANAGEMENT AND GREEN¶ MARKETING, Business Strategy and the Environment¶ Bus. Strat. Env. 9,
2000)
It is argued in this paper, however, that¶ these views about the significant role of environmental¶ management
and green marketing¶ in the transition to sustainable economy¶ may be overly optimistic. From a feminist¶ perspective, it is argued
that environmental¶ management and green marketing retain¶ many androcentric assumptions about
self,¶ society and nature, which may be problematic¶ or incompatible with long-term environmental¶
protection goals. It is argued that¶ these business approaches to environmental¶ protection are impaired by a worldview, implicitly¶
adopted from neoclassical economics,¶ which is not only naı¨ve but also exploitative¶ and gender biased.Therefore, it is suggested that
the implications¶ of the implicit assumptions associated¶ with environmental management and green¶
consumerism should be scrutinized. Towards¶ this end, this paper, first, discusses and criticizes¶ the conceptual and ethical
limitations¶ of environmental management and green¶ marketing, focusing on the dominant conceptualizations¶ of man and nature in these¶
areas of research. Then, the
relationship between¶ the conceptions of man and nature¶ and the production of
environmental knowledge¶ and management practices are discussed.¶ Finally, the last section suggests¶
ways of changing the dominant discourse. It¶ is concluded that, to minimize the damage¶ that can be
caused by such an androcentric¶ and universally imposed set of assumptions,¶ it would seem fruitful to pool
insights from¶ many alternative views of conceptualizing¶ the human–nature relationship. This is necessary¶ not
only for the sake of ensuring the¶ survival of human and non-human life but¶ also for performing better research, as well¶ as for achieving
gender equality and social¶ justice.
In fact, market approaches towards environmental problems necessarily exclude
women—they frame the natural world as a feminine victim outside the market
Merila¨inen et al 00
(Susan, research fellow in the Department of Management and Organization at the Helsinki School of
Economics and Business Administration, THE MASCULINE MINDSET OF¶ ENVIRONMENTAL¶
MANAGEMENT AND GREEN¶ MARKETING, Business Strategy and the Environment¶ Bus. Strat. Env. 9,
2000)
Such assumptions of
a disembodied and¶ de-contextualized human being are not only¶ unrealistic but,
also¶ disguise the ways in which the market and¶ the ‘economic man’ are dependent
on unsustainable¶ transfers from naturee and from unpaid¶ non-market work by women. It may be¶ argued that
women perform the bodily care¶ and daily provisioning that must remain unacknowledged ¶ for the
masculine self-image of¶ active autonomy to be maintained. Hence, the¶ dependency that is denied becomes women’s¶
more importantly, they
invisible project, as Mellor (1997) and Nelson¶ (1997), for example, have argued. Women, or¶ more precisely women’s work, bears the burden¶
of the link with nature, in that they¶ mediate between the socially constructed¶ world of male-dominated economic systems¶ and the
embeddedness and embodiedness of¶ humanity within its natural milieus (Nelson,¶ 1993). Therefore, ‘economic
man’ and his
markets¶ rely on hidden subsidies: they depend on¶ expropriating and privatizing wealth from¶ those
parts of the social and natural world¶ that lie outside the market sphere.¶
Consequently, the rational market-based solutions¶ to environmental problems, which are¶ based on
bringing the natural environment¶ into the sphere of market mechanism and¶ political system, may
not work because the¶ spheres of women and nature are pre-constructed¶ as unequal outside the
marketplace.¶ The economic system exemplified by the¶ metaphor of ‘economic man’ may, thus,¶
provide neither ecologically efficient nor democratic¶ or socially acceptable policy options to¶ deal with
environmental degradation because,¶ as McMahon (1997) argues, the system itself is¶ dependent on
nature – and women – being¶ outside. Furthermore, these images of market¶ and competitive
individuals do not merely¶ describe and theorize reality inadequately;¶ they also embody normative or
moral commitments¶ and carry moral authority. The image¶ of ‘economic man’ justifies and shapes¶
people’s everyday thinking and acting, possibly¶ silencing potentially useful alternatives.
Climate change
Climate impacts cannot move beyond “measurable” objective effects, and this
rhetorical blindness perpetuates gender asymmetries and violence.
MacGregor 2010
Sherilyn MacGregor, “Gender and Climate Change: From Impacts to Discourses”, School of Politics,
International Relations & Philosophy
Research Centre for the Study of Politics, International Relations &
Environment Keele University, UK. 2010.
So what should feminists, and all those concerned about the politics of gender, do in response to this dismal state of affairs? In short, much more than they are
doing now. The
lack of attention by feminists to climate change, and the regressive gender politics that it
is ushering in, is worrying. Feminists have been critical of environmental scholars for their blindness to
gender. It is now time to be critical of feminist scholars who are blind to the environmental crisis.
Although the work done by a small number of gender, environment and development scholars on the gender inequalities in the material impacts of climate change
is important, I have argued that their analysis is too narrow. The
analysis needs to move beyond seeing ‘impacts’ as only
material and measurable effects (e.g., increased poverty, intensified burden of domestic labour)
experienced by ‘empirical’ and ‘vulnerable’ women in the South.¶ I have suggested that an important way of
doing this is to look at the ways in which gendered discourses create and perpetuate gender
asymmetries and make them seem inevitable and unchangeable. When rural women in the Global South believe it is their
duty to eat last when food is scarce, we need to know both how this hurts them (as vulnerable victims) and how gendered discourses have worked to make this
we need to
resist the urge to celebrate them as saviours and instead reflect critically on how they have come to
internalise a gendered script that makes these more acceptable responses than demanding changes in
governmental policy and industrial practices. It is not enough simply for feminists (like those in NGOs like WEDO
and the WI) to argue for bringing more women into policy making and expert positions. The lack of women
sitting at the climate change policy table is not a cause of gender-blindness but a symptom of gender
ideology and a framing of the issue by the exclusionary, masculinist discourses.
their feminine duty. When earthcarers in the affluent North take the blame for ‘eco-sins’ and the responsibility for tackling climate change,
AID
Aid programs are export subsidies for first world business, creating jobs through
NGOs-aid is tainted with conditionality, tying recipients to procuring first world goods
and services
Kapoor 04
Ilan Kapoor, Associate Professor, Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, “Hyper-selfreflexive development? Spivak on representing the Third World ‘Other’”, Third World Quarterly, 25:4,
page 634, avail. Informaworld
Although she does not specifically consider other institutional dimensions of development, several of Spivak’s arguments are pertinent. Just as
universities can lay claim to ‘pure’ knowledge (as mentioned above), development
organisations can promote the image
of benevolence and disinterestedness. However, the construction of development as ‘aid’ and
‘assistance’ to the Third World is belied by what can be called the ‘business’ and ‘conditionality’ of
development. Thus, in a fashion not untypical of all aid organisations, the Canadian International
Development Agency (CIDA) justifies its aid budget to Canadian ‘taxpayers’ by boasting that 70 cents
on every Canadian aid dollar returns to Canada through the creation of jobs and the purchase of
goods and services (ie 70% of Canadian aid is tied), and that such aid sustains 30 000 Canadian jobs and provides contracts to 2000
Canadian businesses, 50 universities and 60 colleges (CIDA, 2003). The aid programme may (or may not) help or reach its
Third World audiences, but in the meantime, it is an export subsidy to First World businesses and a
job creation programme for NGOs. It is also placed with power by dint of its conditionality: in this
case, it means tying the recipient to procurement of Canadian goods and services; but in other cases
(eg an IMF structural adjustment programme), it could mean the recipient must buy into an ideological programme
(neoliberalism) and carry out serious socioeconomic structural reform. Finally, an aid programme can be used as a
pretext to open up developing-country markets for Western businesses. Here, Spivak cites the World Bank’s recent
promotion of itself as a ‘knowledge organisation’ and its consequent encouragement of developingcountry and subaltern group access to new telecommunications technologies (computers, internet, cell phones).
The by-product of ‘selling access to telecommunications-as-empowerment’ is capitalist penetration by
global computing and telecommunications industries (1997: 3; 1999: 419; 2003: 613).
Their policy of providing ‘aid’ is merely a way to consolidate and maintain neoliberal
structural adjustment policies and depoliticizes the struggle against poverty.
Mohanty 12
(Chandra Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender
Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at
Syracuse University, “Gendering justice, building alternative futures”, 2012 Human Sciences Research
Council, http://www.citieslocalgovernments.org/committees/dal/Upload/library/alternatives_to_privatization__entire_ebook_en.pdf#page=111)//SK
Neoliberalised global restructuring has drawn on these colonial legacies to consolidate the current regime of
international debt, development aid, and the so-called structural adjustment of the economies and governance structures
of developing countries. Marchand and Runyan (2000) argue that global restructuring reworks practices and meanings of masculinity/femininity by
shifting the boundaries and meanings of public/private, domestic/ international, and local/global. Feminist scholars of global restructuring claim that the
relations of domination and the economic and political hierarchies instituted by neoliberal cultures
are profoundly gendered and could not be sustained without the gendered symbolism and metaphors that serve to
“naturalise” the gendered division of labour that underlies processes of economic restructuring. The
withdrawal of government responsibility for social welfare has resulted in the transfer of these
obligations to women, a process that Babb (1996) refers to as women “absorbing the shocks” of adjusting
economies. In essence, women subsidise processes of economic liberalisation, both through unpaid labour
in the home and paid labour in formal and informal work (Beneria 1999). It is erroneous, however, to construe public and private
spaces as discrete spaces. As Pitkin and Bedoya suggest, “Production and reproduction overlap and often occupy the same space in women’s lives” (1997, 47).
Women’s work in the home is increased in a number of ways that are often directly related to changes in the public sphere. They have to work harder to collect
water, provide food, ensure health, and supplement household incomes due to cuts in health, education, and food subsidies and the privatisation of water, which
often has detrimental effects on the poorest women. Over three decades of feminist activism and scholarship in the global South, from the early critiques of the
impact of economic development on poor “Third World” women by DAWN (Sen and Grown 1987), to more recent analysis by the Feminist Initiative of Cartagena
(2003), point to the profoundly negative effects of mainstream development policies, and SAPs (structural adjustment programmes) anchored in neoliberal
paradigms. The 1980s to early 1990s witnessed the sustained engagement of development discourse by feminists via the United Nations (UN) world conferences on
women and the entry of women’s movement activists into international governing bodies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) focusing on women’s issues.
Harcourt (2006) argues that this
engagement of international governance structures by women’s rights
advocates resulted in a “professionalisation” of development and a proliferation of NGOs on women’s
issues leading to a depoliticisation of radical gender justice projects and the creation of a
management apparatus of development. It is this particular development discourse, backed up by UN statistics,
texts, case studies, and reports. that partially fuelled the managerial and bureaucratised neoliberal policies, in turn
discursively producing a generic, gendered female body with a particular set of needs and rights, thus
potentially erasing differences among women. The radical feminist critiques of SAPs and privatisation thus resulted at this time in an
organisational focus on “gender mainstreaming” (as evidenced through static measures of gender parity in development plans and projects and/or women’s
participation in the private sphere), not gender justice (an analysis of gendered power hierarchies that unearth and destabilise the roots of gendered forms of
inequality; a project often regarded as meddling in the “cultural” affairs of “other” nations).
Providing ‘aid’ and programs that focus on reducing poverty rely on a strategy of
gender mainstreaming that homogenize women’s concerns. This policy of privatizing
woman’s concerns only increases the poverty of the status quo.
Mohanty 12
(Chandra Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender
Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at
Syracuse University, “Gendering justice, building alternative futures”, 2012 Human Sciences Research
Council, http://www.citieslocalgovernments.org/committees/dal/Upload/library/alternatives_to_privatization__entire_ebook_en.pdf#page=111)//SK
Gender mainstreaming was agreed upon as the “global strategy for the promotion of gender equality”
(Manase et al., 2003, Panda 2007) in the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action (the Fourth World Conference on Women). In some ways, gender
mainstreaming represents the gains made through the persistence and struggle of thousands of women around the world whose activism and
advocacy persuaded international organisations to rectify gendered silences and omissions in international policies. But it also represents
ongoing negotiations and contestations between womenbased/feminist groups and the members of the UN system and ostensibly the larger
gender mainstreaming was to bring women’s issues to the centre of
development agendas and to move away from “the earlier ‘add women and stir approach’” (Subrahmanian 2004, 89), it has fallen short
of actually transforming gendered inequalities in development plans. As Mukhopadhyay argues, “feminist
concerns with the political project of equality are being normalised in the development business as an
ahistorical, apolitical, decontextualised and technical project that leaves the prevailing and unequal
power relations intact” (2004, 100). Despite – and partly because of – the attempts to make gender politically viable within
development industry (Mukhopadhyay 2004). While the goal of
international organisations and NGOs, gender mainstreaming has more often than not failed to rectify gender inequalities, though it has
spurred debates on methods and strategies. This policy dialectic – the relationship between activists, advocates, and planners – has generated
a new/old paradigm emphasis on “women’s empowerment” as a strategy for gendering development. The
empowerment
approach, we argue, is gender mainstreaming adapted to a neoliberal ideological agenda. On the surface, women’s empowerment is
concerned with promoting equality of access to resources, and power in decision making for women, but in practice it works to conceal
deep-seated social, political, and economic inequalities that need to be addressed to make real,
meaningful change. Empowerment approaches tend to individualise gender equity, subject gendered
interests to tests of market efficiency, and essentially reprivatise women through a marriage of
“efficiency, productivity and empowerment” (Cleaver 1998, 294). This marriage of objectives is enacted on the ground
through the commodification of resources and the decentralisation of resource management, which also is a process of commodification as it
relies on the “free labour” of community members to enact the project (Aguilar 2005; what Elson [1995] refers to as the “cash and committee”
approach). The introduction of commodified public services, it was argued, would increase access for millions. On the whole, this prediction has
not played out in practice.
Billions continue to lack access to safe drinking water, sanitation, electricity, and
health care. Worse yet, not only have women not gained access to these vital services, but also in many cases they have lost government
subsidies for them and/or the total provision of them. The gap between what can be paid and what commodified
services cost, and/or the loss of the service altogether, is filled in by women’s labour. In very concrete
ways, neoliberal policies have “privatised social reproduction” by reprivatising women’s labour (Roberts
2008). In the following, we highlight some of the problematics of this approach to gender and service delivery.
short term fixes rely on an approach oriented around economic equity rather than
social equity which reinscribes cycles of exploitation.
Mohanty 12
(Chandra Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender
Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at
Syracuse University, “Gendering justice, building alternative futures”, 2012 Human Sciences Research
Council, http://www.citieslocalgovernments.org/committees/dal/Upload/library/alternatives_to_privatization__entire_ebook_en.pdf#page=111)//SK
One means of commodification is the introduction of user fees and “full cost recovery” programmes
into systems of public service delivery. Katz (2001, cited in Roberts 2008) identifies this process of commodification
as one that moved from pricing schemes that valued “social equity” (paying what one could afford) to “economic
equity” (users must pay for the full costs of the resource). Proponents of this system argue that user fees compel consumers to make
judicious choices in their use of the good. What are not accounted for in these models are the consequences of an
inability to pay. In the field of health care, for example, Nanda (2002) found that women’s rates of utilisation of health care decreased
dramatically in several African nations after the introduction of user fees, thus jeopardising women’s health. Nanda similarly shows that
maternal death rates increased by 56% in the Zaria region of Nigeria as a result of an inability to pay user fees. In this case, women could not
afford maternity care and thus suffered the consequences of unattended births. Commodified services have multiplicative effects as well.
Brown’s (2010) study of water privatisation in Tanzania shows how an
inability to pay for water makes HIV/AIDS care
increasingly difficult, particularly in Tanzania, where home-based care for HIV/AIDS patients is policy. In this case, an inability to
pay for water jeopardises women’s safety as at-home caregivers. Thus, not only is the patient’s health
put at risk, but so too is the health of the caregiver. In the electricity sector, neoliberal reforms have had similarly
detrimental effects because planners have tended to focus on supply-side concerns that value profit over equity and prioritise industrial
consumption (Clancy 2000, UNESCAP 2003). The supply-side
focus has marginalised the energy needs of women
through a lack of policy attention to biomass fuels, which are largely used by the poor in both rural
and urban settings (Clancy 2000, Batliwala and Reddy 2003). Women’s health is put at risk by the lack of attention to biomass fuels;
they are tasked with the responsibility of collecting biomass fuels and also with cooking responsibilities that have particularly adverse though
well-known health effects (Holdren and Smith 2000, Reddy 2000). The World Bank, for example, “classed indoor air pollution in LDCs [least
developed countries] among the four most critical global environmental problems” (Cecelski 2000, 18). Beyond indoor pollution, the use of
biomass fuels puts women at risk of injuries related to collecting firewood and inhibits school participation by young girls who often work
women’s labour becomes a subsidy for supplyside electricity reforms. The costs of supply-side reforms are often compounded by the rising costs of
alongside their mothers to collect biomass energy sources. In these ways,
energy, and by the loss of government fuel subsidies (Clancy 2002). Taken together, these reforms work to
further marginalise rural populations in poverty where electrification requires costly infrastructure
that investors are unwilling to take on given low expectations for a return of profit (Zomers 2003). The gap
between rural and urban electricity access is the greatest in sub-Saharan Africa, where Hall (2007) shows that 54% of households in urban areas
have access, versus 8.3% access in rural areas. Though significant, the
gap between rural and urban access is crosscut by
race, class, and gender inequalities. For example, Annecke’s research on the South African electricity sector notes that “[t]he 46%
of households that are not yet electrified are usually those housing poor, black women in rural areas, further marginalized as a result of their
lack of access to electric power” (2009, 291). Additionally, McDonald (2009) argues that although connections to the grid have been made
possible, millions of South Africans continue to live without electricity because they are unable to afford the service under cost-reflexive pricing
but poor communities
will continue to lack adequate access when economic efficiency is valued over social equity.
schemes. These findings suggest that increasing connections may work to bridge the rural/urban gap in service,
INFASTRUCTURE
Depoliticization DA- A focus on infrastructure (roads, credit, education) displaces
political and structural causes of poverty
Ferguson 90
(James Ferguson, Chair of the Cultural and Social Anthropology Department at Stanford University, Ph.
D. from Harvard, The Anti-Politics Machine: “Development,” Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in
Lesotho, page 66)
Even outside of the state, politics is conspicuous by its absence. "The people" tend to appear as an
undifferentiated mass, a collection of "individual farmers" and "decision makers." The impression of an
egalitarian "peasant society" is actively promoted, as for instance in the World Bank's discussion on income distribution, and "the farmers" are
distinguished from one another only by their relative receptiveness to "new ideas" and "development" (hence "lead farmers," "progressive
farmers," etc.). Political
parties almost never appear, and the explicitly political role played by
"development" institutions such as the Village Development Committees is ignored or concealed (World
Bank 1975: 10; d. Chapter 8 page 247, below). At the end of this involved process of theoretical construction, Lesotho can be
represented in "development" discourse as a nation of farmers, not wage laborers; a country with a geography, but no
history; with people, but no classes; values, bur no structures; adrmmstrators but no rulers;
bureaucracy, but no politics. Political and structural causes of poverty in Lesotho are systematically
erased and replaced with technical ones, and the "modern," capitalist, industrialized nature of the society is systematically
understated or concealed. One arrives at a picture of a basically agricultural economy which, although
potentially prosperous, is now producing under primitive, ancient conditions lacking basic
infrastructure and modern techniques, and so has been unable to accommodate recent population
growth. Impediments to "development" of the "national economy" are thus located in lack of roads
and markets, lack of training and education, lack of agricultural inputs, unfamiliarity with a money
economy, lack of credit, etc. Problems which loom largest in other, non-"development" accounts, such as structural
unemployment, influx control, low wages, political subjugation by South Africa, parasitic bureaucratic
elites, and so on, simply disappear. In the course of being run through the theoretical machine of "development," an
impoverished labor reserve becomes a "traditional, subsistence, peasant society"; wage laborers become farmers; the determinations of South
African state and capital over the economic life of the Basotho disappear; and a government of entrenched elites becomes an instrument for
empowering the poor.
*****Impacts*****
Genocide
Development multiplies underdevelopment- it leaves populations subject to multiple
interventions and systems of control, impoverishment, ecological degredation, and
killing indigenous populations to the threat of extinction
ESCOBAR 95
Arturo Kenan Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, UNC-Chapel Hil, Encountering Development: The
Making and Unmaking of the Third World pg .52-54
The crucial threshold and transformation that took place in the early post– World War II period discussed in this chapter were the result not of
a radical epistemological or political breakthrough but of the reorganization of a number of factors that allowed the Third World to display a
new visibility and to irrupt into a new realm of language. This new space was carved out of the vast and dense surface of the Third World,
placing it in a field of power. Underdevelopment
became the subject of political technologies that sought to
erase it from the face of the Earth but that ended up, instead, multiplying it to infinity.¶ Development
fostered a way of conceiving of social life as a technical problem, as a matter of rational decision and
management to be entrusted to that group of people—the development professionals—whose specialized
knowledge allegedly qualified them for the task. Instead of seeing change as a process rooted in the interpretation of each society's history and
cultural tradition—as a number of intellectuals in various parts of the Third World had attempted to do in the 1920s and 1930s (Gandhi being
the best known of them)—these professionals sought to devise mechanisms and procedures to make societies fit a preexisting model that
embodied the structures and functions of modernity. Like sorcerers' apprentices, the development professionals awakened once again the
dream of reason that, in their hands, as in earlier instances, produced a troubling reality.¶ At times, development
grew to be so
important for Third World countries that it became acceptable for their rulers to subject their
populations to an infinite variety of interventions, to more encompassing forms of power and systems
of control; so important that First and Third World elites accepted the price of massive impoverishment, of
selling Third World resources to the most convenient bidder, of degrading their physical and human
ecologies, of killing and torturing, of condemning their indigenous populations to near extinction; so
important that many in the Third World began to think of themselves as inferior, underdeveloped, and ignorant and to doubt the value of their
own culture, deciding instead to pledge allegiance to the banners of reason and progress; so important, finally, that the achievement of
development clouded the awareness of the impossibility of fulfilling the promises that development seemed to be making.¶ After four decades
of this discourse, most forms of understanding and representing the Third World are still dictated by the same basic tenets. The
forms of
power that have appeared act not so much by repression but by normalization; not by ignorance but
by controlled knowledge; not by humanitarian concern but by the bureaucratization of social action.
As the conditions that gave rise to development became more pressing, it could only increase its hold, refine its methods, and extend its reach
even further. That the materiality of these conditions is not conjured up by an “objective” body of knowledge but is charted out by the rational
discourses of economists, politicians, and development experts of all types should already be clear. What has been achieved is a specific
configuration of factors and forces in which the new language of development finds support. As a discourse, development is thus a very real
historical formation, albeit articulated around an artificial construct (underdevelopment) and upon a certain materiality (the conditions
baptized as underdevelopment), which must be conceptualized in different ways if the power of the development discourse is to be challenged
or displaced.¶ To be sure, there is a situation of economic exploitation that must be recognized and dealt with. Power is too cynical at the level
of exploitation and should be resisted on its own terms. There is also a certain materiality of life conditions that is extremely preoccupying and
that requires great effort and attention. But those seeking to understand the Third World through development have long lost sight of this
materiality by building upon it a reality that like a castle in the air has haunted us for decades. Understanding the history of the investment of
the Third World by Western forms of knowledge and power is a way to shift the ground somewhat so that we can start to look at that
materiality with different eyes and in different categories.¶ The
coherence of effects that the development discourse
achieved is the key to its success as a hegemonic form of representation: the construction of the poor
and underdeveloped as universal, preconstituted subjects, based on the privilege of the representers;
the exercise of power over the Third World made possible by this discursive homogenization (which
entails the erasure of the complexity and diversity of Third World peoples, so that a squatter in Mexico City, a Nepalese peasant, and a Tuareg
nomad become equivalent to each other as poor and underdeveloped); and
the colonization and domination of the
natural and human ecologies and economies of the Third World. 26¶ Development assumes a teleology to the
extent that it proposes that the “natives” will sooner or later be reformed; at the same time, however, it reproduces endlessly the
separation between reformers and those to be reformed by keeping alive the premise of the Third
World as different and inferior, as having a limited humanity in relation to the accomplished
European. Development relies on this perpetual recognition and disavowal of difference, a feature identified by Bhabha (1990) as inherent
to discrimination. The signifiers of “poverty”, “illiteracy,” “hunger,” and so forth have already achieved a fixity as signifieds of
“underdevelopment” which seems impossible to sunder. Perhaps no other factor has contributed to cementing the association of “poverty”
with “underdevelopment” as the discourse of economists. To them I dedicate the coming chapter.
Femicide
Globalization and Free Trade creates structures of systemic violence against women, a
war waged with unsafe working conditions, insufficient healthcare, and a lack of
respect for worker’s health. The under-privileging of these everyday forms of
discrimination in the public create the cultural conditions for ongoing femicide outside
of the factory.
