Powers of sovereignty: State, people, wealth, life

Abstract: Hardt and Negri's trilogy describes an American Empire as shaping a world split between global capital and disenfranchised multitude, leading to a final confrontation between the Empire of capital and the counter-Empire of workers everywhere. However, their interpretation is limited by their philosophical abstraction and revolutionary vision, which fails to recognize the implications of actually existing processes of sovereignty and capital at this global juncture. The situation found in Asia challenges their analysis. In contemporary China, experimental assemblages of sovereign powers, capital, techne, and ethics have not weakened, but, in fact, have strengthened political sovereignty, nationalist sentiments, and collectivist ethos, presenting a different picture of biopolitics from that of Hardt and Negri's global theory. The authoritarian outcomes in China are political solutions forged in circumstances that mingle the global, the historical, and the situated. This article argues that Asian aspirations are rearranging capitalism and political sovereignty as Hardt and Negri understand them

Globalization and New Strategies of Ruling in Developing Countries

AbstractDebates about globalization are a wake-up call for anthropologists to develop new approaches to the study of culture and society. There is a classical anthropological tradition concerned with the study of social function and organization on any scale, but we need new categories to analyze the strategic aspects of contemporary global interconnectedness. I will address the impact of economic globalization on the respatialization of state sovereignty, and the reterritorialization of capital, both processes that participate in the valorization of culture and civilization in SE Asia. In particular, I consider how the interactions between economic globalization, state, and society have produced new economic entanglements, social spaces, and political constellations. This paper will answer three commonly asked questions about globalization: a) What fundamental changes affect the state? b) What is the impact of the market agenda on national and social spaces? c) Does globalization or its crisis intensify political activism?RésuméLes débats autour de la globalisation sont une incitation pour les anthropologues à développer de nouvelles approches de la culture et de la société. Une tradition classique de cette discipline s’attache à l’étude de l’organisation et des fonctions sociales à tous les niveaux, mais nous avons besoin de nouvelles catégories pour analyser les aspects stratégiques des interconnexions contemporaines à l’échelle globale. Ce texte traite des effets de la globalisation économique sur les formes nouvelles d’expression spatiale de l’État souverain, et de la reterritorialisation du capital, deux processus qui participent de la valorisation de la culture et de la civilisation dans le Sud-Est asiatique. En particulier, l’auteur se demande comment les interactions entre globalisation économique, État et société ont produit de nouveaux enchevêtrements de relations sociales et de constellations politiques. Quels sont les changements fondamentaux survenus dans les États ? Quel est l’impact du marché et de ses priorités sur les espaces nationaux et sociaux ? Enfin, la globalisation ou ses crises conduisent-elles au développement de l’activisme politique 

“Ciudadanía Flexible : las lógicas culturales de la Transnacionalidad” y “Apostillas : una antropología de la transnacionalidad"

Artículo origina

Opinions: The Anthropology of Finance

One of the more salutory effects of the financial crisis in 2007-8 has been the realization, even by some economists, that numbers do not explain everything and that social forms and relations also play a major part in financial trading. Here anthropologists (and some sociologists) have come to the fore. The JBA therefore asked a number of scholars to write an opinion piece about different aspects of the anthropology of finance that interested them. Here is what some of them kindly contributed

Writing in London. Home and Languaging in the Work of London Poets of Chinese Descent

This essay discusses literary works produced in London by poets of Chinese descent who are foreign-born or London native. Some of these works are written in English, and some in Chinese. The aim is to discuss poetry that has emphatically or reluctantly embraced the identity narrative, talking of home and belonging in substantially different ways from each other, according to each poet’s individual relationship with movement, migration, and stability. Therefore, through the use of the phrase ‘London poets of Chinese descent’, I do not aim at tracing a shared sense of identity, but instead I am interested in using London as a method for an oblique reading that recognises the variety of angles and approaches in these poets’ individual experience, history and circumstances that can range from occasional travel to political exile

“Still good life”: On the value of reuse and distributive labor in “depleted” rural Maine

This article explores the production of wealth through distributive labor in Maine\u27s secondhand economy. While reuse is often associated with economic disadvantage, our research complicates that perspective. The labor required to reclaim, repair, redistribute, and reuse secondhand goods provides much more than a means of living in places left behind by international capitalism, but the value generated by this work is persistently discounted by dominant economic logics. On the basis of semistructured interviews, participant observation, and statewide surveys with reuse market participants in Maine, we find that the relational value of reuse, produced through caring, flexible, distributive labor, is especially significant. We argue that paying attention to the practices, politics, and value of distribution is critical for understanding wealth in communities perceived to have been left behind by global capitalist systems, particularly as wage labor opportunities and natural resources grow increasingly scarce

Reframing labour market mobility in global finance: Chinese elites in London’s financial district

In this paper, I use the case of elite Chinese financial mobility to London’s financial district to argue that comparatively neglected forms of elite financial migration from beyond the Global North provide important insights into the changing geographical form, and labour market practices within, leading international financial centres. By reporting on original empirical research, two main findings emerge. First, Chinese financial mobility to London has a distinctive geographical footprint in terms of both financial services activity and residential choices. Second, the rationale behind elite Chinese financial mobility to London cannot be fully explained by existing work on highly skilled migration and expatriation that emphasises the economic imperatives driving mobility. In response, I argue that work on elite mobility requires a fuller engagement with wider debates in economic geography that examine the interdependencies and inter-relationships between states and markets. These findings raise important questions surrounding the durability of Chinese finance in London, its relationship to global finance in London more generally, and wider understandings of elite financial labour markets

Survival and integration: Kachin social networks and refugee management regimes in Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles

How do refugees establish social networks and mobilise social capital in different contexts throughout a multi-stage migration process? Migrant social network literature explains how migrants accumulate social capital and mobilise resources in and between origin and destination but provides limited answers regarding how these processes unfold during refugee migrations involvingprotracted stays in intermediate locations and direct interaction with state agents. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork with Kachin refugees in Kuala Lumpur and Los Angeles, I address these gaps by comparing refugee social networks in two sites of a migration process. Distinguishingbetween networks of survival and networks of integration, I argue that differences in their form and functions stem from their interactions with local refugee management regimes, which are shaped by broader state regulatory contexts. In both locations, these networks and regimes feed off each other to manage the refugee migration process, with key roles played by hybrid institutions rooted in grassroots adaptation efforts yet linked to formal resettlement mechanisms. Considering the refugee migration process as a whole, I show that Kachin refugees demonstrate their possession of socialcapital gained during the informal social process of migration to advance through institutionalised political processes of resettlement in each context