Arriola 2006
Professor, Faculty Associate in the NIU Women’s Studies Program (Elvia R. "Accountability for Murder in
the Maquiladoras: Linking Corporate Indifference to Gender Violence at the US-Mexico Border." Seattle
J. Soc. Just. 5 (2006): 603).
Pro-globalization advocates measure success only from the standpoint of markets.202 They do not
address the questionable relationship between claims of benefits and increased costs for things that
are priceless, such as clean environments, secure families, relationships, and human life. 203 I have
¶
introduced some of the stories and testimony gathered on many visits to the border as an ally of women working in the maquiladoras, and
more recently, as a committed educator trying to introduce students to the human face of free trade. What I have hoped to elucidate is how a
combined host of variables, including typical corporate decisions about discipline for workers, as well as the clear bias that favors investors in
free trade law and policy, produces a hostile work environment with a discriminatory effect on women and female children. What happened to
Claudia Ivette González and other maquiladora workersi is inseparable from the employer’s attitude of indifference to the health and safety of
working women inside the factories. If a company is not required to care about the injuries and the toxicity in the factory, why would it care
about what might happen to a young girl who is sent out on foot in the early hours of the morning into unsafe areas of the city? ¶ The
role
NAFTA has played in luring rural families north to the border towns and into the maquiladoras, only to
discover nonliving wages, no place to make a home, and frightening social conditions that threaten the safety of their
health and their families, is widely ignored. Additionally, because of the historic presence of women in the maquiladoras, systemic
and ignored patterns of gender discrimination well-recognized throughout the industry (e.g., sexual
harassment, forced pregnancy testing)ii provided a foundation for the emergence of more violent
forms of social chaos and gender violence to erupt
in Juárez along with its development into a major export processing
zone.¶ Ciudad Juárez is still Mexico’s shining star as an example of a successful export processing zone. But it has also become a haven for
violence against women in the form of systematic abuse inside the factories and in the production of subtle effects on the working and living
environment for all women in the city. As the activists in the factories often note,
the phenomenon of the murders is
inseparable from the gross indifference to the health and safety of the workers employed by the
large and powerful maquiladoras, whose activities are licensed by free trade law, and are welcomed
and unquestioned by the power elites of the host government . When gender abuse and violence,
corporate power and indifference, and government acquiescence come together in the city of Juárez,
they produce an environment hostile to women and hospitable to the rise of maquiladora murders.¶
Sadly, Claudia Ivette González is a martyr for justice in the maquiladoras, a place where workers have no expectation of safety in or out of the
workplace and where supervisors can take actions against workers that, collectively, become the structure of fatal indifference. Claudia’s
abduction, and that of so many of the victims of Juárez who were maquiladora workers, is the
ultimate result of free trade and globalization . Her body may have been abducted and grossly violated by whomever found
an easy target that morning,
but the life preceding her brutal killing had already been defined as insignificant:
a fleck in the fabric of global production.
Discourse
Militarism
Discourses of war create the culture that makes these tropes powerful to the
individual, and has real political consequences. The sexualization of war excites us,
and links our cultural notions of self and integrity to policy decisions. This links any
objection to war with femininity, which skews the discussion by portraying war as the
only real option. This frame is not rational or objective, but rather distorts rationality
in service of patriarchal domination.
DUNCANSON AND ESCHLE '07 ("Gender and the Nuclear Weapons State: A Feminist Critique of the
British Government's White Paper on Trident", Pg. 5-6, Edinburgh University, Faslane Academic Conference and
Blockade, accessed through Google, June 11th, 2009
We begin our examination of feminist arguments about gender and the nuclear weapons state by looking at accounts of the way in which elites
talk about nuclear weapons technology. On this point, feminists have long highlighted the way that the political
and military power
associated with nuclear weapons is linked metaphorically with sexual potency and masculinity. This
linkage is neither arbitrary nor trivial: sexual metaphors are a way of mobilising gendered associations
in order to create excitement about, support for and identification with both the weapons and the
political regime possessing them (Cohn, Hill and Ruddick, 2005). Thus feminist histories of the development of the nuclear
arms race in the decades after World War Two demonstrate the extent to which it was a race to prove masculine prowess,
fuelled by ‘missile’ envy (Caldicott, 1984; Easlea, 1983), with the nuclear weapons of the Cold War
superpowers ‘wheeled out like monumental phalluses’ on parade (Cockburn, 2001). Such imagery has
proved seductive to governments across time and space. Thus when India exploded five nuclear devices in May 1998,
Hindu nationalist leader Balashaheb Thakeray argued that ‘[w]e have to prove that we are not eunuchs’ and Prime Minister Atal Behari
Vajpayee was portrayed in a newspaper cartoon as propping up his coalition with a nuclear bomb, captioned ‘Made with Viagra’ (cited in Cohn,
Hill and Ruddick, 2005: 4). Indeed, as Indian novelist Arundhati Roy has commented: Reading
the papers, it was often hard to
tell when people were referring to Viagra (which was competing for second place on the front pages) and when they
were talking about the bomb – ‘We have superior strength and potency. (Roy, 1999: 136) Similar language
permeates the nuclear discourse of the military and defence industry. In her ground-breaking study of the discourse
of American defence intellectuals who formulate nuclear weapon policy, Cohn noted that sexualised metaphors, phallic imagery
and the promise of sexual domination thrived (Cohn, 1987: 687-8). Lectures were dominated by discussion
of: vertical erector launchers, thrust-to-weight ratios, soft lay downs, deep penetration, and the
comparative advantages of protracted versus spasm attacks—or what one military adviser to the
National Security Council has called ‘releasing 70 to 80 percent of our megatonnage in one orgasmic
whump’. Cohn suggests that such sexual imagery serves not only to underline the connections between
masculine sexuality and nuclear weapons but also to minimize the seriousness of militarist
endeavours (Cohn, 1987: 696). It makes the nuclear arms race seem the stuff of jocular locker-room rivalry,
denying its deadly consequences. Perhaps most importantly, sexualised metaphors are one of the
reasons that talk of nuclear disarmament is so readily dismissed. ‘If disarmament is emasculation,
how could any real man even consider it?’ (Cohn, 1987: 693).
1st Priority
The stability of the aff is protected by a state of emergency for womyn. The
affirmative places undue emphasis on existential impacts – this calculus has gained
epistemological privilege that requires low burden of proof due to assumptions and
preferences of discourse advanced by individuals isolated from everyday impacts of
social hierarchies like colonialism – must actively displace this dominant
understanding of violence by over-privileging “everyday” violence like poverty and
political repression.
Scheper-Hughes and Bourgois 04-- Nancy and Philippe, Prof of Anthropology @ Cal-Berkely; Prof
of Anthropology @ UPenn, Making Sense of Violence, in Violence in War and Peace, pg. 19-22 (MI)
This large and at first sight "messy" Part VII is central to (his anthology's thesis. It encom- passes everything from the (outinized, burcaucrattzed, and utterly banal
violence of children dying of hunger and maternal despair in Northeast Brazil {Schcper-Hughcs, Chapter 33) ro elderly African Americans dying of heat stroke in
Mayor Daly's version of US apartheid in Chicago's South Side I'Klincnberg, Chapter 38) to the racializcd class hatred expressed by British Victorians in their olfactory
disgust of the "smelly" working classes (Orwell, Chapter 36). In these readings violence is located in the symbolic and social structures that overdctcr- mine and
allow the criminalized drug addictions, interpersonal bloodshed, and racially patterned incarcerations that characterize the US "inner city" to be normalized
iBourgois, Chapter 37 and Wacquant, Chapter 39). Violence also takes the form of class, racial, political self-hatred and adolescent self-destruction (Quesada.
Chapter 35), as well as of useless (i.e. preventable), rawly embodied physical suffering, and death (Farmer, Chapter 34). Absolutely central to our approach is a
blurring of categories and distinctions between wartime and peacetime violence.
Close attention to the "little" violences produced
in the structures, habituscs, and mentalites of everyday life shifts our attention to pathologies of class, race, and
gender inequalities. More important, it interrupts the voyeuristic tendencies of "violence studies" that risk
publicly humiliating the powerless who are often forced into complicity with social and individual
pathologies of power because suffering is often a solvent of human integrity and dignity. Thus, in this
anthology we are positing a violence continuum comprised of a multitude of "small wars and invisible genocides" (see also Schcpcr- Hughes 1996; 1997; 2000b)
conducted in the normative social spaces of public schools, clinics, emergency rooms, hospital wards, nursing homes, courtrooms, public registry offices, prisons,
detention centers, and public morgues. The violence continuum also refers to the ease with which humans are capable of reducing the socially vulnerable into
expendable nonpersons and assuming the license - even the duty - to kill, maim, or soul-murder. We realize that in referring to a \ iolenci* and a genocide
continuum we arc flying in the face of a tradition of genocide studies that argues for the absolute uniqueness of the Jewish Holocaust and for vigilance with respect
to restricted purist use of the term genocide itself (seeKuper l985;Chaulk 1999; Fein 1990; Chorbajian 1999). But we hold an opposing and alternative view that, to
the contrary, it
is absolutely necessary to make just such existential leaps in purposefully linking violent
acts in normal times to those of abnormal times. Hence the title of our volume: Violence in War and in Peace. If (as we concede) there
is a moral risk in ovcrextending the concept of "genocide" into spaces and corners of everyday life where we might noc ordinarily think to find it (and there is), an
even greater risk lies in failing to sensitize ourselves, in misrecognizing protogenocid.il practices and sentiments daily enacted as norma- tive behavior by "ordinary"
good-enough citizens.
Peacetime crimes, such as prison construction sold as economic development to
impover- ished communities in the mountains and deserts of California, or the evolution of the
criminal industrial complex into the latest peculiar institution for managing race relations in the
United States (Waquant, Chapter 39), constitute the "small wars and invisible genocides" to which we refer. This
applies to African American and Latino youth mortality statistics in Oakland, California, Baltimore, Washington DC, and New York City. These are
"invisible" genocides not because they are secreted away or hidden from view, but quite the
opposite. As Wittgenstein observed, the things that are hardest to perceive are those which are right before our
eyes and therefore taken for granted. In this regard, Bourdieu's partial and unfinished theory of violence (see Chapters 32 and 42) as well as
his concept of misrecognition is crucial to our task. By including the normative everyday forms of violence hidden in the
minutiae of "normal" social practices - in the architecture of homes, in gender relations, in communal work, in the exchange of gifts, and so
forth - Bourdieu forces us to reconsider the broader meanings and status of violence, especially the links
between the violence of everyday life and explicit political terror and state repression. Similarly, Basaglia's
notion of "peacetime crimes" - crimini di pace - imagines a direct relationship between wartime and peacetime
violence. Peacetime crimes suggests the possibil- ity that war crimes are merely ordinary, everyday
crimes of public consent applied systematic- ally and dramatically in the extreme context of war.
Consider the parallel uses of rape during peacetime and wartime, or the family resemblances between
the legalized violence of US immigration and naturalization border raids on "illegal aliens" versus the
US government- engineered genocide in 1938, known as the Cherokee "Trail of Tears." Peacetime
crimes suggests that everyday forms of state violence make a certain kind of domestic peace
possible . Internal "stability" is purchased with the currency of peacetime crimes, many of which take
the form of professionally applied "strangle-holds ." Everyday forms of state violence during peacetime make a certain kind of
domestic "peace" possible. It is an easy-to-identify peacetime crime that is usually maintained as a public secret by the government and by a scared or apathetic
populace. Most subtly, but no less politically or structurally, the phenomenal growth in the United States of a new military, postindusrrial prison industrial complex
has taken place in the absence of broad-based opposition, let alone collective acts of civil disobedience. The public consensus is based primarily on a new
mobilization of an old fear of the mob, the mugger, the rapist, the Black man. the undeserving poor. How many public executions of mentally deficient prisoners in
the United States are needed to make life feel more secure for the affluent? What can it possibly mean when incarceration becomes the "normative" socializing
experience for ethnic minority youth in a society, i.e., over 33 percent of young African American men (Prison Watch 2002). In the end it
is essential that
we recognize the existence of a genocidal capacity among Otherwise good-enough humans and that
we need to exercise a defensive hypervigilance to the less dramatic, permitted, and even rewarded
everyday acts of violence that render participa- tion in genocidal acts and policies possible {under adverse
political or economic conditions). perhaps more easily than we would like to recognize. Under the violence continuum we include, therefore, all expressions of
radical social exclusion, dchumamzjtion. depersonal- ization, pseudospeciation, and rcification which normalize atrocious behavior and violence toward others. A
constant self-mobilization for alarm, a state of constant hyperarousal is, perhaps, a reasonable response to Benjamin's view of late modem history as a chronic
"state of emergency" (Taussig, Chapter 31). We arc trying to recover here the classic anagogic thinking that enabled Krving Goffman, Jules Henry, C. Wright Mills,
and Franco Basaglia among other mid-twcnricth-ccntury radically critical thinkers, to perceive the symbolic and structural relations, i.e., between inmates and
patients, between concentration camps, prisons, mental hospitals, nursing homes, and other "total institutions." Making that decisive move to recognize the
continuum of violence allows us to see the capacity and the willingness - if not enthusiasm - of ordinary people, the practical technicians of the social consensus, to
enforce gcnocidal-likc crimes against categories of rubbish people.
There is no primary impulse out of which mass violence and
genocide are born, it is ingrained in the common sense of everyday social life . The mad, the differently abled, the
mentally vulnerable have often fallen into this category of the unworthy living, as have the very old and infirm, the sick-poor, and, of course, the despised racial,
religious, sexual, and ethnic groups of the moment. Erik Erikson referred to "pseudo- speciation" as the human tendency to classify some individuals or social groups
as less than fully human-a prerequisite to genocide and one that is carefully honed during the unremark- able peacetimes thai precede the sudden, "seemingly
unintelligible" outbreaks of mass violence. Collective
denial and misrecognition are prerequisites for mass violence
and genocide. But so are formal bureaucratic structures and professional roles. The practical technicians of everyday violence in the backlands of Northeast
Brazil (Schcper-Hughes Chapter 33), for example, include the clinic doctors who prescribe powerful tranquilizers to fretful and frightfully hungry babies, the Catholic
priests who celebrate the death of "angel-babies,"' and the municipal bureaucrats who dispense free baby coffins but no food to hungry families. Everyday violence
encompasses the implicit, legitimate, and routinized forms of violence inherent in particular social, economic, and political formations. It is close to what Bourdieu
(1977, 1996) means by "symbolic violence," the violence that is often "mis-recognized" for something else, usually something good. Everyday violence is similar to
what Taussig (1989) calls "terror as usual." All these terms are meant to reveal a public secret - the hidden links between violence in war and violence in peace, and
between war crimes and "peace-time crimes." Bourdieu (1977) finds domination and violence in the least likely places - in courtship and marriage, in the exchange
of gifts, in systems of classification, in style, art, and culinary taste- the various uses of culture. Violence, Bourdieu insists, is everywhere in social practice. It
is
misrecognized because its very everydayness and its familiarity render it invisible. Lacan identifies
"mcconnaissancc" as the prerequisite of the social. The exploitation of bachelor sons, robbing them of autonomy, independence, and progeny, within the structures
of family- farming in the European countryside that Bourdieu escaped is a case in point (Bourdieu, Chapter 42: see also Schcper Hughes, 2000b; Favrct-Saada, 1989).
Following Gramsci, Foucault, Sartre, Arendt, and other modern theorists of power-vio- lence, Bourdieu treats direct aggression and physical violence as a crude,
uneconomical mode of domination; it is less efficient and, according to Arendt (1969), it is certainly less legitimate. While power and symbolic domination are not to
be equated with violence - and Arendt argues persuasively that violence is to be understood as a failure of power - violence, as we are presenting it here,
is
more than simply the expression of illegitimate physical force against a person or group of persons.
Rather, we need to understand violence as encompassing all forms of "controlling processes" (Nader 1997b)
that assault basic human freedoms and individual or collective survival. Our task is to recognize these
gray zones of violence which are, by definition, not obvious. Once again, the point of bringing into the
discourses on genocide everyday, normative experiences of reificarion, depersonalization,
institutional confinement, and acceptable death is to help answer the question: What makes mass
violence and genocide possible? In this volume we are suggesting that mass violence is part of a continuum, and that it is socially incremental
and often experienced by perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders - and even by victims themselves - as expected, routine, even justified. The preparations for mass
killing can be found in social sentiments and institutions from the family, to schools, churches, hospitals, and the military. They harbor the early "warning signs"
(Charncy 1991), the "priming" (as Hinton, ed., 2002 calls it), or the
"genocidal continuum" (as we call it) that push social consensus
toward devaluing certain forms of human life and lifeways from the refusal of social support and humane care to vulnerable
"social parasites" (the nursing home elderly, "welfare queens," undocumented immigrants, drug addicts) to the militarization of everyday life (super-maximumsecurity prisons, capital punishment; the technologies of heightened personal security.
K of Mpx
Generic
Each debate matters-- Debate is only a collection of shared understandings and
explicit or implicit rules for interaction. We may not be able to immediately enact
federal policy, but we can change the community that we participate in. BIg stick
impacts are a detached fascination with violence
Bjork 93
Rebecca former college debater and former associate professor at the University of Utah, where she
taught graduate and undergraduate courses in Communication and Women in Debate, Reflections on
the Ongoing Struggle, Debater's Research Guide 1992-1993: Wake Forest University.Symposium,
web.archive.org/web/20011012220529/members.aol.com/womynindebate/article3.htm)MI
While reflecting on my experiences as a woman in academic debate in preparation for this essay, I realized that I have been involved in debate for more than half of my life. I debated for four
years in high school, for four years in college, and I have been coaching intercollegiate debate for nine years. Not surprisingly, much of my identity as an individual has been shaped by these
experiences in debate. I am a person who strongly believes that debate empowers people to be committed and involved individuals in the communities in which they live. I am a person who
thrives on the intellectual stimulation involved in teaching and traveling with the brightest students on my campus. I am a person who looks forward to the opportunities for active
engagement of ideas with debaters and coaches from around the country. I am also, however, a college professor, a "feminist," and a peace activist who is increasingly frustrated and
disturbed by some of the practices I see being perpetuated and rewarded in academic debate. I find that I can no longer separate my involvement in debate from the rest of who I am as an
individual. Northwestern I remember listening to a lecture a few years ago given by Tom Goodnight at the University summer debate camp. Goodnight lamented what he saw as the debate
." He argued that the embracing of "big impact"
arguments--nuclear war, environmental destruction, genocide, famine, and the like-by debaters and
coaches signals a morbid and detached fascination with such events, one that views these real human
tragedies as part of a "game" in which so-called "objective and neutral" advocates actively seek to
find in their research the "impact to outweigh all other impacts"--the round-winning argument that will
carry them to their goal of winning tournament X, Y, or Z. He concluded that our "use" of such events
in this way is tantamount to a celebration of them; our detached, rational discussions reinforce a
detached, rational viewpoint, when emotional and moral outrage may be a more appropriate
response. In the last few years, my academic research has led me to be persuaded by Goodnight's unspoken assumption; language is not merely some
transparent tool used to transmit information, but rather is an incredibly powerful medium, the use of
which inevitably has real political and material consequences. Given this assumption, I believe that it is important for us
to examine the "discourse of debate practice:" that is, the language, discourses, and meanings that
we, as a community of debaters and coaches, unthinkingly employ in academic debate. If it is the case that the
language we use has real implications for how we view the world, how we view others, and how we act in the world, then it is imperative that we critically
community's participation in, and unthinking perpetuation of what he termed the "death culture
examine our own discourse practices
with an eye
to how our language does violence to others . I am shocked and
surprised when I hear myself saying things like, "we killed them," or "take no prisoners," or "let's blow them out of the water." I am tired of the "ideal" debater being defined as one who has
mastered the art of verbal assault to the point where accusing opponents of lying, cheating, or being deliberately misleading is a sign of strength. But what I am most tired of is how women
debaters are marginalized and rendered voiceless in such a discourse community. Women who verbally assault their opponents are labeled "bitches" because it is not socially acceptable for
women to be verbally aggressive. Women who get angry and storm out of a room when a disappointing decision is rendered are labeled "hysterical" because, as we all know, women are more
emotional then men. I am tired of hearing comments like, "those 'girls' from school X aren't really interested in debate; they just want to meet men." We can all point to examples (although
only a few) of women who have succeeded at the top levels of debate. But I find myself wondering how many more women gave up because they were tired of negotiating the mine field of
discrimination, sexual harassment, and isolation they found in the debate community. As members of this community, however, we have great freedom to define it in whatever ways we see
what is debate except a collection of shared understandings and explicit or implicit rules for
interaction? What I am calling for is a critical examination of how we, as individual members of this
community, characterize our activity, ourselves, and our interactions with others through language. We
fit. After all,
must become aware of the ways in which our mostly hidden and unspoken assumptions about what "good" debate is function to exclude not only women, but ethnic minorities from the
amazing intellectual opportunities that training in debate provides. Our nation and indeed, our planet, faces incredibly difficult challenges in the years ahead. I believe that it is not acceptable
complacency
breeds resentment and frustration. We may not be able to change the world, but we can change our
own community, and if we fail to do so, we give up the only real power that we have.
anymore for us to go along as we always have, assuming that things will straighten themselves out. If the rioting in Los Angeles taught us anything, it is that
AT Nuclear Priority
Their appeal to avoid nuclear extinction is based on Western chauvinism and selfcenteredness - - the logic of doomsday/extinction politics is exactly what justifies
continual domination of non-Western societies. Prioritize structural violence
Martin 84
(Dr Brian Martin is a physicist whose research interests include stratospheric modelling. He is a
research associate in the Dept. of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Australian National University, and a
member of SANA, “Extinction Politics” Published in SANA Update (Scientists Against Nuclear Arms
Newsletter), number 16, May 1984, pp. 5-6. accessed @ http://www.bmartin.cc/pubs/84sana1.html MI
a belief in extinction from nuclear war to be attractive.[8] Here I will only briefly comment on a
is an implicit Western chauvinism. The effects of global nuclear war would mainly hit the population of the
United States, Europe and the Soviet Union. This is quite unlike the pattern of other major ongoing human disasters of
starvation, disease, poverty and political repression which mainly affect the poor, nonwhite
populations of the Third World. The gospel of nuclear extinction can be seen as a way by which a
problem for the rich white Western societies is claimed to be a problem for all the world.
Symptomatic of this orientation is the belief that, without Western aid and trade, the economies and
populations of the Third World would face disaster. But this is only Western self-centredness.
Actually, Third World populations would in many ways be better off without the West: the pressure to grow cash
crops of sugar, tobacco and so on would be reduced, and we would no longer witness fresh fish being airfreighted from Bangladesh to Europe. A related factor linked
with nuclear extinctionism is a belief that nuclear war is the most pressing issue facing humans. I disagree,
both morally and politically, with the stance that preventing nuclear war has become the most important social issue for all humans. Surely, in the Third World, concern over
There are quite a number of reasons why people may find
few factors. The first
the actuality of massive suffering and millions of deaths resulting from poverty and exploitation can
justifiably take precedence over the possibility of a similar death toll from nuclear war . Nuclear war
may be the greatest threat to the collective lives of those in the rich, white Western societies but, for
the poor, nonwhite Third World peoples, other issues are more pressing. Just about everyone, including generals
The fear of nuclear war mandates the genocidal annihilation of populations in the
name of making the world safe from nuclear weapons
Bussolini 08
jeffery, Associate Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies, College of Staten Island, CUNY, eighth
annual metting of the foucault circle, p. google, http://foucault.siuc.edu/pdf/abs08.pdf TBC 6/29/10 MI
The very real threat of Armageddon from these weapons easily gives way to thinking of expediency
and triage which instrumentalizes certain populations The fate of those at Hiroshima and Nagasaki , as
well as the continuing collection of data about them by the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, has been described in Robert Jay Lifton’s Death
in Life. Thousands
of soldiers and scientists from different nations have been exposed in tests and
research. Indigenous people from the American southwest to the Pacific Islands, Kazakhstan, and
Algeria have been forcefully relocated to make room for atomic tests, exposed to radiation, or both.
Groups such as prisoners and mental patients have been subjected to radiation experiments against their
will or knowledge, supposedly for the purpose of building up crucial knowledge about nuclear effects, as documented in Eileen Welsome’s
Plutonium Files and Department of Energy reports on Human Radiation Experiments. These
weapons, then, are intimately tied
to power over life and death and the management of subject populations. As such, it seems that the
exigency related to nuclear thinking justifies (or is the expression of) significant sovereign power over bare
life. In the histories mentioned here, survival and protection of the population at large was seen to validate causing death or illness among
smaller subsets of that population. One can note that, given their scale, nuclear weapons force consideration of
population-level dynamics, as whole populations are placed at risk. In this respect, these arms follow
on and accentuate the massive strategic bombing of World War II in which enemy populations were
targeted as vital biopolitical resources.
AT Hunger is priority
Your characterization of people as poor or hungry strips the body politic from
determining its own gendered and sexual desires that differ from whatever the
dominant order decides is “needed.”
Browne 07
Browne, Kath(Editor). Geographies of Sexualities : Theory Practices and Politics.
Brookfield, VT, USA: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2007. p 71-3tu
http://shop.ebrary.com/Doc?id=10211233&ppg=86
The idea of ‘development’ functions, as it were, as an important orientation point in post-World War II history, and in postcolonialism in
general. For its critics, ‘development’ is considered a largely un-deconstructed certainty found in the social imagination,
one of the most powerfully effective master narratives in the era of globalisation and corresponding
power/knowledge systems. In my opinion, the conclusions of development critics of the 1980s and 1990s are still valid: national (and multinational)
actors unfolded control of discourse as an ‘anti-politics’ in cooperation with the machinery of development. In other words, development is the
eradication of the possibility to think and speak in political terms
(Sachs 1992; Ferguson 1994; Escobar 1995). “Scarcely
twenty years were enough to make two billion people define themselves as underdeveloped,” says the voice-over in Trinh T. Minh-ha’s ?lm Reassemblage, an
interrogation of media representations of ‘underdeveloped’ regions – more concretely, the Casamance in Senegal. 4 Reassemblage is now more than twenty years
old; nonetheless, in my opinion it is still possible to say that the ‘global North’, or the ‘global West’, has a monopoly on representation in terms of the depiction and
perception of the ‘non-West’, the ‘global South’, and that an important concentration of this monopoly lies in the trope development versus underdevelopment.
The social and economical ‘backwardness’ of the ‘underdeveloped’ cultures, bodies and persons is
thereby depicted and perceived not as an effect of political systems, but instead as something that can
be bureaucratically drawn up, improved and overcome. This is not so much about the classical image
of poverty and those ‘affected’ by it, but much more about those marked by ‘underdevelopment’; the concern is less with exoticised desire and
subordination, and more with efficient ‘development’ and efficient organisation of the sexual. I would like to
describe the specific ways of functioning of desire/demand – ways of functioning that combine with these development processes and their depiction – as
globalizing development desires. 5 My theses related to this, in brief, are as follows. Development
is tied with structures of
desire/demand on all sides of the development encounter. These desires/demands have an economic
and a social dimension that has to do with the ‘demand’ side, with demanding and being forced. They
also have, perhaps primarily, a sexual dimension and a gendered dimension. There is no reason to assume that we are always
dealing here with heteronormative demands or are always speaking of heteronormalised desires. On the contrary, I would postulate that it is quite de?nitely also
about ‘perverse’ desire, ‘queer’ desire. A developmental approach to desires/demands/wishes is classically one which demands, as it were, that wishes must orient
towards possibilities and must follow a rational logic. Or at least that is the pretence … François de Negroni points out that perhaps the entire process of
developmental aid is complexly permeated with desires and the wish for enjoyment, both of which the main actors want simultaneously to maintain and to leave
unful?lled: Il y aurait ?nalement une connivence tacite entre les ‘opérateurs’ du Nord et les ‘décideurs’ du Sud pour refuser le développement. Le développeur, tout
comme l’amoureux selon Lacan, proposant quelque chose qu’il n’a pas à quelqu'un qui n'en veut pas. (Negroni 1992, 232) [There would be a silent agreement
between the ‘operators’ of the North and the ‘decisionmakers’ of the South to reject development. A situation in which the developer, just like the lover for Lacan, is
offering something that he does not have to someone who does not want it.] One counterpart to this assessment at the unconscious level is the depiction of reality
by Gustavo Esteva. He addresses development aid from an indigenous position and claims: “In der Welt, in der ich lebe, ist die enge Beziehung zwischen
Möglichkeiten und Bedürfnissen Voraussetzung für das Überleben” [“In the world in which I live, the close relationship between possibilities and needs is the
condition for survival”] (Esteva 1992, 77). It
seems to me that, at least at a manifest level, the following rule applies:
for those who are hungry – that is, those actors in development who are de?ned as ‘hungry’ – their
wish should be for bread and not, for example, sex shops. Those defined as ‘poor’ in the third world
(also in the third worlds of the first world), with all good sense, do not have any sexual subjectivity, not to
mention queer demands. In the more progressive version, when development finally deals with sexual and gender models that ‘less developed’
groups of people design for themselves, then this development encounter is also about the intervention of rational planning and the formation of ‘sensitised’ and
‘empowered’ subjects who only desire what is feasible and not something else. 6 “I do not intend to speak about – just speak nearby”: one of the most famous
quotes on postmodern speaking, originating from Hélène Cixous, likewise repeatedly orchestrates Reassemblage, Trinh T. Minh-Ha’s anti-development ?lm. But
devspeak (as development critics call the normalising language of development) is not really a speaking ‘about’; dev-speak is a speaking ‘in order to’. It becomes
important to ask, then, when the relationships between sexual subjectivity and geopolitics are the issue, how does queer critique encounter this dev-speak? To what
extent do queer text forms repeat it, and to what extent do they deconstruct it?
*****Alternative*****
GENERIC
Gender Analysis is Key to reformulating policies of economic engagement.
Chow ’03
(Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and Social Change in
the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
Since globalization seems inevitable, what are the prospects for beneficial social change after all? The
last theme of this issue is the importance of understanding the relationship between gender and
globalization as a basis from which to develop strategies for change that will empower people,
particularly women, and will reduce different forms of inequalities and promote justice in the global
order. The omission of women and the incomplete understanding of gender in a meaningful and
systematic way as related to structural sources of inequality in most mainstream discourses on
development, the world system and globalization are problematic. Including women and gender is
critical if we are to amend inequality, to reduce costly outcomes of globalization, and to combat
injustice that can actually undermine development and democracy. Contradictions and dilemmas
inherent in the process and consequences of globalization need to be addressed to avoid pitfalls and
crises. Incorporating gender issues is of paramount importance in setting public policy agendas and in
strategizing for effective social change locally, nationally and internationally.
ECO FEM
Only ecofeminism is sustainable. Before policy alternatives can develop, we must
reject technological or market based solutions.
Ellinger-Locke 2011
Maggie "FOOD SOVEREIGNTY IS A GENDERED ISSUE" Buffalo Environmental Law Journal 18 Buff. Envt'l.
L.J. 157 J.D. from CUNY of Law in 2011, and her B.A. in ecofeminism from Antioch College. She is
admitted into the Missouri Bar where she is a practicing criminal defense attorney MI
Ecofeminism is the key to rebuilding a democratic food system. In the context of increasing global climate change, the
perspective of groups like La Vía Campesina offers guidance. Global climate change has the potential to destroy agricultural production as we
know it. To date, human fossil fuel use has raised the global temperature by nearly one degree Celsius. 188 This means [*196] that it is
becoming too hot to grow plants. 189 The heat wave that killed tens of thousands in Europe the summer of 2003 could become
normative. 190 Heat waves ravage crops. By 2100, there's a ninety percent chance in the tropics and
subtropics that temperatures during the growing season will be hotter than any date ever recorded.
191 Once that point is reached, crops cannot fertilize and will not grow. 192 These same conditions will make work
for farmworkers unbearable.¶ These events are now unfolding; evaporation is increasing because warm air holds more water vapor than cold
air, which condenses in the upper atmosphere, and then washes down in violent thunderstorms that wash away topsoil and leave crops
decimated in the fields. 193 This cyclical pattern of evaporation which loosens the soil, atmospheric concentration of the water from the soil,
and then thunderstorms that wash the soil away is repeated. Increasing amounts of fertile land is washed away.¶ Seventy percent of the water
that the United States uses goes to irrigation and these irrigated fields provide forty percent of the world's food supply. 194 Many of the
world's rivers are fed by glacial melt. As glaciers melt, rivers begin to dry up. Steven Chu, the U.S. Secretary of Energy and Nobel prize winning
physicist says, "I don't think the American public has gripped in its gut what could happen... We're looking at a scenario where there's no more
agriculture in California." 195 In 2007, half
of Australia's farmland [*197] was in drought. 196 Every four days a
farmer there committed suicide. 197¶ Australia is not alone in having to grapple with farmer suicides. On September 10, 2003, at
the WTO Ministerial meeting in Cancun, Lee Kyung Hae, a South Korean farmer and peasant organizer, climbed a fence near the barricades
behind which the trade meetings were taking place. 198 He took out a red penknife, shouted "The WTO kills farmers!" and stabbed himself in
his chest. 199 He was dead soon after. A few days later, thousands of protestors marched in solidarity all over the world, from Bangladesh,
South Africa, and Chile, chanting "Todos somos Lee" ("We are Lee") and "Lee no murio OMC lo mato" ("Lee didn't die, the WTO killed him").
200¶ The
general public has yet to connect farmer suicide with economic policy. 201 In 2008, when world
food prices reached their highest peak since the early 1970s, deadly food riots occurred in over thirty
countries. 202 These riots were not the hungry poor storming the streets, but were organized by community groups such as La Vía
Campesina to protest high food prices in countries that are on the losing end of international trading schemes. The sources of outrage are the
same as the sentiment of those in the Global Justice Movement, an international collection of diverse people organizing under the slogan
"Another World is Possible." [*198] Food sovereignty locates itself in the crux of movements seeking socioeconomic justice.¶ As
the planet
warms, agribusiness will offer new technologies that historically have failed. The solutions will not likely be
found in corporate technologies, but in groups such as La Vía Campesina with its focus on reinvigorating peasant agriculture that relies on
traditional small-scale farming, not heavy inorganic inputs, and reverence for women's rights.¶ Organizations such as La Vía Campesina have
demonstrated the
timeliness of food sovereignty as the fulcrum of a global reform movement and
alternative framework to the existing regimes that control food production and distribution. By
adopting food sovereignty as a policy goal, such an alternative can be built.
Feminist ethics are key to uncovering hidden forms of violence.
Jochimsen & Knobloch 97 (Maren, researcher of ecological economics at the University of St.
Gallen Switzerland; Ulrike, lecture in business ethic at the University of St. Gallen Switzerland “Making
the Hidden Visible: The Importance of Caring Activities and Their Principles for Any Economy” Ecological
Economics pg 108)
The task of feminist ethics is to make visible the¶ experiences of women in moral theory. Feminist¶
discoursive ethics argues that the 'generalized other'¶ should be completed by the 'concrete other' to
take¶ into account experiences of women and their conception¶ of self. Thus, besides the principle of egalitarian¶
reciprocity, which concentrates on the social and¶ ecological compatibility, we have to recognize the¶ principle of
'complementary reciprocity' to make¶ possible a 'communicative ethics of need interpretation'¶ (Benhabib, 1986).¶
The ethical theory of the economic foundations¶ and its feminist critique help us to identify as a main¶ foundation of
the present economic system what we¶ call maintenance economy. In this paper we define¶ maintenance economy as productive
and creative¶ (reproductive) activities that are carried out without payment of money. To these belong ecological processes¶ as well as the
maintenance of social and¶ physical relations that are indispensable for human¶ existence and which we call caring activities. In
our¶
society these numerous caring activities are mainly¶ carried out by women. Our hypothesis is that any
understanding of the¶ maintenance economy is the basis for an understanding¶ of economic activities
as a whole (Busch-Liity et¶ al., 1994; Biesecker, 1992). We have to take into¶ account the fundamental impact of this realm for any¶ economic
and other human activity. Traditional¶
economists often fail to notice the importance of this¶ maintenance
economy for every economic system.¶ The ethical theory of economic foundations in its¶ broadened view helps
us to make this impact visible.¶ By rewriting economics from an ethical and feminist¶ perspective against the background
of the ecological¶ and social crisis, we will get necessary insights to¶ redesign the socio-politicai structures
towards a better future for women, men, and children.
An economics of care would solve ecological and social crises – any other economy is
unsustainable.
Jochimsen & Knobloch 97 (Maren, researcher of ecological economics at the University of St. Gallen Switzerland; Ulrike,
lecture in business ethic at the University of St. Gallen Switzerland “Making the Hidden Visible: The Importance of Caring Activities and Their
Principles for Any Economy” Ecological Economics pg 109)
A whole economy organized according to the¶ principles of caring activities would be a caring¶
economy (Jochimsen et al., 1994). In such a caring¶ economy the satisfaction of the existing, material and¶ non-material, basic
needs takes priority over the¶ production of new material goods. It would be sustainable¶ not only in
the way it deals with material¶ resources, but also in the way it takes into account¶ social needs. Any
economy which does not observe¶ the above-mentioned caring principles cannot be sustainable¶ in either way.
Economies confronted with¶ the ecological and social crisis would have to attribute¶ a higher value to their
own sources of maintenance,¶ care and supply.¶ Caring economy is not a ready-made concept for¶ global application and it
cannot be. Its fundamental¶ principles and its approach to the subject matter¶ rather have to enter into a
social process the exact¶ path and goal of which cannot be determined beforehand.¶ A caring economy
stresses the importance of¶ contexts and aims at gathering context-oriented¶ knowledge and know-how. It places such
knowledge¶ and know-how at the center and attributes new value¶ to it. It works with the hypothesis
that the principles¶ derived from caring activities can be applied to the¶ whole economy, thereby effecting a
sustainable treatment¶ of nature and a good society.
DECOLONIZATION
Generic
Envisioning an ethical future is impossible without first creating a space at the margins
for a new post-colonial ecology of knowledge.
Anderson 02
Dr. Warwick Anderson, Director of the History of the Health Sciences Program at the University of
California at San Francisco, “Introduction: Postcolonial Technoscience” Social Studies of Science, Vol. 32,
No. 5/6. (Oct. - Dec., 2002), JSTOR
In particular, some of us would like to believe that 'movements provoke theoretical moments.’ The effort to imagine a postcolonial science and
technology studies is in part a response to rising concern about corporate globalization, increased commodification of science, and further
alienation and circulation of intellectual property. How might we understand and engage with these transnational processes? The
goal, as
Roddey Reid and Sharon Traweek have pointed out, is 'one of taking very seriously the present moment in which we
work, practicing and experimenting with ways of engaging with it intellectually, ethically, and as
citizens in increasingly globalized economies and culture.’ 'Before envisioning the global civilization of
the future', writes Ashis Nandy, 'one must first own up to the responsibility of creating a space at the margins
of the present global civilization for a new, plural, political ecology of knowledge'.'' In a modest way, the
postcolonial studies of science and technology presented here might help to make available a vocabulary for just such a
discussion of the reconstituted identities and practices that emerge from reconfigurations of the 'local'
and the 'global'. Moreover, they suggest ways of assaying local cultures and emergent political economies on the same scale.
In 1994, Sandra Harding recommended that we 'relocate the projects of science and science studies that originate in the
West on the more accurate historical map created by the new postcolonial studies.' As Harding recognized,
scholars in India, the Philippines, and elsewhere in what was called 'the Third World', had already been doing this for many years, but their
work was virtually unknown in European and North American science studies circles until she drew attention to it. During the 1990s, such
efforts to 'provincialize Europe' have gained pace in many disciplines, but they seem almost to have stalled in science studies, with the engine
choking perhaps on a lingering residue of the field's obsession with a universalized European rationality. Here we try to steer away from
abstract postcolonial theories or all-encompassing models, and instead present a number of concrete case studies that help us to think about
supposedly global representations and practices in specific settings - studies that reveal, in Helen Verran's terms, the multi-sited hybrid
transactions that make global generalization possible. We hope that these essays will contribute to the 'materializing' of postcolonial studies,
and to a postcolonial disruption, and disfigurement even, of science and technology studies.
Epistemic Disobedience
Corrective approaches fail: Any detrius of western knowledge must be rejected to
delink the human from the creation of the non-human colonial other. As western
scholars of privilege, this requires arguing for radical interventions.
Mignolo 13 (Walter D. Who Speaks for the “Human” in Human Rights?. Human Rights from a Third
World Perspective: Critique, History and International Law. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Professor of
semiotics at Duke University, PhD. rb)
imperial knowledge (that is, based on Greek and ¶ Latin categories and translated into modern European
(e.g., owns) the concept of
human. If you want to dispute it from the ¶ genealogy of thoughts of Arabic, Urdu, Russian, Aymara, Bambara, or any ¶
other language and experiences embedded in non-Western history or ¶ indirectly related to Western categories of thoughts
¶ In
this regard, Western
vernacular ¶ languages—Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French and English) ¶ controls
(and indirection here ¶ refers to imperial expansion and colonization), you would have two options: ¶ to bend and accept what is human
according to Western knowledge (grounded in Greek and Latin; that is, not in Greek and Arabic) is; or you
would prefer to de-link, to
engage in epistemic disobedience denouncing the ¶provincialism of the universal and engage in a
collective, differential, ¶ planetary assumption that being human is not being Vitruvian, Christian or ¶
Kantian but is instead being able first to dispute the imperial definition ¶ humanity. Secondly it is to
engage in building a society in which human is ¶ not defined and rhetorically affirming that we are all
equal, but human will ¶ be what comes out of building societies on principles that prevent ¶ classification and ranking to justify domination
and exploitation among ¶ people who are supposed to be equal by birth. If you decide this option, ¶ please do not attempt to
provide a
new truth,
a new definition of what does it mean to be human that will correct the mistakes
of previous definitions of human . Since there is no such entity, the second option would be decolonial, that
is, to move away (de-link) from the imperial consequences of a ¶ standard of human, humanity and the
related ideal of civilization. If you ¶ choose this option it doesn’t mean that you accept that you are not
human ¶ and you are also a barbarian . On the contrary, placing yourself in the space ¶ that imperial
discourse gave to lesser humans, uncivilized and barbarians, ¶ you would argue for radical
interventions from the perspective of those who have been made barbarians, abnormal and
uncivilized . That is, you will ¶ argue for justice and equality from the perspective and interests of those who ¶ lost their equality and have
been subjected to injustices.
We need to decolonize all relations of power that are constructed by a white colonial
heteronormative gaze that biopolitically controls and regulates populations.
Pérez 3
(Emma, Assoc. Prof. of history at the University of Texas, El Paso, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies
24.2&3 - 122-131)
I began with this passage in order to inscribe a gaze on the borderlands that is geographic and spatial, mobile and impermanent. The
borderlands have been [End Page 122] imprinted by bodies that traverse the region, just as bodies have
been transformed by the laws and customs in the regions we call borderlands. In the History of Sexuality, Michel
Foucault challenges us to look closely at bodies and how they are engraved and transformed through
laws, customs, and moralities imposed upon them through centuries. 2 He is not as direct about coloniality, but we
can still borrow from a critique that exemplifies how land is imprinted and policed by those traversing and claiming it as they would claim a
body—both becoming property for the colonizers. Native Americans became as much the property of the Spanish as did the land that came to
be known as the Spanish borderlands. To
unravel colonialist ideology, I put forth my notion of decolonizing
history embedded in a theoretical construct that I name the decolonial imaginary. This new category
can help us rethink history in a way that makes agency for those on the margins transformative.
Colonial, for my purposes here, can be defined simply as the rulers versus the ruled, without forgetting that
those colonized may also become like the rulers and assimilate into a colonial mind-set. This colonial
mind-set believes in a normative language, race, culture, gender, class, and sexuality. The colonial
imaginary is a way of thinking about national histories and identities that must be disputed if
contradictions are ever to be understood, much less resolved. When conceptualized in certain ways,
the naming of things already leaves something out, leaves something unsaid, leaves silences and gaps that must be
uncovered. The history of the United States has been circumscribed by an imagination steeped in unchallenged notions. This means that
even the most radical of histories are influenced by the very colonial imaginary against which they
rebel. 3 I argue that the colonial imaginary still determines many of our efforts to revise the past, to
reinscribe the nation with fresh stories in which so many new voices unite to carve new disidentities,
to quote Deena González and José Esteban Munoz. 4 If we are dividing the stories from our past into categories such as colonial relations,
postcolonial relations, and so on, then
I propose a decolonial imaginary as a rupturing space, the alternative to
that which is written in history. 5 How do we contest the past to revise it in a manner that tells more of our stories? In other
words, how do we decolonize our history? To decolonize our history and our historical imaginations, we must
uncover the voices from the past that honor multiple experiences, instead of falling prey to that which
is easy—allowing the white colonial heteronormative gaze to reconstruct and interpret our past. In my
own work, I have attempted to address colonial relations, of land and bodies, particularly of women, particularly of Chicanas in the Southwest. I
argue that a colonial imaginary hovers above us always as we interpret our past and present. I argue that we
must move into the
decolonial imaginary to decolonize [End Page 123] all relations of power, whether gendered or sexual or
racial or classed.
PoCo fem EPi
Beginning from the subject location of marginalized bodies is the only way to make
gendered colonial violence visible. This epistemological privilege doesn't stem from a
claim about identity, but rather the position of being most impacted by these policies.
Only by centralizing these experiences can we find a roadmap for global restructuring.
Mohanty 03
(Chandra Talpade, She is the women's studies department chair and professor of Women's and Gender Studies, Sociology, and the Cultural
Foundations of Education and Dean's Professor of the Humanities at Syracuse University, ““Under Western Eyes” Revisited: Feminist Solidarity
through Anticapitalist Struggles”, Signs, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter 2003), pp. 499-535, JSTOR)//SK
This is the very opposite of “special interest” thinking. If
we pay attention to and think from the space of some of the most
disenfranchised communities of women in the world, we are most likely to envision a just and
democratic society capable of treating all its citizens fairly. Conversely, if we begin our analysis from, and limit it to, the space of
privileged communities, our visions of justice are more likely to be exclusionary because privilege nurtures blindness to those without the same privileges. Beginning
from the lives and interests of marginalized communities of women, I am able to access and make the workings of power visible—to read up the ladder of privilege.
It is more necessary to look upward—colonized peoples must know themselves and the colonizer. This
particular marginalized location
makes the politics of knowledge and the power investments that go along with it visible so that we
can then engage in work to transform the use and abuse of power. The analysis draws on the notion of epistemic
privilege as it is developed by feminist standpoint theorists (with their roots in the historical materialism of Marx and Lukacs) as well as postpositivist realists, who
provide an analysis of experience, identity, and the epistemic effects of social location.15 My view is thus a materialist and “realist” one and is antithetical to that of
postmodernist relativism. I believe there are causal links between marginalized social locations and experiences and the ability of human agents to explain and
analyze features of capitalist society. Methodologically, this analytic perspective is grounded in historical materialism. My
claim is not that all
marginalized locations yield crucial knowledge about power and inequity, but that within a tightly
integrated capitalist system, the particular standpoint of poor indigenous and Third World/South
women provides the most inclusive viewing of systemic power. In numerous cases of environmental racism, for instance,
where the neighborhoods of poor communities of color are targeted as new sites for prisons and toxic dumps, it is no coincidence that poor black, Native American,
and Latina women provide the leadership in the fight against corporate pollution. Three out of five Afro‐Americans and Latinos live near toxic waste sites, and three
of the five largest hazardous waste landfills are in communities with a population that is 80 percent people of color (Pardo 2001, 504–11). Thus, it is precisely their
critical reflections on their everyday lives as poor women of color that allows the kind of analysis of the power structure that has led to the many victories in
environmental racism struggles.16 Herein lies a lesson for feminist analysis. Feminist scientist Vandana Shiva, one of the most visible leaders of the antiglobalization
movement, provides a similar and illuminating critique of the patents and intellectual property rights agreements sanctioned by the World Trade Organization since
1995.17 Along with others in the environmental and indigenous rights movements, she argues that the WTO sanctions biopiracy and engages in intellectual piracy
by privileging the claims of corporate commercial interests, based on Western systems of knowledge in agriculture and medicine, to products and innovations
derived from indigenous knowledge traditions. Thus, through the definition of Western scientific epistemologies as the only legitimate scientific system, the WTO is
able to underwrite corporate patents to indigenous knowledge (as to the Neem tree in India) as their own intellectual property, protected through intellectual
property rights agreements. As a result, the patenting of drugs derived from indigenous medicinal systems has now reached massive proportions. I quote Shiva:
Through patenting, indigenous knowledge is being pirated in the name of protecting knowledge and preventing piracy. The knowledge of our ancestors, of our
peasants about seeds is being claimed as an invention of U.S. corporations and U.S. scientists and patented by them. The only reason something like that can work is
because underlying it all is a racist framework that says the knowledge of the Third World and the knowledge of people of color is not knowledge. When that
knowledge is taken by white men who have capital, suddenly creativity begins. … Patents are a replay of colonialism, which is now called globalization and free
trade. (Shiva, Gordon, and Wing 2000, 32) The contrast between Western scientific systems and indigenous epistemologies and systems of medicine is not the only
issue here. It is the colonialist and corporate power to define Western science, and the reliance on capitalist values of private property and profit, as the only
normative system that results in the exercise of immense power. Thus indigenous knowledges, which are often communally generated and shared among tribal and
peasant women for domestic, local, and public use, are subject to the ideologies of a corporate Western scientific paradigm where intellectual property rights can
only be understood in possessive or privatized form. All innovations that happen to be collective, to have occurred over time in forests and farms, are appropriated
or excluded. The idea of an intellectual commons where knowledge is collectively gathered and passed on for the benefit of all, not owned privately, is the very
opposite of the notion of private property and ownership that is the basis for the WTO property rights agreements. Thus this idea of an intellectual commons
among tribal and peasant women actually excludes them from ownership and facilitates corporate biopiracy. Shiva’s analysis of intellectual property rights,
biopiracy, and globalization is made possible by its very location in the experiences and epistemologies of peasant and tribal women in India. Beginning from the
practices and knowledges of indigenous women, she “reads up” the power structure, all the way to the policies and practices sanctioned by the WTO. This is a very
clear example then of a transnational, anticapitalist feminist politics. However, Shiva says less about gender than she could. She is after all talking in particular about
women’s work and knowledges anchored in the epistemological experiences of one of the most marginalized communities of women in the world—poor, tribal, and
peasant women in India. This is a community of women made invisible and written out of national and international economic calculations.
An analysis
that pays attention to the everyday experiences of tribal women and the micropolitics of their
ultimately anticapitalist struggles illuminates the macropolitics of global restructuring . It suggests the
thorough embeddedness of the local and particular with the global and universal, and it suggests the need to conceptualize questions of justice and equity in
transborder terms. In other words, this mode of reading envisions a feminism without borders, in that it foregrounds the need for an analysis and vision of solidarity
across the enforced privatized intellectual property borders of the WTO. These particular examples offer the most inclusive paradigm for understanding the
motivations and effects of globalization as it is crafted by the WTO. Of course, if we were to attempt the same analysis from the epistemological space of Western,
corporate interests, it would be impossible to generate an analysis that values indigenous knowledge anchored in communal relationships rather than profit‐based
hierarchies. Thus, poor tribal and peasant women, their knowledges and interests, would be invisible in this analytic frame because the very idea of an intellectual
commons falls outside the purview of privatized property and profit that is a basis for corporate interests. The obvious issue for a transnational feminism pertains to
the visions of profit and justice embodied in these opposing analytic perspectives. The focus on profit versus justice illustrates my earlier point about social location
and analytically inclusive methodologies. It is the social location of the tribal women as explicated by Shiva that allows this broad and inclusive focus on justice.
Similarly, it is the social location and narrow self‐interest of corporations that privatizes intellectual property rights in the name of profit for elites. Shiva essentially
offers a critique of the global privatization of indigenous knowledges. This is a story about the rise of transnational institutions such as the WTO, the World Bank,
and the International Monetary Fund, of banking and financial institutions and cross‐national governing bodies like the MAI (Multinational Agreement on
Investments). The effects of these governing bodies on poor people around the world have been devastating. In fundamental ways, it is girls and women around the
world, especially in the Third World/South, that bear the brunt of globalization.
Poor women and girls are the hardest hit by the
degradation of environmental conditions, wars, famines, privatization of services and deregulation of
governments, the dismantling of welfare states, the restructuring of paid and unpaid work,
increasing surveillance and incarceration in prisons, and so on . And this is why a feminism without and beyond borders is
necessary to address the injustices of global capitalism. Women and girls are still 70 percent of the world’s poor and the majority of the world’s refugees. Girls and
women comprise almost 80 percent of displaced persons of the Third World/South in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Women do two‐thirds of the world's work and
earn less than one‐tenth of its income. Women own less than one‐hundredth of the world’s property, while they are the hardest hit by the effects of war, domestic
violence, and religious persecution. Feminist political theorist Zillah Eisenstein states that global capital in racialized and sexualized guise destroys the public spaces
of democracy and quietly sucks power out of the once social/public spaces of nation‐states. Corporate capitalism has redefined citizens as consumers—and global
markets replace the commitments to economic, sexual, and racial equality (Eisenstein 1998, esp. chap. 5). It is especially on the bodies and lives of women and girls
from the Third World/South—the Two‐Thirds World—that global capitalism writes its script, and it is by paying attention to and theorizing the experiences of these
communities of women and girls that we demystify capitalism as a system of debilitating sexism and racism and envision anticapitalist resistance.
Thus any
analysis of the effects of globalization needs to centralize the experiences and struggles of these
particular communities of women and girls . Drawing on Arif Dirlik’s notion of “place consciousness as the radical other of global
capitalism” (1999), Grace Lee Boggs makes an important argument for place‐based civic activism that illustrates how centralizing the struggles of marginalized
communities connects to larger antiglobalization struggles. Boggs suggests that “place consciousness … encourages us to come together around common, local
experiences and organize around our hopes for the future of our communities and cities. While global capitalism doesn’t give a damn about the people or the
natural environment of any particular place because it can always move on to other people and other places, place‐based civic activism is concerned about the
health and safety of people and places” (Boggs 2000, 19). Since women are central to the life of neighborhood and communities they assume leadership positions in
these struggles. This is evident in the example of women of color in struggles against environmental racism in the United States, as well as in Shiva’s example of
tribal women in the struggle against deforestation and for an intellectual commons. It is then the lives, experiences, and struggles of girls and women of the
Two‐Thirds World that demystify capitalism in its racial and sexual dimensions—and that provide productive and necessary avenues of theorizing and enacting
anticapitalist resistance.
Building an interpretive theory from practical experience and reflexive identification is
key to breaking down colonialism.
Feldman 2013
Shelley " SYMPOSIUM: WOMEN, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, AND FOOD SOVEREIGNTY/SECURITY IN A
CHANGING WORLD: RETHINKING DEVELOPMENT, SUSTAINABILITY, AND GENDER RELATIONS" Cornell
Journal of Law and Public Policy Spring, 2013 International Professor of Development Sociology and
Director of the Feminist, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program at Cornell University. She also is a Visiting
Fellow at Binghamton University. MI
In conclusion, let me briefly turn to the work that researchers can do together to enhance both our understanding and our practice in response
to the issues raised about sustainability and gender relations with practitioners. First ,
it is a useful reminder that researchers
build on changes on the ground and respond to change by identifying issues, problems, and
processes after they have occurred. This means that most social science analysis is post hoc, more
interpretive and suggestive than predictive . It also means that practitioners are the people on the front
line, creating and experiencing processes of change as they happen, often as mediators, as creative
resources, and as enablers or deterrents to specific practices. Second, information and knowledge exchange does not
flow in one direction, as a relation among practitioners and researchers that either provides data for researchers or ideas for practitioners.
Rather, the [*665] relationship is more appropriately understood as a synergistic one in which, collectively and by the very fact of coming
together, we engage productively and learn from each other. Thus, the relationship between these interlocutors is a recursive one; we
learn
from both practical experience and research while also reflexively identifying and creating the issues
and problems worthy of study.¶ Recognizing these synergies and exchanges also changes how we think
about information flows and about the various ways that development opportunities emerge from the places where they are enacted, tested,
and employed, and from sharing experiences across similar as well as different contexts. This acknowledges change as coming from multiple
directions, not merely from the West and North to the South. Such
an acknowledgement also helps to highlight, among
other things: the
benefits of integrating environmental studies with critiques of science and the experiences of those living under
colonialism and modernity as embodied in how we understand
development; making explicit a broad view of the meanings of sustainability; and how working with a relational view of gender offers a
environmental threat; understanding
critical venue for creative thinking and program, project, and policy formation.
AT: Cap Comes First - Breaking down the identity of disposable 3rd world women
breaks down the capitalist systems
Wright 11
( Melissa W. Spring 2011. Disposable Women¶ and Other Myths of¶ Global Capitalism. Departments of
Geography and Women’s Studies, Pennsylvania State University. p.97-100)
To disrupt the myth of the disposable third world woman is to disrupt¶ the capitalist systems that
require that the story constantly be told. So¶ when people take on this myth with the intent of subverting it or somehow¶
disabling its force, they also are confronting the capitalist processes¶ that depend upon it. In this and in the following two chapters, I shift¶
focus from the power of the myth to the power of those who resist its¶ telling and who deny its
validity. The case presented in this chapter is of¶ three women who work in MOTW, the Mexican branches of the global¶ firm (OTW) studied
in chapter 2. I refer to them as “maquiladora mestizas”¶ as a way to illustrate their local roots as well as their significance for considering the
political and global implications of their actions.¶ By juxtaposing their entanglements with the myth of the disposable¶ third world woman, I
hope to illustrate how any
disruption of the¶ local practices that identify certain women as disposable
laborers¶ has implications far beyond the confines of the factories where those¶ actions take place.¶
The material for my argument originates with an eighteen-month¶ ethnographic project I conducted in 1993 and 1994 in a maquiladora¶ which
I shall refer to as “Mexico on the Water” (MOTW), the Mexican¶ branch of the same corporation discussed in chapter 2. MOTW¶ manufactures
the carburetors, electrical components, and dashboard¶ gauges for the company’s larger motorboats.¶ MOTW set up shop in Ciudad Juárez in
the early years of maquiladora¶ development. It was the first maquila actively to seek male¶ employees at least a decade before it was deemed
necessary to compensate¶ for a shortage of female workers in the local labor market.¶ In an interview conducted in 1992, Bob, the first general
manager of¶ MOTW (who had left before I began my ethnography in 1993), had¶ explained that he intentionally excluded women from the
labor force:¶ “This is not a tool shop, and the girls out here are not the right kind¶ of worker for what we do. Our products are men’s products,
and I¶ think the men, here or anywhere, understand the work better,” he¶ said. In the early 1990s, however, MOTW expanded its operations¶
to include electronic assembly and gauge production and, as a result,¶ began hiring women, who were deemed more suitable for this kind¶ of
work. This transition raised some harrowing challenges for the¶ MOTW managers.¶ At MOTW, I studied how managers faced the challenge of
producing¶ quality goods with labor which they understood to be lacking in¶ quality.
This challenge takes on a particularly
gendered and national¶ dimension. These managers need to produce goods for a market¶ which
places a premium on American masculinity, a marker of quality¶ in MOTW, and they evaluate their goods in terms of whether
they¶ reflect this desired condition. Yet, the MOTW managers attempt to¶ accomplish their goal with laborers
who, in their view, represent the¶ opposite of this valuable masculine, American condition:
disposable¶ Mexican women. In an apparently contradictory move, they have¶ hired Mexican women for the
electronic and gauge production areas¶ because these employees continue to be broadly construed
as “dexterous,”¶ “patient,” and “docile” enough to perform the necessary tasks.¶ Moreover, as women
increase their presence in the engineering labor¶ market, the company hired its first female engineer and, simultaneously,¶ needed to hire a
Mexican woman to handle the complexities of¶ a quickly expanding labor force. The hiring of women at all levels of¶ the corporate hierarchy
signifies a shift at MOTW from a company¶ with a purposely male labor force and management to one with a¶ notable presence of women. And
this transition plays havoc with the¶ company’s well-worn customs for recognizing value in MOTW
products,¶ peoples, and spaces of production, where disposable women are¶ seen to represent a
threat to such value.¶ In this chapter, I focus on the experiences of three women in¶ particular who challenge the company’s
traditional schema for recognizing¶ the markers of disposability as a condition of female Mexican¶ subjectivity. In my inquiry into what is at
stake in these women’s¶ challenges, I rely on a Marxist critique of the social construction¶ of value in a capitalist setting. Capital, says Marx,
is not concerned¶ with producing just any kinds of value, but particular things that¶ embody value.
This value can only be seen, recognized, and, in effect,¶ valorized under the particular circumstances
for evaluating different¶ people as embodiments of a similar kind of value calculated as a¶ condition
of their labor.¶ Marxist scholars have elaborated on Marx’s critique of the capitalist¶ labor theory of value to emphasize the importance
of understanding¶ that the issue is not only about the construction of value in¶ things. As David Harvey has put it,
“The paradox to be understood¶ is how the freedom and transitoriness … of living labor as a process¶
is objectified in a fixity of both things and exchange ratios between¶ things” (1982, 23).¶ With this statement,
Harvey pushes us to ask how the numerous¶ energies that people express in their activities and in their thoughts¶ can be understood as the
conditions of a similar kind of value, which¶ lends itself to quantification and qualification of a trait found in¶ inanimate things. Thus, this
is a
process for viewing people as well¶ as objects. Feminist scholar Diane Elson emphasizes how this sort¶ of question
involves “seeking an understanding of why labour takes¶ the form it does, and [asking] what are the
political consequences”¶ (1979, 23; my brackets). These Marxian concerns are germane to my¶ analysis, as the question that interests
me here is not why Mexican¶ women, as a group, are paid so little for their labor but, instead, why¶ does disposable labor assume a female
Mexican form and what happens¶ when it fails to do so?¶ Yet even though I formulate this question with these Marxian¶ critiques in mind, I
cannot approach it from a strictly Marxist viewpoint.¶ Feminist scholars have shown that any evaluation of labor as¶ something of value, or
waste, courses through an evaluation of the¶ different kinds of people who embody different properties of labor¶ (Elson 1979; Scott 1999).
These feminist
interventions have forced¶ us to address how the historical constitution of women and
racial¶ minorities as laborers of inferior degrees of value has underscored the¶ longheld industrial
traditions of paying them less and of not recognizing¶ the skill in what they do.¶ Taking these feminist
interventions as a point of departure, I¶ use Butler’s theorization of resignification to examine how the three¶ women I showcase
here defy the traditional methods in MOTW for¶ identifying value in people and in the things they
make when they¶ refuse to be defined by a myth that links them to a global resource of¶ disposable
labor. Their resignification is not an escape from capitalist¶ exploitation. Quite to the contrary, as
each rests her claims to her¶ own skill and worth upon her ability to exploit valuable labor from¶ the
workforce. But, nevertheless, their efforts to resignify their own¶ meaning as “mexicanas” shake up the
production of value in the firm¶ and its performance in the global market of commodity exchange.
In¶ order to illustrate the implications of their endeavors, I begin with the¶ significance of gender and
nationality for the spatial organization of¶ MOTW production.
MAPPING
Alt—cartographic mapping key to resisting globalized postmodernism
Sandoval 2kAssociate Professor in Chicano Studies @ UC Santa Barbara, PhD in Philosophy @ UC-Santa Cruz [Chela,
Methodology of the Oppressed, 2000, Section I, pg. 46,
http://caringlabor.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/methodology-of-the-oppressed-chela-sandoval.pdf,
DKP]
Jameson believes that the
first step to developing an effective form of resistance to neocolonizing postmodernism
requires that citizen-subjects heighten their competencies at making their way through society, at
crossing its scattered distances and central spaces, at negotiating through, over, and around its complex crevices and openings. Jameson
describes this form of skilled dissidence as a “cartographic” proficiency; it requires the skill of knowing
how to chart or map social and cultural territories in consciousness or imagination as one is moving
across them. Citizen-subjects must develop this cartographic knowledge, Jameson writes, in order to better
map and determine our psychic and material relations with the new “local, national and international
realities” produced by globalizing postmodernism (91). This skill, which Jameson calls “cognitive mapping,”
should endow “the individual subject with some new heightened sense of its place in the global
system” (92). Empowerment occurs when the citizen-subject coordinates its existential data “(the empirical position of the subject),” with
“unlived abstract conceptions of the geographic totality” (90), comes to a decision, and moves from there. But coordinating these two
dimensions (existential, everyday experience, on the one side, with abstract conceptions or scientific knowledge, on the other) requires the
inventiveness of ideology. The ability to creatively link and articulate living ideologies fluctuates during different historical periods.
Contemporary first world human societies have entered a unique historical condition under
postmodernism, Jameson warns, in which it is no longer “possible at all” for individuals to cognitively map
or coordinate their positions between lived experience and the larger world. It is this inability to
coordinate, in Lacan’s terms, the relationship between the imaginary and the real, to map in our own
minds the relation between our individual positions and the urban totality in which we find ourselves,
that leads to postmodern forms of crises in consciousness, ideology, culture, and history (89, 91). For
Jameson there is no doubt: the end of well-functioning ideologies means the end of their liberatory and oppositional expressions as well, and
this is “our situation in the current crises” (91). His conclusion prepares the grounds for his understanding of contemporary North America as a
postmodern “dystopia.” In his view, postmodern cultural conditions literally offer “no place” for the subject to stand in ideology: no
oppositional consciousness allowed. Jameson’s failed search to identify an effective mode of resistance and oppositional consciousness in
relation to postmodernism returns us to the perceptual and political skills developed out of other modes of disorientation.
Radical cognitive mapping is a pre-requisite to revolutionary tactics
Sandoval 2k-Associate Professor in Chicano Studies @ UC Santa Barbara, PhD in Philosophy @ UC-Santa
Cruz [Chela, Methodology of the Oppressed, 2000, Section I, pg. 47-48,
http://caringlabor.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/methodology-of-the-oppressed-chela-sandoval.pdf,
DKP]
This differentially moving force expresses a whole new coordinate in Jameson’s knowledge of and charting of social space. It
operates as does a technology — a weapon of consciousness that functions like a compass: a pivoting center capable
of drawing circles of varying circumference, depending on the setting. Such a differential force, when understood as a technical,
political, aesthetic, and ethical practice, allows one to chart out the positions available and the directions to
move in a larger social totality. The effectivity of this cultural mapping depends on its practitioner’s
continuing and transformative relationship to the social totality. Readings of this shifting totality will
determine the interventions — the tactics, ideologies, and discourses that the practitioner chooses in
order to pursue a greater good, beginning with the citizen-subject’s own survival. Reading signs to determine
power relations is its principal technique, the readings obtained are the indications that guide all movement. This differential form of
oppositional consciousness is a field with no specific content until such readings are produced. Within this zone,
the subject maps and
remaps its positions along mobile and alternative trajectories (91). It is this differential mode of
oppositional consciousness that constitutes the mode of radical cognitive mapping that Jameson seeks. His
own version of cognitive mapping is inadequate within the context of postmodern globalization because its processes require older, outmoded
forms of consciousness and ideology in order to function. In Jameson’s model, cognitive mapping can only be accomplished in Althusser’s
terms, where the citizen-subject attempts to represent in some realistic, believable, cohesive, meaningful way its “imaginary relationship” to
its “real conditions of existence,”10 an operation that is, however, hopelessly interrupted by postmodernism’s engulfing cultural processes.
Cognitive mapping allows for a reclaiming of subjectivity for critical resistance
Sandoval 2k-Associate Professor in Chicano Studies @ UC Santa Barbara, PhD in Philosophy @ UC-Santa
Cruz [Chela, Methodology of the Oppressed, 2000, Section I, pg. 48,
http://caringlabor.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/methodology-of-the-oppressed-chela-sandoval.pdf,
DKP]
Differential cognitive mapping would engage consciousness, ideology, citizenship, and coalition as
masquerade. It requires a consciousness that perceives itself at the center of myriad possibilities all
cross-working — any of which is fodder for one’s loyalties.11 Such loyalties, once committed, can be withdrawn
and relocated depending on survival, moral, and/or political imperatives. This was surely the aim of Jameson’s
version of cognitive mapping: to provide a “situational representation” on the part of the individual citizen-subject “to that vaster totality. . .
which is the [social] ensemble (90; my emphasis). Differential resistance thus functions very much like Althusser’s hoped-for but unachieved
1960s “science of ideology,” but when the differential form of cognitive mapping is used it is the citizen-subject who interpellates, who calls up
ideology, as opposed to Althusser’s formulation, in which it is “ideology that interpellates the subject.” To
deploy a differential
oppositional consciousness, one can depend on no (traditional) mode of belief in one’s own subject
position or ideology; nevertheless, such positions and beliefs are called up and utilized in order to constitute whatever
forms of subjectivity are necessary to act in an also (now obviously) constituted social world. (This is the form of
identity, social movement, and “cognitive mapping” examined in this book. The structures of this method, who utilizes it, and how and why it
is practiced are the subjects of Part III.)
Binary struggles create cognitive dissonance. Each act from each witness compiles a
stronger resistance to the binary illusion, which is key to dismantling institutional
oppressions.
Ramlow 06
Todd R., “Bodies in the Borderlands: Gloria Anzaluda's and David Wojnarowicz's Mobility Machines,”
MELUS, Volume: 31(3), Fall, p. 172-173 MI
Both Anzaldua and Wojnarowicz see observation
and witnessing as a key to challenging and transforming the
experience of oppression within the borderlands, and the tyranny of binaries and dualism. Images,
imagery, and vision play a central part in their textual worlds. They bear witness to the social,
psychological, and physical effects of exclusion, binarism, and violence. Anzaldia and Wojnarowicz are engaged in what
Norma Alarcon has called a "re-vision[ing]" that might "topple the traditional patriarchal mythology" and
structures of power (182). Of course, Anzaldua and Wojnarowicz topple not only patriarchy, but also heteronormativity,
compulsory able-bodiedness, and institutional racism (mutually constitutive discourses and
institutions). Both are aware of the double bind of the gaze and the dangers of looking, the danger that the looking back might be turned into the objectifying
gaze of dominant power. Anzaldfa remarks that there is "[s]eeing and being seen. Subject and object, I and she. The glance can
freeze us in place; it can 'possess' us. It can erect a barrier against the world . But in a glance also lies awareness, knowledge" (Borderlands 42).
These "contradictory aspects" of seeing are settled for Anzaldua in the difference she asserts between viewing and witnessing: "The
'witness' is a
participant in the enactment of the work in a ritual, and not a member of the privileged classes"
(Borderlands 68). The witness is acted upon by power and sees that power acting in similar ways upon
others, which is the basis for strategic alliance or bridging in/of the borderlands.Similarly, for Wojnarowicz
witnessing and disclosure are the tools that will dismantle binarism and its ordering of society. Close to the
Knives is Wojnarowicz's account of his life and of the effects of AIDS on him, his friends, his subculture(s), and the nation at large. It also serves as
rumination on Self/Other politics and government in an age of AIDS. On the politics of his art and writing Wojnarowicz remarks, "I'm
not so much interested in creating literature as I am in trying to convey the pressure of what I've witnessed or experienced" (In the Shadow of the American Dream
235). He further states: "
Each public disclosure of a private reality becomes something of a magnet that can
attract others with a similar frame of reference; thus each public disclosure of a fragment of private
reality serves as a dismantling tool against the illusion of ONE-TRIBE NATION; it lifts the curtains for a brief peek and reveals the
probable existence of literally millions of tribes" (Close 121). Wojnarowicz's eye/I witnessing describes the limits and violence of binarism, the structure upon which
the authority and consciousness of the dominant is imagined and maintained. What he uncovers is multiplicity, both individual and collective, and the possibility of
connection and alliance.
WITNESSING
Freedom from constraint is a negative conception of freedom that denies materiality
in its desire for transendence of the effeminized weakness of the body. Witnessing
creates an ethics that opens up space for a positive form of freedom.
Oliver 5
(Kelly, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, Women as Weapons of War,
Colombia University Press, 2007)
The freedom
to create and re-create the meaning of one's own life,¶ most especially one's own body, is essential
from constraints or freedom of movement is a necessary but not¶ sufficient
condition for creating meaning and articulating the singularity of¶ each individual life as part of a community. More than the
to living a meaningful life.¶ Freedom
freedom from constraint, we also need the positive freedom to create value and meaning¶for our
lives . Women need the freedom to revalue the connection between¶ biology and biography in their
lives both as individuals and within their¶ cultures. As we have seen, women may now be freed from traditional roles¶ as
mothers and housewives, but the meaning of their bodies as women is¶ still restrained by age-old stereotypes of virgin, whore, weapon,
danger, and¶ duplicity. And
the body that has traditionally defined women—the maternal¶ or pregnant body—
continues to be in some ways the most suspicious. So¶ while it is true that women have gained more
material freedom and civil¶ rights, still they must have the freedom to create the meaning of their
lives¶ and of their bodies . In addition to material freedom and civil rights, they need¶ the freedom to become the
producers of cultural meaning; they need what¶ legal theorist Drucilla Cornell calls freedom in the imaginary domain}1
As I have argued elsewhere, creating meaning is not jumping outside¶ of one's cultural confines
altogether but rather finding support for the¶ singularity of each individual's experiences and
embodiment, complete¶ with sociohistorical context, within culture, language, and various¶ meaningmaking enterprises.14 We might call this form of meaningmaking ¶ " witnessing to one's life." As we
have seen, " witnessing" has both the juridical connotations of seeing with one's own eyes and the
political connotations of testifying to that which cannot be seen, or "bearing witness ." It is this
double meaning that makes witnessing such a powerful¶ notion for bringing together the ethical and
political dimensions of life.¶ The double meaning of witnessing—eyewitness testimony based on
firsthand¶ knowledge, on the one hand, and bearing witness to something beyond¶ recognition that
can't be seen, on the other — opens up the possibility of a new conception of ethics that is supported
by the very tension between history and the unconscious.
***2nc/1nr****
Blocks
2NC AT: ALT DOESN’T SOLVE
Alt solves the K – Our 1NC alternative evidence indicates that feminist epistemology is a critical
methodology for decolonizing gendered perspectives throughout economic theory and international
relations. The alternative is the only strategy in this round that can stop the public sphere from
rewarding masculinity and punishing femininity.
Alt solves the case – Even if the Aff may win risk of short term impacts, the impacts of the aff
advantages emerge from a gendered understanding of the world, which is guaranteed to create new
conditions for those impacts to occur in the future. The aff cannot solve their advantages without
implementing the alternative, and the permutation prioritizes masculine perspectives over feminist
epistemology. The alt alone is the only way to solve the aff advantages.
Repetition Key – Even if the Aff wins defense against the alternative, our evidence shows that
repeating performances of resistance is critical for consciousness raising and building coalitions which
find rumors that start revolutions and ask the questions that topple empires.
We don’t need an alt to win – So long as we prove that the affirmative plan promotes gendered
hierarchies, we win that the aff is a bad idea that must be rejected. Our criticism provides tactics for
resistance, but it is not necessary to win that those tactics will be successful if we prove that the Aff
perpetuates gender violence.
AT PERM
2NC Perm Block
Permutation still links – Their attempt at combining masculine strategies with feminist
epistemology perpetuates the idea that women’s issues are deprioritized in the face of economic
rationality. The alternative alone is better because it reformulates politics in a way that makes violence
impossible.
Invisibility DIsad – Our 1NC Chow link evidence indicates that silence on gender issues is an intended
tactic and cloaking device that conceals the ways in which gendered ideologies determine political
outcomes. The permutation treats feminist epistemology as an afterthought with an attitude that says
“it’s ok, just add women and stir, everything will be alright.”
Public/Private Disad – Establishing spaces of political legitimacy and spaces of silence is one mode
of masculine domination. The permutation sets up its own public/private split which publically
advocates the plan and privately attempts to incorporate feminist perspectives. This is the same
strategy that justifies gendered violence in the “home” and other informalized labor sectors.
The gendered separation of the public and private allows structural violence, women’s
rights and labor rights issues to be sideswept because they are not concerns of the
“public” political realm but seen as issues of “private” personal space
Pomeroy 04
(Claire Pomeroy. 2004. Redefining Public and Private in the Framework of a Gendered Equality.
Haverford College. M.D., President of the Lasker Foundation.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/courses/knowbody/f04/web3/cpomeroy.html
course of history, women's voices have been silenced in the public arena. This silencing is due
significantly to that which defines them as women and to which they are inescapably linked: their
sexuality, their natality, and their body. These three things helped situate women in the private
realm. Linked with public/private is the political/apolitical dichotomy which closes women into an
experience of the apolitical private, consequently overlooking women's distinctive experiences in
politics. To combat this, women's voices have entered the political realm to protest for legislation that addresses the structural oppression
In the
they experience as women because of their association with the private. Women have been the primary proponents to the creation of better
child care, better paid maternity and paternity leave, and equal pay in all occupational fields; all things that push the feminist agenda of
equality for the sexes. Unfortunately, in politics, women's concerns and demands are regarded as reflections of moral or familial commitment,
rather than an authentically political stance. Their
issues are deemed "women's issues," thereby trivializing the
issues. In doing so, these issues become "women's problems" and can be more easily bypassed by the
male-dominated political system. In truth, however, these initiatives are to work to balance the public and private lives of
everyone, so that the shift between private and public can be stabilized.¶ The politicization of women's voices has dual
function. In part, it perpetuates the male/female dichotomy by creating gendered spaces within the
public realm by creating "women's issues" as a political agenda, which rests outside mainstream
(male) politics. At the same time, it causes women to adopt masculinized voices to be taken seriously
within mainstream politics. In the discussing of politics, their female perspective cannot be brought
into their argument, because if it is, the argument will be devalued. If their prospective is not female
and is presented in the male dominated setting of politics, it is likely that they will present their ideas
from a male perspective, so that the people who are being presented to (males) can identify with
what the woman is saying.¶ The masculinization of women occurs in all public areas, including the work force.
To be taken as serious workers, women must dress in a masculine manner, cannot mention the existence of their children and can never leave
work to address familial responsibilities. This creates a double edge sword for working mothers; socioeconomic structures reinforce women's
primary responsibility for day care while gender-neutral family laws tend not to acknowledge the continuing nature of care giving. Women are
increasingly expected to work what Arlie Hochschild has named "the second shift."¶ The division between the masculinized women's voices and
the women's voices advocating for "women's issues" causes a rift between women that makes it harder for equality to be accomplished. When
women adopt the masculinized manner in their public persona, they are working to uphold the gendered divisions of public and private.
However, if they do not adopt a masculine style in the work force, it becomes increasingly difficult to succeed. Without success of women in the
work force, women will remain contained in the private. On the other hand, if women's voices are divided along gender lines, there is no way to
create a unitary women's voice to push for social and political changes that will create a gendered equality in the public and private spheres.¶
For a long time politics has rested in the public realm; the private realm was a place to escape from politics. Frances Olsen derives the
connection: "Just as family was once seen as the repository for values being destroyed in the marketplace, the family may also be seen as the
sanctuary of privacy into which one can retreat to avoid state regulation." So it follows that¶ "the
ideology of the public/private
dichotomy allows government to clean its hands of any responsibility for the state of the 'private'
world and depoliticizes the disadvantages which inevitably spill over the alleged divide by affecting
the positions of the 'privately' disadvantaged in the 'public' world."¶ Taken together, the family is viewed as a
'haven in a heartless world' that should be protected from the scrutiny by the state and law. These societal ideas, based on the binary
public/private division, make it difficult to argue for legislation of things that appear to be in the private realm.¶ It is slowly being recognized
that the public and private are not in opposition to one another, but are in reciprocal connection with one another. There have been political
efforts, through legislation, to rectify the gender differences of the public sphere. Major initiatives have been taken to rid law and social policy
of assumptions based on stereotypical images of women as economically dependent wives and mothers. Paternal leave and other legal policy
changes are in place to encourage men to participate in the parenting of children. Despite the efforts to ensure equality for women, promoting
the sharing of familial responsibilities by women and men, and enhancing women's position in the labor force, gender inequalities still persist.
Inclusion DA
Economic development is inherently gendered—integrating women into wage-based
markets overloads women with work and reinforces the sexual division of labor.
Perkins and Kuiper 5
(Ellie, researcher at the Department of Economics & Econometrics at the Universiteit van Amsterdam,
The Netherlands, and Edith, researcher at the faculty of Economics and Econometrics, the University of
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, EXPLORATIONS
Women contribute to a large part of economic production, but have never¶ fully participated in
discussions about what kind of development is needed.¶ During the integrative period of the 1970s and 1980s, which
was later¶ conceptualized as ‘‘women in development,’’ politicians and development¶ practitioners in developing countries tried to
integrate women into¶ remunerated markets and into projects for generating income. Those¶ experiences did not
substantially ameliorate poverty and even overloaded¶ the workday and responsibilities borne by
women. With the advent of feminism, research in the academy strove to uncover¶ how differences in the economic roles of men and
women were perceived¶ in the realm of public policy and in the notions and constructs of various¶ disciplines (Boserup 1970). Feminist
economists like Lourdes Benerı´a¶ (1984, 1999, 2003) have analyzed the complex weave of dynamics¶ comprised by work, value, power
relations, and gender invisibility and¶ subordination, especially in Latin American economies. Feminist economic¶ research shows
that work encompasses much more than labor expended¶ in the market. Devaluing of domestic,
family, and community work reproduces women’s subordination in distinct areas including the
symbolic¶ dimension – as seen, for example, in the false, but still common, notion of¶ women’s economic
inactivity. As the Chilean feminist Margarita Pisano (2001) states, ‘‘whoever argues¶ that the patriarchy has been
humanizing itself does not see
. . . the¶ thousands of
third world people terrorized by and trying to escape
famine,¶ drought, and war without being able to jump over the invisible wall the First¶ World has
mounted to maintain its privileges. ’’¶ Pisano advocates one of the most radical concepts of feminism, developing¶ a profound
critique of mainstream feminism that in her view has failed to¶ bring about changes in women’s lives and the culture in which they live. The¶
symbolic dimension, gender roles, and women’s place in production and¶ reproduction are set forth in a strictly functional arrangement that
benefits¶ the patriarchal system.
It is not possible to emancipate oneself or attain a¶ relationship between
equals under the reign of patriarchal relations.¶ ‘‘Femininity is not an autonomous space of
possibilities for equality, self¶ management or independence; it is a symbolic and value-laden construction¶
designed by masculinity and contained within it as an integral part’’ (Pisano¶ 2001). This critical vision, which I call ‘‘neofeminism from
the outside,’’¶ reveals the limits of women’s struggles and holds that mainstream feminism¶ has compromised the transformational force of
women’s movements in¶ return for seats in the power structure put in place precisely to co-opt and¶ neutralize any counter-hegemonic
proposal.
A rejection of the system is needed—the mere integration of women into mainstream
state economies overburdens women and co-opts true political change
Perkins and Kuiper 5
(Ellie, researcher at the Department of Economics & Econometrics at the Universiteit van Amsterdam,
The Netherlands, and Edith, researcher at the faculty of Economics and Econometrics, the University of
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, EXPLORATIONS
Women contribute to a large part of economic production, but have never¶ fully participated in
discussions about what kind of development is needed.¶ During the integrative period of the 1970s and 1980s, which
was later¶ conceptualized as ‘‘women in development,’’ politicians and development¶ practitioners in developing countries tried
to
integrate women into¶ remunerated markets and into projects for generating income. Those¶ experiences did not
substantially ameliorate poverty and even overloaded¶ the workday and responsibilities borne by
women. With the advent of feminism, research in the academy strove to uncover¶ how differences in the economic roles of men and
women were perceived¶ in the realm of public policy and in the notions and constructs of various¶ disciplines (Boserup 1970). Feminist
economists like Lourdes Benerı´a¶ (1984, 1999, 2003) have analyzed the complex weave of dynamics¶ comprised by work, value, power
relations, and gender invisibility and¶ subordination, especially in Latin American economies. Feminist economic¶ research shows
that work encompasses much more than labor expended¶ in the market. Devaluing of domestic,
family, and community work reproduces women’s subordination in distinct areas including the
symbolic¶ dimension – as seen, for example, in the false, but still common, notion of¶ women’s economic
inactivity. As the Chilean feminist Margarita Pisano (2001) states, ‘‘whoever argues¶ that the patriarchy has been
humanizing itself does not see
. . . the¶ thousands of
third world people terrorized by and trying to escape
famine,¶ drought, and war without being able to jump over the invisible wall the First¶ World has
mounted to maintain its privileges. ’’¶ Pisano advocates one of the most radical concepts of feminism, developing¶ a profound
critique of mainstream feminism that in her view has failed to¶ bring about changes in women’s lives and the culture in which they live. The¶
symbolic dimension, gender roles, and women’s place in production and¶ reproduction are set forth in a strictly functional arrangement that
benefits¶ the patriarchal system.
It is not possible to emancipate oneself or attain a¶ relationship between
equals under the reign of patriarchal relations.¶ ‘‘Femininity is not an autonomous space of
possibilities for equality, self¶ management or independence; it is a symbolic and value-laden construction¶
designed by masculinity and contained within it as an integral part’’ (Pisano¶ 2001). This critical vision, which I call
‘‘neofeminism from the outside,’’¶ reveals the limits of women’s struggles and holds that mainstream feminism¶ has
compromised the transformational force of women’s movements in¶ return for seats in the power
structure put in place precisely to co-opt and¶ neutralize any counter-hegemonic proposal.¶ ¶ We live
in a system that deploys a culture of appropriating and¶ delegitimizing the other and the diverse. It rests on
a globalized economy¶ whose deepest motivation resides in individual profit, resulting in an¶
appropriation of human labor and an assault on nature. In my judgment,¶ the following elements are critical to sustaining the
current styles of¶ development in Latin America, and a transformation in each of these areas¶ would be part of the birth of a sustainable and
equitable human¶ development process: Relations
among humans: most are not sufficiently socialized to¶
consider the other as equally legitimate, and hence they can turn away¶ in the face of exploitation,
extermination, persistent inequality, and¶ poverty.¶ . The humanity-ecosystem relationship: today most see nature only
as¶ an infinite source of resources to be used to satisfy a longing for more¶ and more things and privileges.¶ . The authority of incentives and
motivations juridically encrusted on¶ society: the system
protects and legitimizes itself through the rule of law,
constructing juridical benchmarks in the constitutions of¶ individual nations and ordinary laws that sanctify
private property.¶ These rules are social constructs, however.¶ . The quality of life: in Latin America, the
expansion of economies has¶ come with heavy social, workplace, family, and environmental costs.¶
Although recent decades have produced unprecedented extractive effort,¶ inequity and cultural homogenization still persist. Hard work within
an¶ exploitative system is not the answer, and people are thirsty for a better¶ quality of life. The current globalizing, homogenizing economic
system that¶ ravishes nature is not the only entity responsible for this situation. We,¶ human beings are also responsible for our vision of the
world and of wellbeing,¶ as well as for the form in which we relate to each other and to nature.
Footnoting DA
“Adding women” to an existing model defined in terms of masculinity doesn’t work- a
total reconceptualization needs to occur
Peterson 1992
Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Arizona, Tucson (V. Spike,
“Transgressing Boundaries: Theories of Knowledge, Gender and International Relations”, Journal of
International Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 183-206) DD
This research, which focused on making women visible and exposing gender hierarchy, documented the extent and tenacity of
the project of adding
women to existing paradigms exposed existing gender boundaries and the need for fundamental
reconceptualizations. For example, including women in history forced a reassessment of conventional
notions of periodization and social categorization. Because women's history is not that of men, the characterization of
androcentric bias and, especially, the anointment of men as knowers. But even more important,
third century Athens as the Golden Age and the European Renaissance as progressive is less than compelling when their effects on and meaning
for women — concubinage and confinement, domestication of bourgeois wives and persecution of witches — are properly understood.27
Similarly, it
is not possible to include 'women's work' in economic frameworks that assume the male
model of work as paid labour. Nor can women's asymmetrical access to power and resources in their
homes and in the labour force be accommodated within conventional definitions of politics. In general,
feminists have exposed the contradictions of 'adding women' to constructions that are defined in
terms of masculinity, such as formal politics, public authority, economic power, rationality and
freedom. Insofar as fundamental dichotomies are historically gender-coded and structurally
oppositional. 'adding women' requires changing the meaning, and therefore the boundaries, of 'given'
categories in Western thought and practice.
Instead, a transition from the positivist notion of “sex” to a new conception of gender
is necessary to rethink structures of power and knowledge
Peterson 1992 Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Arizona,
Tucson (V. Spike, “Transgressing Boundaries: Theories of Knowledge, Gender and International
Relations”, Journal of International Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 183-206) DD
The feminist reconstruction of theory shifts from 'adding women' to rethinking such categories and
their relationship to knowledge, power, and community. It simultaneously shifts from treating women
as 'knowable' to women as `knowers'. The concept of gender is central to this transformation. In
contrast to positivist notions of biological 'sex', gender is a systematic social construction that
dichotomizes identities, behaviours, and expectations as masculine and feminine. It is not simply a
trait of individuals but an institutionalized feature of social life. The concept of gender enables
feminists to examine masculinity and femininity as fundamental but not 'given' identities: they are
teamed and therefore mutable. Moreover, gender is a 'relational' not oppositional construct:
accurate understanding of men's activities and the ideology of masculinity requires accurately
understanding women's activities and the ideology of femininity, and vice versa. Hence, women's
studies is not separate from but transformative of men's studies.
Plan Focus DA
Perm is severance [insert block] Have to be Accountable for their reps-Focus on
implementation means we never consider how our communicative modes enable
structural violence.
Gherke 1998 [Pat J, Former Debate Coach and Rhetorical Scholar, “Critique Arguments as Policy Analysis:
Policy Debate Beyond the Rationalist Perspective,” Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, 19, 1998, pp. 1839]
Arguably, some policies may intend no more than their implementation. However, that does not
free such policies from responsibility for far more than they intend. While methods for considering these
interpretive and communicative aspects of a policy are beyond the rationalist perspective, any evaluation of policy options must consider
these communicative perspectives. To
limit these interpretations to the intentional and the naïve is to limit
policy discourse and policy analysis, destroying our ability to consider the communicative effects
and influences of policy advocacy. In her analysis of the published reports of the Tuskegee study, Martha Solomon notes
that one reason the Tuskegee experiment continued for as long as it did was that the rhetorical
conventions of the scientific community obscured and encouraged neglect of crucial human
concerns (243244). Her focus necessarily extends far beyond the intentional, naive, rogate meanings of the Tuskegee texts. While
recognizing these language choices were not intentional attempts to deceive or manipulate, Solomon accounts for their occurrence and
impact upon the policy process. Attempts
at similar analysis of proposed policies might act as a check
against policy actions such as the Tuskegee study.Ignorance of these aspects of policy analysis may
persuade debaters that policies that meet rational cost-benefit criteria are always the most
effective and preferential policy options, regardless of how they characterize individuals or
communicate roles and obligations. Similarly, it will leave debaters unable to account for the often
enduring and dramatic effects of the communicative aspects of policies and policy advocacy.
Erasure DA
Perm functions as erasure. Attempting to overcome differences without addressing its
ontological construction perpetuates racial domination. Legal reform fails.
Winnubust 06
Shannon, Winnubst. Queering Freedom. Bloomington, IN. USA : Indiiana university Press. Pg 192.
Sexuality studies @ Ohio State pg. 54-57 (MI)
We must then ask the difficult and painful question of whether the law,¶ with its own grounding in a neutrality that attempts to attenuate the
systems of oppression. How can a
system that reads history as¶ accidents, which are external to the ontology of subjectivity and
therefore¶ must be overcome, function as a judge of when and whether historical violence¶ has been
remedied? How can a system that grounds itself in the apolitical,¶ ahistorical, a-material realm of the neutral individual claim to resolve¶
effects¶ of history, is the appropriate space in which to attempt to remedy the violences¶ of
violent differences of power, history, and materiality?¶ Iris Marion Young argues that advocates of affirmative action must shift¶ the categories
of their positions away from the myths of neutrality if they¶ are to address the power differentials (of racism or sexism) that they are¶ aiming to
resist. Offering compelling evidence from arenas such as standardized¶ testing in education and systems of judgment in employment settings,¶
Young shows that neutrality is impossible when assessing merit (1990,¶ 200–214). She thereby argues for a retooling of the concept of equality
away¶ from its grounding in neutrality. Developing a process of “democratic decisionmaking,”¶ Young argues against the myth of objectivity
and, implicitly¶ drawing on feminist standpoint theory, argues for the inclusion of many¶ voices in determining standards of judgment. As
she urges us away from¶ neutrality and its restricted reading of difference as a burden, she suggests¶
that “equality . . . is sometimes better served by differential treatment” (1990,¶ 195).¶ Young thereby uncovers the
unnecessary and invidious connection between¶ neutrality and equality.31 In tying equality to neutrality, the framework¶
of classical liberalism requires the erasure of history, power, and differences¶ for the maintenance of
freedom and equality. But what if history, power, and¶ differences cannot be erased? What if they
are the ontological conditions in¶ which humans exist? Or, even worse, what if the lure of erasing
them—or of acting as if they can be erased—is a fundamental tool of phallicized whiteness ,¶ one
that will always perpetuate its domination?
In trying to divorce our conceptions of equality from neutrality, I suggest¶ that
we historicize the categories themselves. Rather than assuming that¶ equality can only be achieved in ahistorical vacuums where differences
are¶ eliminated and power neutralized, perhaps we should approach the concept¶ of equality as one that has developed through historical
struggles of power.¶ As a modern category, the radical notion of the equality of all humans allegedly¶ emerged as a tool in the struggle against
monarchies and aristocracies¶ (or so the narrative of liberalism tells us). This was not a neutral or ahistorical¶ vacuum. Nor was it an economic
vacuum. Rather, this concept of equality¶ emerged in the seventeenth century as a political and economic appeal to a¶ natural ontology that
social conditions were not upholding: equality was¶ politically conceived as a natural category.¶ Despite the telescoping toward smaller and
smaller purviews of history¶ in affirmative action rulings by the Supreme Court, we can trace the effects¶ of historical change in these
contemporary debates. True to its seventeenthcentury¶ roots, the shifts in how we conceptualize equality seem to occur¶ primarily along
economic lines. Namely, whether we understand equality as¶ a natural given that must be protected by the law or as a natural right that¶ the
law ought to achieve shifts and changes as the economic climate of the¶ country shifts and changes. Contention over affirmative action
emerges most¶ acutely in weaker economies. As Nicolaus Mills argues, “An improved economy¶ is the most obvious answer. So long as jobs are
scarce, so long as there¶ are limited scholarships and limited places for the college students who need¶ them, affirmative action will remain a
battleground” (1994, 32–33). And¶ William Julius Wilson agrees that debates about affirmative action, and¶ about race and racism more
generally, will never be solved if they continue¶ to be played out “as a zero-sum game in which one side’s gain is the other¶ side’s loss” (Mills
1994, 33).¶ But
the zero-sum game appears to be the only playing ground of advanced¶ capitalist cultures
of phallicized whiteness. Locke shows how economics¶ of scarcity are endemic to human economic
exchange . This scarcity¶ is then codified in the structures of capitalism. It is not surprising, then, that¶ debates
about affirmative action continually shift as the arena in which this¶ scarcity plays itself out also shifts. As Iris Marion Young again shows,
arguments¶ about merit occur where the scarcity is most explicit—i.e., in the¶ highest-level jobs and their professional educational systems:
law schools, medical schools, military academies. True to the twisted dynamics of scarcity¶ and abundance,
access to jobs that will
yield economically abundant lives will¶ always be scarce in capitalist cultures . And contention over admission
to such¶ abundance—i.e., debate that is cast in the terms of the social meaning and¶ existence of equality—will consequently remain heated.¶
If we cast this dynamic, in which scarcity determines the site of contention¶ over the existence of equality, in the terms and dynamics of
phallicized¶ whiteness,
we begin to see how the focus of affirmative action debates¶ increasingly becomes
the protection of that ideal of whiteness —namely, disembodiment—¶ and the social ontology that constitutes it. To put it
more¶ crassly, the site of contention in affirmative action policies and laws has¶ shifted from ‘body-work’ toward ‘head-work’—i.e., from union
contracts to¶ admission to the most elite universities, law schools, medical schools, and¶ military academies. For cultures of phallicized
whiteness, it is not only that¶ these positions, clearly the positions of power in U.S. culture, are to be¶ reserved and protected for white
Protestant straight males, but that there is¶ a kind of ontological perversion in the very idea of anyone else doing this¶ kind of work.¶ Recall
that, for Locke, the state of nature develops into two kinds of¶ rational beings in its post-monetary stage: the lesser rationality of industrious¶
and useful appropriation via one’s labor and the full rationality of unlimited¶ accumulation via the capital of money and land. The latter of
these, the fully¶ rational capitalist, grounds Locke’s concept of the individual. Accordingly, it¶ is equality amongst these individuals that the law
must protect. When affirmative¶ action policies begin to facilitate the entrance of humans with ‘lesser¶ rationality’ into realms of culture
designated only for those with ‘full rationality,’¶ the very ontology of phallicized whiteness becomes threatened: the¶ disembodied state of the
intellect is no longer pure white and, more threatening,¶ the ‘body’ of culture threatens to disappear. The question ‘who will¶ do the nasty
work?’ is not only a question of sheer economic privilege in¶ advanced capitalism, but one of ontological necessity for the structures of¶
phallicized whiteness: disembodied and transcendent phallicized whiteness¶ cannot perform embodied tasks. It is too “free” to do so.¶ The
concept of equality that we inherit from Locke rests on a classed,¶ raced, and sexed ontology of the world and of different kinds of human¶
rationality. Materially and economically birthed, it is both a modern and a¶ white concept and it functions to protect the values of those social
systems.¶ To assume that working toward a neutral space in which differences among¶ humans
no longer matter will alter this
concept of equality is to fail to grasp how these cultures of modernity, capitalism, and whiteness wield the
illusion¶ of neutrality, while relying on a social ontology of difference. Until the laws¶ of the U.S. shed
these fundamental presuppositions of individualism and¶ equality as ahistorical concepts, they will not
provide effective routes to¶ achieving parity in the distribution of capitalism’s scarce access to
economies¶ of abundance.
AT do plan then alt
Perm plan then alt is a prioritization of the global over the effeminized local which is
more difficult to connect to a global agenda.
Alba and Guzman 10 (Alicia Gaspar De alba¶ with Georgina Guzman. Making a Killing: Femicide,
Free Trade, and La Frontera. Professor of Chicana Studies @ UCLA. Professor of Chicana Studies @ UCSB.
p.31)
There is irony in knowing that females continue to dominate as ideal¶ workers in export-processing
zones while females are also the consumers¶ most often targeted by ad campaigns to buy the goods
coming from these¶ exploitative zones. Carla Freeman argues that globalization discourse is¶ “bereft”
of gender analysis because it is hard to connect the “global” with¶ women’s stories and experiences
or women-based movements for socioeconomic¶ change... The problem may be that overall
globalization politics¶ appear loaded with masculine power and focus, and so the only way to see¶
gender is to move away from the global to the local. There, in either production¶ or consumption, one
will see gender at work.¶
AT Solves Environment
Permutation fails – the integration of other considerations into economics masks
exploitation, creating more poverty and environmental degradation, only abandoning
economics can solve.
Nhanenge 7
[Jytte Masters @ U South Africa, paper submitted in part fulfilment of the requirements for the degree
of master of arts in the subject Development Studies, “ECOFEMINSM: TOWARDS INTEGRATING THE
CONCERNS OF WOMEN, POOR PEOPLE AND NATURE INTO DEVELOPMENT]
However, Marilyn Waring (1994: 155) is doubtful about the procedures. She does not believe that “environmental economics” is a useful
solution for nature. Environmental
economics emerged in the 1 970s. It seeks to improve the neo-classical tradition initiated by Adam Smith. It
addresses the micro level of economics and leaves the macro level unchanged . It attempts to give
monetary valuation to the environment and then include it in economic calculations. Thus, the idea is
to improve economics by adding the environment. It has, however, been criticized as being one-dimensional and reductionist. It still
sees economic activities as being a closed system. It assumes that ecological issues are measurable,
but fails to consider values, which cannot be quantified. It cannot address uncertainty, it can neither
perceive the problem of irreversible environmental damage. Since environmental degradation is
long-term, its short-term horizon is another problem. Thus, environmental economics is merely
conventional economics, which has expanded its quantitative tools to include environmental issues.
It is tempting to believe that we can empower the ecosystem by quantifying it and giving it monetary value. It is a way of trying to prove that
forests and mountains have value. However, there
is presently no economic instrument, which can adequately
attribute market value to any part of the ecosystem or its functions. Moreover, national income accounting works
inside nation-states only while nature knows of no borders. Hence, one cannot record the export of acid rain, neither can one record the import
of polluted rivers. When the pharmaceutical company Sandoz pour chemicals in the Rhine in Switzerland, the pollution does not stop at the
border, although it is Swiss made. In addition, how can we include in the GNP the disastrous health results from the French testing of nuclear
bombs in the Pacific? The
treatment of the environment in national accounts and in public policy reproduces
the arrogant ideology that only money is of value and only the market is a source of knowledge. It
suggests that all of life can be condensed to this narrow and soulless view . But anyone who loves nature do not
want to see it appearing in the national income accounting alongside with nuclear bombs, nuclear power stations, toxic waste, female sexual
slavery, trade in drugs, and everything else. That is what environmental economics offers us, and Waring (1996: 161) finds that we ought to
turn it down. (Henderson 1978: 23; Braidotti et al 1994: 138; Waring 1994: 159-161). Instead, we need “ecological economics”. It places
economics within the context of nature and seeks to address also the macro level, in the long-term. It perceives economic processes as being
extensions of biological ones and it is therefore opposed to eternal economic growth. It redefmes economic concepts and the values on which
these are based. It has measures that make polluters pay for environmental degradation, making prevention profitable. It assumes that a
system is open and dynamic, it embraces the principle of uncertainty, and it recognizes unpredictable outcomes. Ecological economics is
consequently a radical departure from the framework of neo-classical economics. (Braidotti et al 1994: 138). The
reductionist
approach of economists, their neglect of the economy’s structural evolution, and their preference for
abstract quantitative models has resulted in a tremendous gap between economic theory and reality.
Their solutions have little, if any, relevance to public issues. Economists have conveniently left out three elements from
their models: leisure, the work of nature, the work of women. All are excluded from national income accounting. It is therefore no
coincidence that it is during modern economics that nature has been exploited, women have been
dominated, and poverty has increased.
Capra 1982: 198-199; Waring 1994: 159).
AT Narratives=co-option
Args assume cooption by sovereign - traditional accounts of torture are distanced
from suffering and fail to create the impetus for change. Witnessing to narrative
solves – impossible to co-opt
Henderson 05
Henderson, fellow and chief resident in Psychiatry @ Columbia, 2005 Schuyler, “Disregarding the
Suffering of Others: Narrative, Comedy, and Torture,” Literature and Medicine, 24:2, 181-208 MI
Writers, activists, and victims of political violence have foregrounded the importance of telling stories
about political violence.8 Narrative converts information and memory into stories, which have a spatial
and temporal consistency and a psychological depth that can flesh out the skeletal facts. Although it is acknowledged
that stories risk factual inaccuracy, subjective inflection, and indeterminacy (sometimes by simultaneously demanding a
fixed interpretation), they possess an immediacy that arises from the figures and tropes shared by a
community of listeners—"negotiating the tensions between universality and particularity through the
genre of the testimonio"—as well as the legal and social implications of bearing witness.9 The effects
of narrating individual experience of political violence, in tone, voice, methods of description and
connection (i.e., how events are linked), personalize what would otherwise be a generic "human rights abuse."
Statistics, or concepts like torture or genocide, are rendered intimate. To understand political violence
one needs not only to bear witness to the testimony of victims but also to listen closely to the
narratives justifying the violence. Political violence, when not silent and stealthy, often comes
packaged in a narrative, or, when the veiled violence is made apparent, is quickly packaged into a
narrative. How that narrative harnesses what is communal and avoids the ambiguous provides insight
into those perpetrating the violence and those acquiescing in it. The factors perceived to be
communal (such as "American values" or "the role of the physician") are what determine the "we" in the story,
and the factors that are elided include the dissenting elements that call into question who "we" may
be. The constitution of who "we" and "they" are is fundamental to the perception of suffering.
Even if it becomes commoditized, public silence is still way worse.
Kleinman & Kleinman 97
Prof. of Psych. and Chair of Dept. of Social Medicine @ Harvard Medical School & Prof. of Anthro. @
Harvard U., 1997 (Arthur and Joan, “The Appeal of Experience; the Dismay of Images: Cultural
Appropriations of Suffering in Our Times,” in Social Suffering, pg. 16-17)
It is necessary to balance the account of the globalization of commercial and professional images with
a vastly different and even more dangerous cultural process of appropriation: the totalitarian state's
erasure of social experiences of suffering through the suppression of images. Here the possibility of
moral appeal through images of human misery is prevented, and it is their absence that is the source
of existential dismay. Such is the case with the massive starvation in Lhma trom to 1961. This story was not reported at the time even
though more than thirty million Chinese died in the aftermath of the ruinous policies of the Great Leap Forward, the perverse effect of Mao's
impossible dream of forcing immediate industrialization on peasants. Accounts of this, the world's most devastating famine, were totally
suppressed; no stories or pictures of the starving or the dead were published. An internal report on the famine was made by an investigating
team for the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. It was based on a detailed survey of an extremely poor region of Anwei
Province that was particularly brutally affected. The report includes this numbing statement by Wei Wu-ji, a local peasant leader from Anwei:
Originally there were 5,000 people in our commune, now only 3,200 remain. When the Japanese invaded we did not lose this many: we at least
could save ourselves by running away! This year there's no escape. We die shut up in our own houses. Of my 6 family members, 5 are already
dead, and I am left to starve, and I'll . not be able to stave off death for long.30 Wei Wu-ji continued: Wang Jia-feng from West Springs County
reported that cases of eating human meat were discovered. Zhang Sheng-jiu said, "Only an evil man could do such a thing!" Wang Jia-feng said,
"In 1960, there were 20 in our household, ten of them died last year. My son told his mother Til die of hunger in a few days.'" And indeed he
did.31 The report also includes a graphic image by Li Qin-ming, from Wudian County, Shanwang Brigade: In 1959, we were prescheduled to
deliver 58,000 jin of grairino the State, but only 35,000 jin were harvested, hence we only turned over 33,000 jin, which left 2,000 jin for the
commune. We really have nothing to eat. The peasants eat hemp leaves, anything they can possibly eat. In my last report after I wrote, "We
have nothing to eat," the Party told me they wanted to remove my name from the Party Roster. Out of a population of 280, 170 died. In our
family of five, four of us have died leaving only myself. Should I say that I'm not broken hearted?32 Chen Zhang-yu, from Guanyu County,
offered the investigators this terrible image: Last spring the phenomenon of cannibalism appeared. Since Comrade Chao Wu-chu could not
come up with any good ways of prohibiting it, he put out the order to secretly imprison those who seemed to be at death's door to combat the
rumors. He secretly imprisoned 63 people from the entire country. Thirty-three died in prison. The official report is thorough and detailed. It is
classified neibu, restricted use only. To distribute it is to reveal state secrets. Presented publicly it would have been, especially if it had been
published in the 1960s, a fundamental critique of the Great Leap, and a moral and political delegitimation of the Chinese Communist Party's
claim to have improved the life of poor peasants. Even today the authorities regard it as dangerous. The
official silence is another
form of appropriation. It prevents public witnessing. It forges a secret history, an act of political
resistance through keeping alive the memory of things denied.34 The totalitarian state rules by
collective forgetting, by denying the collective experience of suffering, and thus creates a culture of
terror. The absent image is also a form of political appropriation; public silence is perhaps more
terrifying than being overwhelmed by public images of atrocity.
AT Subjectivity focus bad
Arg fails to for subject position. Yields normative theory of subject formation, ensures
ongoing oppression of others because it forecloses subjectivity for oppressed. Not all
subjectivity is violent or exclusive – this stance is complicit with institutions that
objectify to fortify privilege.
Oliver 04
Oliver, Chair of Philo. And Prof. of Women’s Studies at Vanderbilt, 2004
(Kelly, The Colonization of Psychic Space: A Psychoanalytic Social Theory of Oppression, pg. xii-xvi)
One's sense of oneself as a subject with agency is profoundly affected by one's social position
. Indeed, as I have argued
elsewhere and continue to argue throughout this book, we cannot separate subjectivity from subject position; any theory of subjectivity—psychoanalytic, phenomenological, poststructural—must consider subject position. While Freudian psychoanalytic theory has addressed itself to
questions of subjectivity and subject formation, traditionally it has done so without considering subject position or, more significant, the impact of subject position on subject formation. Even most recent applications of psychoanalysis to the social context of subj ect formation have not
to explain
the effects of oppression on the psyche—why so many people suffer at the core of their subjectivity
and its concomitant sense of agency when they are abjected, excluded, or oppressed—we need a
theory that
considers how subjectivity is formed and deformed within
particular types of social contexts. Theories that do not consider subject position and the role of social
conditions in subjectivity
cover over
the differential power relations
Theories that do not start from the subjectivities of those othered
presuppose a defensive need to abject
some other to fortify itself. Without considering
subject position, we assume that all subjects are alike, we level differences,
. we need to start from the position of those who have been abjected
and excluded
to overcome;
oppressive values
Some
maintain that the subjugation and violence that result from
oppression are just different forms of originary subjugation and violence inherent in all subject
formation. Theories that level suffering by proposing that all subjectivity is born from subjection and
exclusion,
cover over the suffering specific to oppression.
they risk complicity with values and
institutions that abject those othered to fortify
oppressive values , if various forms of
social or political oppression are just reiterations
, then there is no reason to think
either that some forms of violence are unique
or that we can overcome
social and political subjugation or alienation
reformulated the very concepts of psychoanalysis to account for or explain how subjects form within particular kinds of social contexts. Instead, such applications use psychoanalytic concepts to diagnose certain kinds of psychic or s ocial formations. But
psychoanalytic social
reformulates psychoanalytic concepts as social and
and subject formation
not only
addressed by some contemporary theorists using psychoanalysis
but also the differential subjectivities produced within those relations.
but rather start from the
dominant subjectivity
or exclude
or, like traditional psychoanalysis, we develop a normative notion of
subject formation based on one particular group, gender, or class of people
Instead,
by the traditional Freudian model that normalizes a male subject. Without a psychoanalytic theory for and revolving around th ose othered by the Freudian model subject, we continue to base our theories of subjectivity on the very norm that we are
trying
in this way, our theories collaborate with the
relationships between subject position and subjectivity.
that we are working against. A psychoanalytic theory of oppression must consider the role of subject position in subject formation, that is, the
philosophers and cultural critics
however,
6 In so doing,
the privilege of the beneficiaries of
of subjection or alienation at the core of subjectivity
to particular situations and that therefore some forms of violence are unjust
. For
AT “This Group wants the Aff”
Social cohesion and alliances are a form of shallow inclusion that reduces the interests
of entire group to a sound-bite – they depoliticize the voices of marginalized groups to
maintain the normative coherence of the nation
Berlant 10
Lauren Berlant, The Queen of America Goes to Washington City: Essays on Sex and Citizenship (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 1997) 37, Questia, Web, 25 Oct. 2010.
More than a struggle to establish a political public sphere, norms of proper national subjectivity and
concepts of social membership are at stake in the problem of creating images of mass nationality . One other
aspect of the ways media technologies create national subjects needs airing here, and this concerns the construction of the
image archive that provides corporeal models of normal citizenship. Whenever citizenship comes to
look like a question of the body, a number of processes are being hidden. The body's seeming
obviousness distracts attention from the ways it organizes meaning, and diverts the critical gaze from
publicity's role in the formation of the taxonomies that construct bodies publicly. Hortense Spillers has argued
that nationalized bodies always appear to have a magical, mythical aura of meaning invulnerable to the
pulsations of the historical nation. 19 The general iconicity of the national body thereby veils how
historical, contingent, and incoherent body typologies are. For example, if everyone hails from some specific place and
some specific people, when and why does a person become a kind of thing like a national ethnicity? Or when did "woman" begin to be explicitly
a political category, a category designating not a body with organs, but a kind of experience-related opinion? You may have noticed that, in the
filmic examples above, the citizen whose story is in question is a man in public, a white man, the modal American. When
a given
symbolic national body signifies as normal -straight, white, middle-class, and heterosexual -- hardly
anyone asks critical questions about its representativeness. In mass society its iconicity is intensified by commodity
culture's marketing of normal personhood as something that places you in the range of what is typical in public and yet is personally unique.
Subaltern personhood, in contrast, allows for no subtlety or personal uniqueness in mass society,
producing reams of national stereotypes, with all of their negative transhistoricism. It has no
institutions that make available to it the privileged status of the unmarked. Thus even when subaltern
style cultures are appropriated for the ornamentation of privilege and the extension of hegemonic
subjectivity to new realms of sensation, technique, and cynical knowledge about power, the very
availability of these borrowed practices tends to intensify the aura of incompetence and inferiority -the subalternness -of the subaltern subject. The subaltern body's peculiar burden of national
surrogacy enables many stories of minoritized citizenship to be "included" in the self-justifying mirror
of the official national narrative while being expatriated from citizenship's promise of quotidian
practical intimacy.
Speaking for others disavows personal responsibility through the invisibility of the role
of the intellectual. This justifies a heroic savior context that recreates the erasure of
marginalized voices.
Halberstam 11
Jack "The Queer Art of Failure" Duke Univ. Press Professor of English and Director of The Center for
Feminist Research at University of Southern California. (MI)
Spivak explores the British attempt in 1829 to abolish Hindu widow¶ burning in relation to the self- representation of colonialism as
benevolent¶ intervention and places this argument against the claim advanced by¶ nativist Indians that sati must be respected as a practice
because these¶ women who lost their husbands actually wanted to die. She uses sati to¶ illustrate her claim that colonialism articulates itself as
“white men¶ saving brown women from brown men,” but also to mark the complicity¶ of Western feminism in this formulation. In a move that
echoes Spivak’s¶ counterintuitive break from even poststructuralist feminisms, Mahmood¶ explores women in the mosque movement and
their commitment to piety¶ in order to ask, “Does
the category of resistance impose a teleology of¶ progressive
politics on the analytics of power—a teleology that makes it¶ hard for us to see and understand forms
of being and action that are not¶ necessarily encapsulated by the narrative of subversion and
reinscription¶ of norms?” (2005: 9).¶ “Can the Subaltern Speak?” sets up a contradiction between
different¶ modes of representation within which an intellectual proposes to speak¶ for an oppressed
other. Spivak accuses Foucault and Deleuze as well as¶ Western feminism of sneaking a heroic
individualism in the back door of¶ discursive critique. “Neither Deleuze nor Foucault,” she writes, “seems¶
aware that the intellectual within socialized capital, brandishing concrete¶ experience, can help
consolidate the international division of laborӦ (1988: 275). For Spivak, intellectuals, like poststructuralist
feminist theorists¶ for Mahmood, by imagining themselves to be a transparent vector¶ for the exposure of
ideological contradictions, cannot account for their¶ own impact on the processes of domination and
instead always imagine¶ themselves in the heroic place of the individual who knows better than¶ the
oppressed masses about whom they theorize. The very notion of representation,¶ Spivak claims, in terms
of both a theory of economic exploitation¶ and an ideological function, depends upon the production
of¶ “heroes, paternal proxies and agents of power” (279) and harbors “the¶ possibility that the
intellectual is complicit in the persistent constitution¶ of the Other as the self’s shadow” (280).¶
AT DATA
AT studies say heg good
Their obsession with scientific quantification of IR is narcissism in the face of
inevitable uncertainty—-their studies are not neutral, but rather are deeply political the aff institutionalizes the false distinction between facts and values which makes
ongoing structural violence and conflict inevitable because they cannot be
quantified—-Their strategy destroys the value to life.
Jeong 99—associate professor at the Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason
University (Ho-Won, Epistemological Foundations for Peace Research, htm)
Some argue that the history of peace studies has no geographic boundaries. It can be traced back hundreds and even thousands of years. Gold
mines of ideas about peace were presented by philosophers in the early period of human civilization. Discussion about how to understand
peace has been developed in various cultures. The study of peace and conflict in modern social science traditions originates in the 19th century.
In Karl Marx's work, theoretical efforts were made to discover the structural sources of conflict in human history. Such sociologists as August
Comte attempted to find general theories on social order and conflict. Social processes of conflict were understood in terms of organismic
analogies. Max Weber analyzed the links between an individual actor's behavior and patterns of collective action.¶ The impulse for studying
peace and conflict systematically was fomented in the early 20th century. The experiences of World War I led to the realization that given the
enormous costs to human well-being, solutions have to be found to prevent war at both an intellectual and policy level.
Research on the
processes leading to an armed conflict was supported by efforts to examine socio-psychological and
economic conditions. In addition, changes in the perceptions of political leaders were regarded as
important in the transformation of an international system.¶ Peace research after World War II was
influenced by the emergence of international relations as a new scientific endeavor to investigate
problems between states. The course of peace research was also determined by the possibilities of nuclear war along with fierce
political, ideological and military confrontations between Soviet led socialist bloc countries and Western alliances in the global arena as well as
the devotion of resources to preparing for a war which would annihilate human civilization. The opposition to Vietnam War generated critical
thinking about national foreign policy agendas, and it expanded theoretical perspectives and research areas to be investigated.¶ The evolution
of peace and conflict research since the 1970s has been characterized by inter-disciplinary understanding of violence and conflict at various
social levels. Such social science and humanity fields aspsychology, sociology, anthropology, political science, history, literature, linguistics, and
geography brought new concepts and methodological innovations. It was
essential to adopt experiential research
methods as well as traditional scientific methods to explain the causes of violence at individual and
group levels as well as international. The study of social phenomena is stimulated by intellectual challenges that derive from
continuing and new sets of problems. The involvement of various disciplines in the development of peace research was inevitable with the
realization that peace cannot be achieved by one particular approach. Peace research has to rely on diverse methodological traditions given its
disciplinary goals and the complexities of subject matters.¶ ¶ Modes of Social Inquiry¶ In
a positivist mode of inquiry, social
knowledge emerges from emulating the procedures of natural sciences. There is a clear distinction
between facts and values. Efforts for new theoretical departures remain valid only if concrete
empirical research programs are developed. A theory needs to be verified by the process of operationalizing and testing
hypotheses. Research should be freed from non-empirical claims of individual conviction and conscience. In dealing with the complexity of
empirical phenomena, theory ought to explain and predict the trend of events¶ Contrary to that, hermeneutics is based on the analysis of the
meanings which human beings attach to their actions. The
study of mind is different from that of nature. Analysis
should reveal social constraints and promote cultural understanding. The goal of research is
enlightenment and emancipation. The values and priorities of goals tend to be diverse across social groups and classes. What is
rational changes across time and space. Rationalities are intersubjective in the sense that they can only be really
examined from within the experiences of social groups which are the object of research. ¶ Critical theory
methodology identifies forms of conflict and patterns of development which could lead to the transformation of a world order. There is no
over-arching ahistorical structure. Explanation of the prospects for change requires analysis of the
connections between modes of production and hierarchical political structures (Cox, 1996). The scope of the
inquiry also focuses on a distorted ideological account of social relations by a hegemonic class.¶ In a postmodern vein, problems in different
social locations and histories are interpreted by multiple minds and knowledge rather than meta-narratives (Seidman, 1994:5). Speculation is
the most open form of inquiry. Humanity cannot be studied through a legislative reason which is helpful in producing general theories. The
social world is fragmented into a multitude of communities and cultural traditions. The role of a social analyst is to mediate between different
social worlds and to interpret unfamiliar cultures (Sediman, 1994:14). Resolving major theoretical differences is not desirable nor feasible.¶ ¶
Scientific Approaches to Peace Research¶ The early endeavor to establish a peace science originates in mathematical modelling of dynamics of
arms races (Richardson, 1960). Quantitative studies of conflict behavior in the 1960s was affected by the revolution of behavioral sciences.
Theoretical development was believed to be promoted by the collection of raw data, highly deductive propositions, and empirical verification.
Formal models supported by statistical analysis were expected to explain both behavioral and
structural characteristics of violent conflict. The motivation behind scientific research was that ideas
for creating a peaceful world would emerge from theories on human behavior and institutions
verified by empirical methods. Hypothesis building would help researchers observe cooperative and conflictual patterns of
behavior under different circumstances. Order in international relations could be analyzed in terms of such variables as distribution of power
and patterns of interaction between political units (Kaplan, 1957; Modelski, 1978). Perceptions and cognition of decision makers and group
processes are important variables in scientific approaches to research on war decision making. Regularities in human behavior were
conceptualized and generalized in the studies of the Korean War decision making and the Cuban Missile Crisis.(Allison, 1971; Paige, 1968)¶
Scientific orientation has paid a great deal of attention to data collection and representation of the data through a modelling process.
Simulation, gaming techniques have been utilized in developing a causal model of violent conflict (Guetzkow and Alger, 1963; Singer and Small,
1972). Later the interaction of economic, social, political and environmental systems was studied by world modelling approaches (Bremer,
1987). Methodological rigor and precision were sought in systematic observation of the problems of violence and other types of human
sufferings.¶ ¶ The Critique of Behavioral Sciences¶ The behavioralist traditions of peace research have been criticized for being too
empiricist.(Galtung, 1975) Quantitative
analysis is not able to reveal intentional aspects of behavior in a
specific context. Developing peace research requires a framework for synthesis in integrating different
sets of issues. While collecting data on manifest violence, arms races and military coups is critical to
the development of empirical theories (SIPRI, 1996), research design has to be guided by appropriate
theoretical frameworks. The ability to think about and discuss key research questions stems from
conceptual development of issues to be studied.¶ Ignoring normative questions would not help find alternative visions.
Conditions for building peace are not dealt with in behavioral research traditions. Statistical data and
empirical findings are themselves do not offer strategies for creating a peaceful world. The
uncertainty of politics would not be removed by pure scientific analysis of human behavior. According to
some observers in peace studies, the efforts to find regularities have been pursued "to the point of eliminating individual creativity and
responsibility may well mire us in cyclic determinism."(Forcey, 1989:13) Critics of the positivist paradigm attribute the reductionist character of
contemporary thought to the drive for control of nature.¶ The critique of behavioral sciences coincides with a "critique of conscience" in the
academic community. Conscience
dictates feelings, moral stances, and a concern for truth and justice. The
desire for value explicit inquiry stems from the fact that human behavior would not be investigated
without references to social collectivity in historical contexts. Overall, the normative starting point of peace research
has to be anchored in the agreement that peace is the object of the quest.(Broadhead, 1997:2) The utility of any research
methods could be evaluated in terms of the way they are compatible with the general goal of a
disciplinary focus. ¶ ¶ Holistic Approaches¶ Some researchers suggest that peace studies should start from holism as the
framework.(Smoker and Groff, 1996) Knowledge about general human experiences of conflict helps interpret specific events. Given their
abstract nature, however, theories may not correspond with the facts and events which they seek to explain. The meanings of events are set up
within a context of wholes. The intellectual transformation is necessary for developing a paradigm of peace. The achievement of peace should
be a holistic goal of research.¶ Holistic versions of theories project the flow of alternative images of reality. There
are different
theoretical explanations about how and why to go to war. The plurality of theories ought not to be
regarded as a preliminary stage of knowledge which will eventually lead to one true grand theory.
Universally applicable knowledge is not produced by piecemeal theory building efforts. There seems
to be consensus that peace research must not be limited to conventional empirical methods. Extended
historical perspectives illustrate what is important in understanding conditions for peace. The evaluation of research findings needs a yardstick
for examining their relevance. The incorporation of emancipatory cognitive interest would help suggest theories for a peaceful world. More
holistic approaches can be encouraged by hermeneutic philosophy of science.¶ Reasoning needs to be combined with experiences in
understanding the holistic pictures of social relations. The outcome in the real world is not easily deduced from abstractly modeled
relationships. In considering difficulties for justification of inducing wholes from parts, the ultimate validity of the big pictures is elusive.
Theories which can be positively verifiable does not necessarily mean that they are true. Realities in
peace and conflict do not last long enough to be subject to comprehensive, systematic and effective
empirical assaults on them . Explanation can be based on intuitive understanding of long and varied experiences. There are various
ways to observe the world, including historical interpretations. Different perceptions of social relationships result from the process of formation
and transformation of images and symbols.¶ Peace studies may belong to the same category as history and critical sociology in terms of its
methods to study an object. In contrast with economics, many factors related to structural violence such as political repression and economic
exploitation cannot be easily understood without socio-historical contexts. Distinctions between independent and dependent variables are
artificial. Understanding the outcome of an event would be enhanced by clarifying the specific goals of actors.¶ ¶ Emancipatory Projects¶ Direct
criticism of sovereign state power may be based on questioning the mode of analysis to construct linear histories. Social and political
boundaries cannot be imposed especially when truth and meanings are in doubt. Sovereign claims are used to shape human loyalties, but the
forms of identities are not any more certain. Resolving differences of opinion about the legitimacy of state institutions is not possible within
clearly defined and demarcated areas of research. Thus emancipatory projects oppose intellectual and social closure which does not tolerate
diversity.¶ In a poststructural approach, language and discourse shape politics and social institutions.(Bannet, 1993) A normative social space is
located in the process of assigning meanings to opposing phenomena. Binary opposition have contributed to the creation of linguistic and social
hierarchies.(Seidman, 1994:18) Poststructuralism aims to disturb the dominant binary meanings that function to perpetuate social and political
hierarchies. Deconstructionism is the method to be deployed. This involves unsettling and displacing the binary hierarchies. The goal of a
deconstructionist strategy is to create a social space which favors autonomy. This process is tolerant of difference and ambiguity.(Seidman,
1994:19) The historically contingent origin and political role of binary hierarchies are uncovered by deconstructionism. ¶ Instead of being
instruments of bureaucratic social control, human studies should serve emancipatory aims. Society is imagined less as a material structure,
organic order, or social system than as a construction rooted in historically specific discursive practices. Communities serve as texts whose
symbols and meanings need to be translated. Interpretative knowledge promotes diversity, expands tolerance, and legitimates difference as
well as fosters understanding and communication (Seidman, 1994:14-5)¶ People's perceptions about the world rely on their social and cultural
milieu. The
goal of emancipation has nothing to do with science. Legitimation arises from their own
linguistic practice and communicational interaction. As long as social science serves as the instrument
of a disciplined society, truth is produced by power.(Foucault, 1967) All knowledge claims are moves in a power game.
Social science can contribute to emancipation by widening and deepening our sense of community. If meanings rest with communities,
knowledge can have a specific role in promoting human solidarity.(Waever, Ole, 1996:171)¶ ¶ Value Issues¶ Even
in a conventional
mode of inquiry, values are not always considered separate from analysis. The accumulation of more
data and testing hypotheses may reveal a trend in the arms race. However, the ultimate analytical
goal should be not only explanatory but also prescriptive. The goals of peace research are defined in
terms of broad human interests which are not dealt with by a state-centric paradigm. Human
dimensions of security can be more easily understood in value paradigms. This paradigm shift requires
a more focus on non-state centric actors, ranging from individuals to supranational institutions. The
bias toward a more inclusive concept of global society as opposed to the exclusionary state can be
justified in terms of a goal oriented research.¶ Each discipline is governed by certain sets of assumptions and rules that
determine its approaches to knowledge and acceptable methods (Forcey, 1989:11). Peace and conflict studies have been developed by valueguided research paradigms. Multidimensional concepts of security explain the importance of economic equity and ecological protection. Core
theories have been established around negative and positive peace. Peace has become a more inclusive concept. The underlying assumptions
of positive peace have value implications for the satisfaction of basic needs. Peaceful conditions include freedom from oppression and social
justice beyond the absence of violence. The impact of poverty and economic exploitation on conflict can be empirically understood. However,
their major form of inquiry ought to be dialectic. While peace and conflict studies need to be as objective as possible, it cannot succumb to the
academic prejudice of total dissociation from the object of study. The starting point for peace research may be found in the ideals of social
transformation through knowledge.¶ Efforts have been made to find a universal standard in Western societies which have a great deal of
similarity in their cultural backgrounds. However, this standard may not apply to the non-Western societies because of their different value
concepts. Therefore, it should be recognized that there is no universal value in the first place and that different values of peace exist in various
parts of the world. We must conceptualize peace in terms of cultural expectations which various groups of people possess. ¶ If normative
pluralism is accepted, peace research must find the interactions between value expectations. It is also necessary to examine the role of
different peace values in social change. The acceptance of diverse approaches to peace can co-exist with the recognition of common goals of
peace research and education such as human development. Research ought to focus not only on different patterns of peacelessness prevailing
in the world but also on the linkage which exists among them.¶ ¶ Participatory Research and Empowerment¶ Participatory projects are
important in an organized effort of endogenous peace learning. It affects the sense of control over the world by the marginalized. Peace
research can serve the survival needs specific to the grassroots level. Action research is part of a
feedback process in learning those who are the object of study. The situations in local communities
should be considered in terms of basic human need values.¶ The needs of people can be identified by
integrating research and practice. Researchers should not arbitrarily define peace in their judgement
but build an interactive relationship with those who are exposed to violence and are living under the
condition of peacelessness. The mode of inquires for empowerment maximizes the possibilities for reflection, creativity, and full
participation of all engaged in the study. Action results from interpretations and assessments of choices.¶ If the overall intent of peace research
is to develop the well-informed public, research should be incorporated into a personal, inward, and interactive process. Research and learning
are a holistic process of integrating social experiences and knowledge. The task of peace research should be the analysis of the social process
through which peace can be achieved.¶ ¶ Critical Pedagogy and Cultural Theory¶ Critical pedagogy deals with such issues as how knowledge can
be used to change society. The Brazilian educator Paulo Freire criticizes a traditional method of learning which does not reflect local reality. He
explains that the process of awakening people to the power of their own questioning.(Freire, 1996) It can be used to explore a model for
transforming society. Culture is not just a by-product of how a society organizes its social and productive relationships. It is a vital instrument
for generating the insights and energy needed to transform those relationships.¶ Cultural energy is a key element for mobilizing the social
action that drives successful grassroots projects. It motivates social action among individuals, groups, communities, and even nations. It is
generated by common people through everyday creative expression in work and entertainment. The presence or absence of cultural energy
makes the difference in whether a project for social change can be launched, sustained, and expanded. Cultural energy is a powerful force in
the creation and reinforcement of a group's solidarity, organizational efficiency, participation, and volunteer spirit.¶ This cultural theory has
been applied to the explanation of a positive linkage between culture and development as well as between tradition and change. Generations
of social and economic oppression and the concentration of power in a sovereign state system have made it difficult for many indigenous
peoples in the Third World to survive on their own. Some found their survival strategy in the regeneration of their culture and identity. They
attempt to achieve political and economic autonomy through culture-based development.¶ The culturally motivated development projects
helped Indians in the Ecuador highland make impressive strides since the 1970s. For more than two decades streams of national and
international organizations offered relief aid, but there were no prospects for change. Typically the outside assistance was organized by the
representatives of white collar professionals whose social and cultural backgrounds are far removed from those of local people. Successful
grassroots initiatives sprang from a group of individuals, many of whom were born in indigenous villages. They formed an Educational Fair to
promote cultural revitalization and self-help efforts. The group encouraged community members to identify their difficulties and consider
possible solutions. Two means for doing this were socio-dramas and puppet shows. This process produced a collective recognition of how the
problem was rooted within the local reality.¶ Many of these communities have joined together to form federations that sponsored their own
cultural revitalization efforts. Later they were integrated with training, production, health, and other development activities. By allowing them
to examine their culture from within, participatory research provided the Sikunai Indians in Ecuador with a powerful tool for problem solving
that unleashed the latent creativity in their own culture. Thus the community became a laboratory for discovering and multiplying locally
available resources for development. In many indigenous communities, there is a common source of energy driving grassroots development.
Cultural projects often began with local voices responding to local needs.¶ ¶ Goals of Peace Research¶ Peace research can be both a process of
discovering knowledge about peace and a process of promoting peace. Research about peace helps define important issues in understanding
conditions for peace. The potential for change can be increased by the realization of human capacity and value expectation. Thus it becomes
important to identify the actors who could be either obstacles to or supporters of peace in various sectors of society. Peace research may focus
on the different roles of various actors ranging from military industries and multi-national corporations of industrialized countries to peasants
in the Third world villages. All of those actors are enclosed within a system of interdependency. The impact of these actors on political,
economic, and cultural transformations, however, would be different.¶ Research for peace enhances a liberating experience that motivates an
individual to seek changes for realizing peace. Research is a process whereby knowledge is created through a transformative experience.
Therefore, the goal of peace studies is to develop alternative ways of promoting empowerment through action oriented research. For this
purpose, peace research may include experiential learning which involves researchers directly in the phenomenon being studied. Field
research, role plays, games, and participation in real events such as peace movements could be important methods of observation.¶ The goals
of research are as equally important as or more important than the processes and methods of inquiry. Peace has been often breached under
the name of peace. Thus the establishment of a normative paradigm has been critical in peace studies. The
value concept affects
the issues which peace research should deal with. It also has an impact on the method of selecting a
subject and constructing a theory. The causes of violence can not be confirmed in an objective form
unless a universally relevant measurement exists. Structural violence embedded in society may not be
recognized at all by those who take only a negative peace approach. Therefore, the definition of peace
can not be made without a value judgement on how people achieve their physical and spiritual wellbeing.¶ ¶ Conclusion¶ Efforts to study peace more systematically are ascribed to modern social science traditions. As political and ideological
differences become a less significant element, peace research may need to shift its analysis more to human rights violations, political
repression, unequal distribution of wealth, and other causes of human sufferings. Data gathering on repression and poverty still remains a very
important task in peace research. However, too
much emphasis on rigorous quantitative theory building efforts
would not help find creative solutions to problems which humanity faces at the present time and in
the future.
AT no link trade/gender opp
Data about the relationship between trade and gender gets hidden from statistical
records—alt is a pre-requisite to creating effective policies
Berik 11
Professor of Economics @ the University of Utah, PhD and MA in Economics @ UMass-Amherst
[Günseli, International Labor Organization, Trade and Employment: From Myths to Facts, “Gender
Aspects of Trade,” pg. 176,
http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_emp/documents/publication/wcms_162297.pdf, DKP]
In examining the trade-gender nexus, a variety of research methodologies has¶ been used to infer changes
in women’s well-being, and gender inequalities and trade¶ outcomes: cross-country, country or sector multiple regression analysis;
¶
computable¶ general equilibrium (CGE) models; and descriptive statistical analyses. The
first and¶ main challenge in the
assessment of trade impacts by gender is the paucity of gender differentiated statistics. Most genderdifferentiated employment and earnings data are¶ for the manufacturing sector and for middle-income countries.
As a result, much of¶ the research on gender impacts of trade has focused on labour market impacts.
Even¶ for the manufacturing sector, however, data shortfalls at detailed sector, occupational¶ and skill levels hinder
assessment of the employment dislocation and churning in¶ the labour market that are expected from a change in the trade regime.¶
Another data constraint is that survey data in developing countries tend to be¶ more accurate in
reflecting employment in formal establishments (and often those¶ above a certain size). These statistics
will not reflect the changes in the workforce¶ that is employed in small establishments or at home, who are
predominantly women.¶ For example, the growth in female share of employment might be underestimated¶ in the context of informalization,
if former women workers in export factories move¶ to home-based work or women enter the labour force as home-based workers. Both¶
groups of women
are likely to be hidden from statistical records.¶
AT Essentialism
Essentialism claims put the blame on the oppressed and excuse the oppressor-- your
focus on marginalized bodies becoming authoritative never questions that white male
bodies are always already essentializing the classroom. Critiques of essentialism
reproduce a coercive insider/outsider binary on acceptable knowledge.
hooks 91
(bell, the best there ever was. "Essentialism and Experience"¶ American Literary History, Vol. 3, No. 1
(Spring, 1991), pp. 172-183 MI)
According to Fuss, issues of "essence, identity, and experience"¶ erupt in the classroom primarily because of the critical¶ input from
marginalized groups. Throughout her chapter,¶ This whenever
she offers an example of individuals who use
essentialist¶ standpoints to dominate discussion, to silence others via¶ their invocation of the "authority of
experience," they are members¶ of groups who historically have been and are oppressed¶ and
exploited in this society. Fuss does not address how systems¶ of domination already at work in the academy and the classroom¶ silence t he
voices of individualsf rom marginalizedg roups¶ and give space only when on the basis of experience it is demanded.¶ She does not suggest that
the very discursive practices¶ that allow for the assertion of the "authority of experience"¶ have
already been determined by politics of race, sex, and class¶ domination. Fuss does not aggressively suggest
that dominant¶ groups-men, white people, heterosexuals-perpetuate essentialism .¶ In her narrative
it is always a marginal "other" who is¶ essentialist.
Yet the politics of essentialist exclusion as a means¶ of asserting
presence, identity, is a cultural practice that does¶ not emerge solely from marginalized groups. And when those¶ groups do employ
essentialism as a way to dominate in institutional¶ settings, they are often imitating paradigms for asserting¶ subjectivity that are part of the
controlling apparatus in structures¶ of domination. Certainly
many white male students have¶ brought to my
classroom an insistence on the authority of experience,¶ one that enables them to feel that anything
they have¶ to say is worth hearing, that indeed their ideas and experience¶ should be the central focus of classroom
discussion. The politics¶ of race and gender within white supremacist patriarchy grants¶ them this
"authority" without their having to name the desire¶ for it. They do not attend class and say, "I think that I am superior
intellectually to my classmates because I am white and¶ male and that my experiences are much more important than¶ any other group's." And
yet their behavior often announces¶ this way of thinking about identity, essence, subjectivity.¶ Why
does Fuss's chapter ignore
the subtle and overt ways¶ essentialismi s expressedf rom a location of privilege?W hy does¶ she primarily
critique the misuses of essentialism by centering¶ her analysis on marginalized groups? Doing so makes them the¶ culprits for
disrupting the classroom and making it an "unsafe"¶ place. Is this not a conventional way the
colonizer speaks of¶ the colonized , the oppressor of the oppressed? Fuss asserts,¶ "Problems often begin in the classroom when
those 'in the¶ know' commerce only with others 'in the know,' excluding and¶ marginalizing those perceived to be outside the magic circle"¶
(115). This observation, which could certainly apply to any¶ group, prefaces a focus on critical commentary by Edward Said that reinforces her
critique of the dangers of essentialism. He¶ appears in the text as resident "Third World authority" legitimating¶ her argument. Critically
echoing Said, Fuss comments:¶ "For Said it is both dangerous and misleading to base an identity¶ politics upon rigid theories of exclusions,
'exclusions that stipulate,¶ for instance, only women can understand feminine experience,¶ only Jews can understand Jewish suffering, only
formerly¶ colonial subjects can understand colonial experience'"¶ (115). I agree with Said's critique, but I reiterate that while I¶ too critique the
use of essentialism and identity politics as a¶ strategy for exclusion or domination, I am suspicious when¶ theoriesc all this practice harmful as a
way of suggesting that it¶ is a strategy only marginalized groups employ. My suspicion is¶ rooted in the awareness that
essentialism that challenges¶
essentialist
only
marginalized groups to interrogate their use of
a critique of
identity¶ politics or an
standpoint as a means of exerting¶ coercive power leaves unquestioned the critical practices
of other¶ groups who employ the same strategies
in different ways and¶ whose exclusionary behavior may be firmly
buttressed by institutionalized¶ structures of domination that do not critique or¶ check it. At the same time, I am concerned that
critiques
of¶ identity politics not serve as the new chic way to silence students¶ from marginal groups . Fuss makes
the point that "the artificial boundary between¶ insider and outsider necessarily contains rather than disseminates¶ knowledge" (115). While I
share this perception, I am¶ disturbed that she never acknowledges that racism, sexism, and¶ class
elitism shape the structure of
classrooms, creating a lived¶ reality of insider/outsider that is predetermined, often in place¶ before
any class discussion begins . There is rarely any need for¶ marginalized groups to bring this binary
opposition into the¶ classroom because it is usually already operating. They may¶ simply use it in the
service of their concerns . Looked at from¶ a sympathetic standpoint, the assertion of an excluding essentialism¶
on the part of students from marginalized groups can¶ be a strategic response to domination and to
colonization, a¶ survival strategy that may indeed inhibit discussion even as it¶ rescues those students
from negation . Fuss argues that "[i]t is the¶ unspoken law of the classroom not to trust those who cannot¶ cite experience as the
indisputable grounds of their knowledge.¶ Such unwritten laws pose perhaps the most serious threat to¶ classroom dynamics in that they breed
suspicion amongst those¶ inside the circle and guilt (sometimes anger) amongst those¶ outside the circle" (116-17). Yet she does not discuss
who¶ makes these laws, who determines classroom dynamics. Does she perhaps assert her authority in a manner that unwittingly¶ sets up a
competitived ynamic by suggestingt hat the classroom¶ belongs more to the professor than to the students, to some¶ students more than
others?
Our alternative does not essentialize women in international relations – our preferred
future is one in which women and men participate in reducing hierarchical social
structures in international relations.
Tickner ’99 (J. Ann, Distinguished Scholar @ American Univ. “Why Women Can’t Run the World:
International Politics According to Francis Fukuyama,” International Studies Review 1:3)
What IR feminists have argued for is getting rid of idealistic associations of women with peace. Associations
of women with
peace, idealism, and impracticality have long served to disempower women and keep them in their
place, which is out of the “real world” of international politics. When Fukuyama claims that sociobiology was misused
at the turn of the century, with respect to race and ethnicity, he, too, is misusing it. He does this under the guise of evidence about profound
genetically rooted differences between the sexes by inferring that these differences predetermine men’s and women’s different (and unequal)
roles with respect to contemporary international politics.15 Of
course, feminists want women to participate more fully
in global politics and contribute to making the world a less dangerous place. But, rather than killing each other,
haven’t many men been working toward this goal also? Wherever men’s genes may have pointed, they founded the
discipline of international relations by trying to understand why states go to war and trying to devise
institutions to diminish its likelihood in the future. Preferred futures are not feminized, but ones in
which women and men participate in reducing damaging and unequal hierarchical social structures,
such as gender and race.
AT Inevitability
Inevitability claims give moral license to violence resulting in extinction.
Campbell and Dillon ’93
David Campbell\Michael Dillon, “The end of philosophy and the end of international relations,” The Political
Subject of Violence, 1993, pp. 17-18
To broach this task anew, however, we have briefly to re-visit again an aspect of the early formation of the terminus in which we are located. Should the old
objection be advanced that a return to the ethical represents a retreat from the hard violent choices entailed in the political, the reply before we proceed should be
Violence may be the ultima ratio of politics, but it has never been the
only ratio; and in a life that now has to be lived with a proliferating array of devices capable of
threatening lethal global consequences it simply cannot be allowed to enjoy the practical, intellectual
and moral licence once extended to it in our political discourses. Neither is there anything in the history of the technology of
political violence to warrant the claim that the political rationalisation of violence diminishes its sway. Monopolistic control and attempted rational
brief and ‘hard-nosed’ enough to match any realist.
deployment of the legitimate use of force
by modern political authorities
has helped bring human being to the
threshold of prospect ultimately not only of genocidal but also of species extinction.
Human perdurance cannot
afford the cost of the politics of political and ethical forgetting charged by the technologising of the political as violence. Realist and neo-realist
answers not
only fail intellectually — in a way that would not matter very much if they did not so impoverish our political imagination — they fail most
because they are not good enough practically to match our circumstances. It is not a matter of getting knowledge ‘to represent reality truly’ (we shall see later how
modern reality has become a function of its technologies of representation), but of acquiring ‘habits of action for
coping with reality’;25 a reality which always exceeds the realist representation of it, and whose unprecedented finitudes now define the horizon of life in novel
ways
*****Framework*****
2NC AT: Framework
Counter Interpretation
– The judge should evaluate this debate based on which team provides the best epistemology for
resisting violence. This provides the best education about political ideologies that is necessary for
change.
Public Private Turn
– The Aff’s framework arguments sanitize policy debate by creating a public/private split, which
determines the ideas that are legitimated in the public sphere and relegates women’s issues to the
private. This is the same method used to exclude women’s voices and justify violence for centuries. In
other words, the Aff framework links to our criticism and it is an independent reason to vote neg.
Chow ’03
(Esther Ngan-ling, Prof. @ American Univ. “Gender Matters: Studying Globalization and Social Change in
the 21st Century,” International Sociology 18:3)
In different cultural contexts, the
gender dimension shapes the possibilities and limits within which
globalization can be articulated and reconfigured by the local and national public patriarchy (i.e. the
nation-state, economy and religion) and by the private patriarchy (i.e. the family).2 The study by Anita Weiss investigates Pakistan’s
response as a state party to the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) within a
Muslim context. Her article centers on key debates regarding what constitute women’s rights, who define what these rights are and what is
considered discrimination against women. She examines how the state might and might not act to combat discrimination against women
legally, socially, culturally and politically and the roles being played by various groups within the women’s movement to facilitate the process of
adherence to CEDAW. Moreover, globalization
presents a junction at which global and local masculinities and
femininities are constructed, existing gender regimes are challenged in different geopolitical locations,
and gendered effects are registered beyond the border of a single country. In her article, Ligaya LindioMcGovern presents the experience of Filipino migrant women and men domestic workers in Rome. Examining the feminization of export
labor in the Philippines as a consequence of stagnant economic growth and debt crisis, she offers insights into the impact of
globalization on the class cleavages between domestic workers and their European employers, into
the creation of a cheap, docile, mobile reproductive labor force linked to capital accumulation, and
into the widening economic gaps between the richer and poorer countries.
Fairness for who?
– Their fairness arguments about predictability and ground highlight their own masculine approach to
politics. Not only are feminist perspectives actively silenced in the status quo, they transport that
exclusion to debate by willfully ignoring valuable topic literature. Our criticism is rooted in specific
literature about economic engagement with Latin America and the disparate impact that engagement
has on feminized bodies. Their framework excludes important voices and topic relevant literature.
Education outweighs –
Critical interrogation of dangerous epistemologies is a prerequisite to education about the political
process because they shape the way we think about lawmaking and discourse. It is impossible to achieve
the education they assert without first questioning our epistemology.
their interpretation limits education to 1st world perspective - reduces our discussion
of policy reform to the realm of self-interest calculations of US policymakers- This
privileged perspective yields violence and nationalism as it attempts to assert its static
boundaries.
Oliver 04
Oliver, Chair of Philo. And Prof. of Women’s Studies at Vanderbilt, 2004
(Kelly, The Colonization of Psychic Space: A Psychoanalytic Social Theory of Oppression, pg. xxii-xxiii MI)
Here, I argue that it is a social process of forgiveness without sovereignty, forgiveness beyond recognition, that creates the effects of autonomy and individuality
important to acting as an agent. The unconscious processes that create the sovereignty effect cannot be governed by the self but rather produce the self and its
sense of self-governance. Popular Western notions of the individual and individualism cover over this process and fix the subject as self-contained and opposed to
others and society. This fixed notion of the individual denies the unconscious processes that sustain it and by virtue of which it exists. And by
so denying
the unconscious, this individual denies what motivates its actions and relationships behind the scenes
of conscious life. This individual lives with the illusion that it is (or can become) transparent to itself
and self-governing, in control of itself and therefore in control of others and its world. This illusion,
however, can be dangerous insofar as it can lead to a sense of entitlement and privilege that comes from the confidence of one's own
boundaries, a confidence that covers over the fears and ambiguities that haunt those boundaries, fears and ambiguitie s that are
disavowed to maintain the illusion of self-control. This unforgiving illusion of entitlement and
privilege leads to self-righteous killing in the name of justice, democracy, and freedom, which requires disavowal
of not only conscious ulterior motives related to political economy and maintaining domination but also
unconscious motives related to repressed fears and desires. We need to critically examine not only
our conscious motives and reasons for our actions and values but also our unconscious drives and affects that affect, even govern
if not determine, those very actions and values. Without such self-examination and questioning, without continually interpreting and
reinterpreting the meaning of our own actions and values, we risk the solidity that prevents fluid, living
sublimation and idealization and leaves us with empty and meaningless principles in whose name we kill off
otherness and those others who embody it for us. This is the burden placed on those othered by
privileged subjects who believe their illusions of independence and entitlement.
Pub/Priv Ext
Their prioritization claims mirror the private/public distinction; valuing the latter as
the "real" business of politics.
PETERSON 2000
V. Spike Peterson “Rereading Public and Private: the Dichotomy that is not One” SAIS Review, Volume
20, Number 2, Summer-Fall 2000, pp. 11-29
This article explores how the
dichotomy of public and private is structured and how it influences international
relations (IR) theory/practice. I take as my first starting point the assertion that the binary of public and private is
a foundational dichotomy of Western thought,3 and that it has profound significance for political scientists and
feminists. The former have constituted their field of study by reference to the public sphere of politics and power brokering. The latter
have criticized the relegation of women and femininity to a depoliticized realm of “private
life” and familial relations. Both communities struggle with the question of how economics fits into this binary framework. My
second starting point is that foundational dichotomies are both conceptually and politically
problematic. Conceptually, the structure of dichotomies (posing mutually exclusive, opposing,
and polarized terms) promotes thinking that is static (unable to acknowledge or address change),
reductionist (unable to accommodate the complexities of social reality), and stunted (unable to envision more than
two opposing alternatives).4 Because social life is dynamic, complex, and multi-faceted,
thinking that relies on reductionist dichotomies encourages inadequate analyses. Politically,
foundational dichotomies privilege the first term at the expense of the second, and their
deployment implicitly or explicitly valorizes the attributes of the first term. Because
foundational dichotomies— culture-nature, reason-emotion, subject-object, mind-body, public- private—are gendered,
action that relies on dichotomies privileges that which is associated with masculinity over
that which is associated with femininity.5 My third starting point is that feminist IR, in spite of a dramatic increase in
publications and conference visibility, remains foreign to mainstream IR. More specifically, while “woman” as an empirical
referent has gained visibility, feminist claims that gender is an analytic category (that infuses
foundational dichotomies) remain poorly understood. In the latter sense, “all of social life is
gendered,”6 hence, the dichotomy of masculine-feminine orders not only our subjective
identities but also the concepts that structure our thought (for example, private-public, certainty-ambiguity,
autonomy- dependence, hard-soft, ) and the practices that structure our options and activities (for example,
statemaking-homemaking, paid-unpaid work, science-humanities). So understood, gender is decidedly “not a synonym
for women,”7 but a structural, pervasive feature of how we “order” social life. And taking
gender seriously involves much more than the important but limited project of “adding
women in.”
Your sole focus on state politics ignores the private sphere and provides a safe haven
for masculine violence.
PETERSON 2000
V. Spike Peterson “Rereading Public and Private: the Dichotomy that is not One” SAIS Review, Volume
20, Number 2, Summer-Fall 2000, pp. 11-29 (Article)
Given the assumption (since Aristotle) that public and private are internal to states, and the assumption
that IR is about relations among, not within, states, what relevance does the dichotomy have to IR? On the one hand, as a
foundational dichotomy in Western thought, public and private shape our discourse
generally, and IR is no exception. And insofar as states are central to the discourse of IR, reference to them incorporates, implicitly and
explicitly, constructions of public and private. On the other hand, I make two related points regarding the dichotomy as ideological. First,
one powerful effect of foundational dichotomies is that they are typically deployed as
abstractions (disembedded from context) even as they carry ideological force by valorizing one term at
the expense of the other. Second, feminists argue that the dichotomy of public and private is historically and
conceptually gendered; it “privileges” the public sphere as masculine. Abstract references to public
and private then serve to privilege and legitimize that which is associated with the
masculine over that which is associated with the feminine, and this has material effects . With
these brief points in mind, I offer a reading of two variants of public and private in relation to conventional IR discourse. In both variants, the
state/government constitutes the public and is associated with masculine characteristics of
politics, reason, order, and autonomy. The first variant takes the territorial state as given
and looks inward. This version resembles Aristotle’s dichotomy, with the state/politics as the public
distinguished from private sphere activities and relationships, cast as “domestic.” Unlike Aristotle,
however, economic activities outside of the household are assumed and even privileged in this
version of the private. In the second variant, the state/public is contrasted not with a private sphere
within states but the relations external to or between states, associated with the feminine
characteristics of irrationality, disorder, anarchy, and the absence of civil norms. That is, the
public is here contrasted not with the domestic but with the stereotypically feminine
characteristics “opposed” to the state/public sphere’s masculine qualities. Both variants
reflect Realist characterizations of the state as a unitary, unified, and rational actor. Both
sustain the dichotomy of internal-external that legitimates IR’s discipline-defining claim to
study the uniquely anarchical relations among (in contrast to political relations within) sovereign states.
Oriented either inward or outward, not coincidentally both variants also sustain the levelsof- analysis framing still popular among IR theorists.
AT STATE/POLICY GOOD
The stories we tell ourselves about our national history shape our understanding of
what constitutes justice or political action. Framework traps narratives in a linear,
state oriented format—reject this commodification. Liberal frameworks delegitimize
the perspective of the oppressed at the outset and destroys real contestation.
Edkins 2K3 [Jenny. Senior lecturer in International Politics at the University of Whales Aberystwyth. Trauma and the Memory of Politics.
Page number at end of card.]
Too often what we call politics in the contemporary world is evacuated of antagonism. Most of what is accepted on to the agenda of discussion is already delimited to such an extent that it
. In the discourse of liberal consensus there is no political alternative: those
who disagree are either our enemies, or criminals. They are evil and we are good. As happened very clearly in the aftermath of September 11, the
contains no properly political disagreements
contest is scripted as the battle of good against evil, a clash of civilisations, or of civilisation against barbarism, not as a political struggle. The space of the political is evacuated, or in my terms,
what we have is a depoliticisation. What we need to retrieve is the properly political domain, and my
argument in this book has been that that realm, precisely, is the sphere of trauma time.What we call politics takes place in
the smooth, homogeneous linear time of narrative forms with origins and end points. It takes place in the context of
the nation-state, an imagined community of people with a shared history and culture and shared values or goals. Memory and commemoration are important — indeed vital — to the
. But if
memory is pivotal, so too, of course, is forgetting. Forgetting is essential because for ‘politics’ to take place,
the way in which the current political structures came into being must be overlooked . These structures
must appear to have come down from time immemorial — not to have been born out of the traumatic violence of
revolutions or wars. They must appear to have firm foundations —not to have been established by a
coup de force, itself an unfounded, but founding, moment. What we call politics also serves to
legitimise the state, with its pretence that all disagreements that count can be aired within , for example,
production and re production of this context. The ceremonies and the heroes they venerate are the embodiment of the histories and values that constitute the current social order
the liberal framework of democracy. Positions that cannot be incorporated within that agenda are
delegitimised and outlawed. Trauma time
— the disruptive, back-to-front time that
occurs when the smooth time of
the imagined or symbolic story is interrupted by the real of ‘events’ — is the time that must be
forgotten if the sovereign power of the modern state is to remain unchallenged .
survivors of trauma want to keep hold of, and to which it seems they want desperately to testify. Their
very roots . (229-230)
And trauma time is exactly what
testimony challenges sovereign power at its
AT RIGHT WING COOPTION
Fear of right-wing cooption reinforces the right’s conception of politics and prevents
transformation.
Butler 00
(Judith, Professor at Colombia on all things awesome, Contingency, Hegemony, Universality, P. 159-60)
The possibilities of these reversals and the
feared prospect of a full cooptation by existing institutions of power
keep many a critical intellectual from engaging in activist politics. The fear is that one will have to accept certain notions
which one wants to subject to critical scrutiny. C an one embrace a notion of ' rights' even as the discourse tends to localize and obscure the
broader workings of power, even as it often involves accepting certain premisses of humanism that a critical perspective would question? Can
one accept the very postulate of 'universality', so central to the rhetoric of democratic claims to enfranchisement? The demand for 'inclusion'
when the very constitution of the polity ought to be brought into question? C
an one call into question the way in which the
political field is organized, and have such a questioning accepted as part of the process of selfreflection that is central to a radical democratic enterprise? Conversely, can a critical intellectual use the very terms
that she subjects to criticism, accepting the pre-theoretical force of their deployment in contexts where they are urgently needed? It seems
important to be able to move as intellectuals between the kinds of questions that predominate these pages, in which the conditions of
possibility for the political are debated , and the struggle s that constitute the present life of
hegemonic struggle : the development and universalization of various new social movements, the
concrete workings of coalitional efforts and , especially, those alliances that tend to cross-cut
identitarian politics. It would be a mistake to think that these efforts might be grouped together unde r a single rubric, understo od as
'the particular' or 'the historically contingent' , while intellectuals then turn to more fundamental issues that are understood to be clearly
marked ofT from the play of present politics. I am not suggesting that my interlocutors are guilty of such moves. Laclau 's work, espec ially his
edited volume The Making of Political Identities, 14 takes on this question explicitly. And Zizek has also emerged as one of the central critics of
the political situation in the B alkans, more generally, and is en gaged, more locally, in the political life of Slovenia in various ways. Moreover, it
seems that the very notion of hegemony to which we are all more or less committed demands a way
of thinking about social movements precisely as they come to make a universalizing claim, precisely
when they emerge within the historical horizon as the promise of democratization itself. But I would
caution that establishing the conditions of pos sibility for such movements is not the same as engaging with their internal and overlapping
logics, the specific ways in which they appropriate the key terms of democracy, and directing the fate of those terms as a consequence of that
appropriation.
The political, therefore, is not about expressing demands to the elites to rectify
injustices but the ability to contest structures of power. Politics can only happen after
the alternative-- the neg shifts the focus from perfecting globalization to debating the
desirability of those structures as a gateway they must justify before evaluating their
impacts.
Swyngedouw 09
Erik "The Antinomies of the Postpolitical City: In Search of a Democratic Politics of Environmental
Production" International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Volume 33, Issue 3, pages 601–620
School of Environment and Development, Manchester University (MI)
L ive Earth concerts, waving the banner of climate change and urging the world’s leaders¶ to take immediate and serious action, were beamed
across the airwaves from 8 major¶ cities on 8 July 2007, watched by an estimated record number of 3 billion people.¶ Cheered on by Al Gore
and riding on the popular success of his unsettling ‘An¶ Inconvenient Truth’ documentary, the concerts—exquisite expressions of
contemporary¶ spectacularized city life — re-enforced the consensual view that nature, the climate and¶ the environment are in clear and
present danger, threatening the life and sustainability of¶ all the world’s peoples, in particular the poorer ones, and whipping up a moral
crusade¶ for a more energy-selective and carbon-sparse code of socio-economic conduct. It is of¶ course ironic that these concerts took the
urban as their stage, while it is exactly the¶ socio-metabolic functioning of cities that requires gigantic energy resources to sustain¶ their sociometabolic processes, while pumping an accelerating volume of CO2 into the¶ atmosphere (Swyngedouw, 2006). Cities
produce 80% of
the world’s greenhouse gases,¶ express often the most pervasive forms of socio-environmental
injustices and are central¶ to producing more sustainable environmental futures (Bulkeley and Betsill, 2005;
Sze,¶ 2006; Doucet, 2007). Indeed, the environmental question has become one that mobilizes¶ and
galvanizes political energies, and around which a political consensus has emerged, ¶ one that has
literally ‘naturalized the political’ (see Debruyne, 2007: 2). Indeed, a¶ scientific consensus, most vividly
illustrated by the successive Intergovernmental Panel¶ on Climate Change reports, fused with a
pervasive apocalyptic imaginary, and combined¶ with asserting the intrinsic value of a nature that has
to be retro-fitted to regain a¶ ‘sustainable’ configuration, has taken hold (Swyngedouw, 2007a). Environmental¶
politics is a politics legitimated by a scientific consensus which, in turn, translates into a¶ political consensus. The world is in clear and present
danger and urgent, sustained and¶ consensual action is required. This
is a politics that ‘legitimizes itself by means of a¶
direct reference to the scientific status of its knowledge’ (Žižek, 2006c: 188) or, in other¶ words, it is a politics reduced to
the administration and management of processes whose¶ parameters are defined by consensual socio-scientific knowledges. This
reduction of the¶ political to the policing of environmental change, so I shall argue, evacuates if not¶
forecloses the properly political and becomes part and parcel of the consolidation of a¶ postpolitical
and postdemocratic polity . The depoliticized contradictions of such¶ postpolitical environmentalism exploded with acute force in
2008, when energy prices,¶ and in particular oil, spiralled upwards to quadruple in a few months’ time. Irrespective¶ of the reasons behind this
spectacular rise in oil prices (whether driven by extremely¶ profitable financial speculation in the futures markets after the speculative landbubble¶ had imploded or by a combination of peak-oil conditions and rising demand of China and¶ India, or a combination of both, remains
disputed), the
implications in terms of urban¶ environmental justice became clear quickly. Hailed by
some environmentalists as finally¶ opening a window to bring oil consumption and greenhouse gas
emissions down, poor¶ people around the world suddenly saw food prices spiral out of reach, food
crops¶ replaced by bio-fuels, access to energy curtailed and the cost of moving around going up.¶
While seemingly offering an opening towards a more sustainable postcarbon society, the¶
contradictory effects rapidly came to the boil.
Urban riots in Haiti, Mexico, Burkina¶ Faso, Indonesia, China and elsewhere
signalled that the environment is indeed a deeply¶ 602 Erik Swyngedouw¶ International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33.3¶ © 2009
The Author. Journal Compilation © 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.¶ political matter, one cut through by all manner of social
antagonisms, radical disputes¶ and profound disagreements.¶ In recent years, urban research has become increasingly concerned with the
social,¶ political and economic implications of the techno-political and socio-scientific¶ consensus that the present unsustainable and unjust
environmental conditions require a¶ transformation of the way urban life is organized. This special issue testifies to this¶ concern and, in
particular, to the socially highly uneven consequences of both the¶ increasingly unsustainable environmental practices and the feeble attempts
to ‘rectify’¶ the problem, to retrofit a nature that science suggests is out of synch with its own internal¶ balancing act. A flurry of writing in
recent years has begun to interrogate the close¶ relationship between urban processes and environmental transformations (see¶ Bickerstaff et
al., 2009, this issue, for a review). Social environmental research has by¶ now convincingly argued and demonstrated that physical-
ecological processes are not¶ independent from socio-economic and cultural processes. While such political
and¶ socio-ecological perspectives were originally primarily concerned with the degradation¶ of ‘natural’ conditions (like soil erosion,
deforestation, climate change or resource¶ depletion), recent work has increasingly concentrated on the pivotal role of the urban in¶ political
ecological processes (see, e.g., Bell et al., 1998; Braun and Castree, 1998;¶ Forsyth, 2002; Robbins, 2004; Castree, 2005; Heynen et al., 2005;
2007). Prompted by¶ David Harvey’s counter-intuitive comment that there is nothing unnatural about New¶ York City, urban political ecologists
insisted that urban environments, like any other¶ socio-physical assemblage, are produced through combined social and ecological¶ processes
that shape particular socio-geographical conditions and manufacture the¶ architecture of the socio-metabolic circulations and transformations
that shape everyday¶ urban life (Harvey, 1996). Neil Smith’s (1984) ‘production of nature’ thesis has been¶ expanded and reformulated in an
attempt to let ecological processes re-enter our¶ perspectives on nature and on the city (see, e.g., Gandy, 2003; Desfor and Keil, 2004;¶
Swyngedouw, 2004; Kaika, 2005). In In the Nature of Cities, a range of urban political¶ ecologists argued indeed that cities are produced sociometabolic assemblages and their¶ analyses insisted on the ‘produced’ character of urban environments, including the¶ distribution of social
roles and positions, the socio-ecological flows of materials and the¶ metabolic re-working of socio-physical processes into the fabric of what is
defined as a¶ city (Heynen et al., 2005). In short, urban environmental conditions are seen as dynamic,¶ socio-physical, power-laden and coevolutionary1 constructions. Uneven consequences¶ of socio-environmental change, the distribution of environmental ‘goods’ and ‘bads’, and¶
the rhizomatic networks that relate local urban ecological transformations with distant¶ socio-ecological processes are now commonly
understood as combined social and¶ physical entanglements.¶ Political struggles are central in shaping alternative or different trajectories of
sociometabolic¶ change and the construction of new and emancipatory urban environmental¶ geographies. All manner of critical socialtheoretical analyses have been mobilized to¶ account for these processes. Marxist and post-Marxist perspectives, environmental¶ justice
arguments, deconstructionist and poststructural musings, science/technology¶ studies, complexity theory, postcolonial, feminist and Latourian
views, among others,¶ have attempted to produce what I would ultimately be tempted to call a ‘sociological’¶ analysis of urban politicalecological transformations. What they share, despite their¶ different—and often radically opposed—ontological and epistemological claims, is
the¶ view that
critical social theory will offer an entry into strategies, mechanisms,¶ technologies of
resistance, transformation and emancipatory political tactics. In other¶ words, the implicit assumption of
this sociological edifice is that ‘the political’ is¶ instituted by the social, that political configurations,
arrangements and tactics arise out of¶ 1 The notions of nature and ecology that are implied by the notion of co-evolution
proposed here are¶ closely related to those explored by the dialectical biological and ecological theories of Levins and¶ Lewontin (1985) and
Lewontin and Levins (2007).¶ The antinomies of the postpolitical city 603¶ International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33.3¶ © 2009
The Author. Journal Compilation © 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.¶ the social condition or process or, in other words, that the
social colonizes ‘the political’¶ (Arendt, 1968). The properly political moment is assumed to flow from this¶ ‘sociological’ understanding or
analysis of the process. Or in other words, the
‘political’¶ emerges, both theoretically and practically, from the
social process, a process that only¶ knowledge has access to. Put differently, most urban political ecological
perspectives¶ assume the political to arise from analysis, but neither theorizes nor operationalizes
the¶ properly political within a political ecological analysis. This opens a theoretical and¶ practical gap
as the properly political is evacuated from the theoretical considerations¶ that have shaped (urban)
political ecology thus far. This ‘retreat of the political’ (Lefort,¶ 1988; Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy, 1997) requires urgent
attention.¶ This retreat of the properly political as a theoretical and practical object stands in¶ strange
contrast to the insistence of urban political ecology that urban socioenvironmental¶ conditions and processes
are profoundly political ones and that,¶ consequently, the production of different socio-environmental urban trajectories is a¶
decidedly political process. Considering the properly political is indeed all the more¶ urgent as environmental politics increasingly express a
postpolitical consensual¶ naturalization of the political. As argued by Swyngedouw (2007a), Žižek (2002 [1992])¶ and Debruyne (2007), among
others, the present consensual vision that the¶ environmental condition presents a clear and present danger that requires urgent
technomanagerial¶ re-alignments and a change in the practices of governance and of regulation,¶ also annuls the properly political moment
and contributes to what these and other authors¶ have defined as the emergence and consolidation of a postpolitical condition. ¶ These will be
the key themes I shall develop in this contribution. First, I shall explore¶ what might be meant by the ‘properly’ political. In conversation with,
and taking my cue¶ from, political philosophers and theorists like Slavoj Žižek, Jacques Rancière, Alain¶ Badiou, Etienne Balibar, Claude Lefort,
David Crouch, Mustafa Dikeç, Chantalle¶ Mouffe and Peter Hallward, I attempt to theorize and re-centre the political as a key¶ moment in
political-ecological processes. What
these perspectives share is not only the¶ refusal to accept the social as the
foundation of the political, but, more profoundly, the¶ view that the absence of a foundation for the
social (or, in other words, the ‘social’ being¶ constitutively split, inherently incoherent, ruptured by all
manner of tensions and¶ conflicts) calls into being ‘the political’ as the instituting moment of the social
(see, e.g.,¶ Marchart, 2007; Stavrakakis, 2007). Put differently, it is through the political that¶ ‘society’ comes into being, achieves a certain
coherence and ‘sustainability’.
Prioritizing¶ ‘the political’ as the foundational gesture that permits ‘the social’
maintains ‘absolutely¶ the separation of science and politics, of analytic description and political
prescription’ ¶ (Badiou, quoted in Hallward, 2003a: 394). This is not to say, of course, that politics and¶ science are not enmeshed (on the
contrary, they are and increasingly so), but rather that¶ unravelling the science/politics imbroglios (as pursued by, among others, critical¶
sociologies of science, science and technology studies, science-discourse analysis and¶ the like) does not in itself permit opening up either the
notion or the terrain of the¶ political. The aim of this article, in contrast, is to recover the notion of the political and¶ of the political polis from
the debris of contemporary obsessions with governing,¶ management, urban polic(y)ing and its associated technologies (Lacoue-Labarthe and¶
Nancy, 1997). Second, I shall argue that the particular staging of the environmental¶ problem and its modes of management signals and helps
to consolidate a postpolitical¶ condition, one that evacuates the properly political from the plane of immanence that¶ underpins any political
intervention. The consolidation of an urban postpolitical¶ arrangement runs, so I argue, parallel to the rise of a neoliberal governmentality that
has¶ replaced debate, disagreement and dissensus with a series of technologies of governing¶ that fuse around consensus, agreement,
accountancy metrics and technocratic¶ environmental management. In the third part, I maintain that this postpolitical consensual¶ police order
revolves decidedly around embracing a populist gesture, one that annuls¶ democracy and must, of necessity, lead to an ultra-politics of violent
disavowal, radical¶ closure and, ultimately, to the tyrannies of violence and of foreclosure of any real spaces¶ 604 Erik Swyngedouw¶
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33.3¶ © 2009 The Author. Journal Compilation © 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell
Publishing Ltd.¶ of engagement. However, the disappearance of the political in a postpolitical¶ arrangement leaves all manner of traces that
allow for the resurfacing of the properly¶ political. Indeed, the incoherencies of the contemporary urban ordering, the excesses and¶ the gaps
that are left in the interstices of the postpolitical urban order permit thinking¶ through if not materially widening and occupying genuine
political urban spaces. This¶ will be the theme of the final section. I shall conclude that re-centring the political is a¶ necessary condition for
tackling questions of urban environmental justice and for¶ creating different, but egalibertarian, socio-ecological urban assemblages.¶
Rethinking the political: police, politics and the city¶ In Disagreement, Jacques Rancière revisits the Aristotelian foundations of political¶ theory
and considers whether
the political can still be thought of in an environment in¶ which a postpolitical
consensual policy arrangement has increasingly reduced the¶ ‘political’ to ‘policing’, to ‘policymaking’,
to managerial consensual governing. This¶ reduction of the political to the ‘mode of governing’ is
particularly prevalent in¶ environmental practices. From the environmental justice movement that
urges the elites¶ to rectify environmental ‘wrongs’ on the basis of a Rawlsian equal distribution of goods¶ and bads (see
also Beck, 1992), to ecological modernization perspectives that insist on¶ the possibility of a technologicalmanagerial conduct that can marry ecological¶ sustainability with economic ‘progress’ (Harvey, 1996) and
the scientific consensus that¶ urges the adoption of a particular set of management and accounting
rules to mitigate¶ imminent catastrophic environmental disaster, general agreement exists, shared by a¶ broad range
of often unlikely allies, about the need to develop a more sustainable, and¶ just, socio-ecological practice, one that operates fully within the
contours of the existing¶ social order (Swyngedouw, 2007a). Rancière’s political philosophical mission, in¶
contrast, is to re-centre
the ‘political’ as distinct from ‘policy’ (what he calls ‘the police’)¶ and to ask whether the properly political can
be thought of and, if so, what constitutes a¶ proper political gesture.¶ Rancière distinguishes between ‘the police’
(le police), ‘the political’ (le politique)¶ and ‘politics’ (la politique). For him, the political ‘turns on equality as its principle’ and¶ is about
enunciating dissent and rupture, literally voicing speech that claims a place in¶ the order of things, demanding ‘the part for those who have nopart’ (Rancière, 2001: 6);¶
politics disrupts the police order, ‘a refusal to observe the “place” allocated to
people and¶ things (or at least, to particular people and things)’ (Robson, 2005: 5). Indeed, as Dikeç¶ maintains, the central premise of
Rancière’s politics is ‘the contingency of any¶ established order of governance with its distributions of functions, people, and places’¶ (Dikeç,
2007: Chapter 2: 3). Politics, then, is the arena where the principle of equality is¶ tested in the face of a wrong experienced by ‘those who have
no part’. Equality is thereby¶ axiomatically given and presupposed rather than an idealized-normative condition to¶ move towards (Badiou,
1992; 2005a; Lévy et al., 2007): ‘Everyone can occupy the space¶ of politics, if they decide to so’ (Badiou, cited in Hallward, 2003a: 225). In
democracy,¶ the place of power is indeed structurally empty (Lefort, 1994) and equality is¶ presupposed. In other words, equality is the very
premise upon which a democratic¶ politics is constituted; it opens up the space of the political through the testing of a wrong ¶ that subverts
equality. Equality is, therefore, not a sociologically verifiable concept or¶ procedure that permits opening a policy arena which will remedy the
observed¶ inequalities, but the ontologically given condition of democracy. Justice, from this¶ perspective, disappears from the terrain of the
moral and enters the space of the political¶ under the name of equality. For Etienne Balibar (Balibar, 1993), for example, the¶ unconditional
premise for justice and emancipation resides in the fusion of equality and¶ liberty (what he names as ‘égaliberté’), the former defined as the
absence of¶ discrimination and the latter as absence of repression (Dikeç, 2001). Egaliberté stands,¶ The antinomies of the postpolitical city
605¶ International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33.3¶ © 2009 The Author. Journal Compilation © 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell
Publishing Ltd.¶ thus, for the universal and collective process of emancipation on which the very promise¶ of political democracy is founded.
What is central to Balibar’s and Rancière’s vision is¶ that neither freedom nor equality are offered, granted or distributed, they can only be¶
conquered.
The political, therefore, is not about expressing demands to the elites to¶ rectify injustices ,
inequalities or unfreedoms,
but about the enunciation of the right to¶ égaliberté;
the political is thus premised on the
unconditionality of equality in a police¶ arrangement that has always already ‘wronged’ the very condition of equality and liberty.¶ Put simply,
politics (or a properly political sequence) arises when, in the name of¶ equality, those who are not equally included in the existing socio-political
order, demand¶ their ‘right to equality’, a demand that both calls the political into being, renders visible ¶ and exposes the ‘wrongs’ of the police
order: this is the place and time of politics when¶ the staging and articulation of an egalitarian demand exposes the lack, the superfluous,¶
inscribed in the order of the given situation (Arsenjuk, 2005).¶ This existing order of things or the police order is, in Rancière’s words, ‘a
partition of¶ the sensible’ (Rancière, 2001: 8). The police refers to ‘all the activities which create order¶ by distributing places, names, functions’
(Rancière, 1994: 173). It suggests ‘an¶ established order of governance with everyone in their “proper” place in the seemingly¶ natural order of
things’ (Dikeç, 2005: 174). The partition of the sensible, the police order,¶ ‘renders visible who can be part of the common in function of what
he does, of the times¶ and the space in which this activity is exercised . . . This defines the fact of being visible¶ or not in a common space . . . It
is a partitioning of times and spaces, of the visible and¶ the invisible, of voice and noise that defines both the place (location) and the arena of
the¶ political as a form of experience’ (Rancière, 2000a: 13–14). The police is ‘not a social¶ function but a symbolic constitution of the social’
(Rancière, 2001: 8) and refers to both¶ the activities of the state as well as to the ordering of social relations:¶ The police is thus first an order of
bodies that defines the allocation of ways of doing, ways of¶ being, and ways of saying, and sees that those bodies are assigned by name to a
particular place¶ and task; it is an order of the visible and the sayable that sees that a particular activity is visible¶ and another is not, that this
speech is understood as discourse and another as noise (Rancière,¶ 1998: 29).¶ It is important to recognize that ‘the police’ includes a multitude
of activities and¶ processes, is full of conflict and tension, never totally closed and embraces not only the¶ traditional notion of the state and
state functions and activities, but also the ‘assumed¶ spontaneity of social relations’ (Dikeç, 2007: 18). In sum:¶ The police, therefore, is both a
principle of distribution and an apparatus of administration,¶ which relies on a symbolically constituted organization of social space, an
organization that¶ becomes the basis of and for governance. Thus, the essence of policing is not repression but¶ distribution — distribution of
places, peoples, names, functions, authorities, activities and so¶ on — and the normalization of this distribution (ibid.: 19).¶ It is a rule
governing the appearance of bodies, ‘a configuration of occupations and the¶ properties of the spaces where these occupations are distributed’
(Rancière, 1998: 29). As¶ such, the ‘police’ is rather close to Foucault’s notion of governmentality, the conduct of¶ conduct, the mode of
assigning location, relations and distributions, or what Alain¶ Badiou refers to as ‘the state of the situation’ (Badiou, 2005a). The police order is ¶
predicated upon saturation, upon suturing social space: ‘The essence of the police is the¶ principle of saturation; it is a mode of the partition of
the sensible that recognizes neither¶ lack nor supplement. As conceived by “the police”, society is a totality compromised of¶ groups
performing specific functions and occupying determined spaces’ (Rancière, ¶ 2000b: 124). Of course, saturation is never realized; a sutured
society is impossible as¶ there will always be a constituted lack or surplus (Dikeç, 2005). It is exactly this lack or¶ excess that constitutes the
possibility of and that calls the political into being.¶ 606 Erik Swyngedouw¶ International Journal of Urban and Regional Research 33.3¶ © 2009
The Author. Journal Compilation © 2009 Joint Editors and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.¶ If the
supervision of places and functions
is defined as the ‘police’, ‘a proper political¶ sequence begins, then, when this supervision is
interrupted so as to allow a properly¶ anarchic disruption of function and place, a sweeping declassification of speech. The¶ democratic voice is the voice of those who reject the prevailing social
distribution of¶ roles, who refuse the way a society shares out power and authority’
(Hallward, 2003b:¶
192). The proper political act, Rancière maintains, is the voice of ‘floating subjects that¶ deregulate all representations of places and portions’
(Rancière, 1998: 99–100):¶ In the end everything in politics turns on the distribution of spaces. What are these places? How¶ do they function?
Why are they there? Who can occupy them? For me, political action always¶ acts upon the social as the litigious distribution of places and roles.
It is always a matter of¶ knowing who is qualified to say what a particular place is and what is done to it (Rancière,¶ 2003a: 201).¶
Politics
proper arises then when the police order is dislocated, transgressed, ‘when the¶ natural order of
domination is interrupted by the institution of a part of those who have¶ no part’ (Rancière, 1998: 11).
in general . . . is about the visibilities of places¶ and abilities of the body in these places, about the partition of public and
private spaces,¶ about the very configuration of the visible and the relation of the visible to what can be ¶ said
about it. All this is what I call the partition of the sensible’ (Rancière, 2003b: 3).¶ The political arises when the given order of things is
‘Politics
questioned; when those whose¶ voice is only recognized as noise by the police order claim the right to speak, acquire¶ speech. As such, it
disrupts the order of being, exposes the constituent antagonisms and¶ voids that constitute the police order and tests the principle of equality.
The proper¶ democratic political sequence, therefore, is not one that seeks justice and equality¶
through governmental procedures on the basis of sociologically defined injustice, but¶ rather starts
from the paradigmatic condition of equality or égaliberté, one that is¶ ‘wronged’ by the police order.
Such procedure brings into being a new symbolic¶ ordering, one that transgresses the limitations of police symbolization.
i
The title of the appendix, The Dead Women, is the creation of other activists working for justice for the Juárez murders. Research
assistant, Kelly Varsho, compiled the names of the victims from a variety of online sources.
ii
See Voices, supra note 20, at 761-83.