Masculinities and Markets: An Interview with Brenda Parker

Cet entretien porte principalement sur l’ouvrage de Brenda Parker Masculinities and Markets. La conversation se concentre initialement sur le cas de Milwaukee (dont l’étude fonde l’ouvrage de Parker), ville marquée par les politiques urbaines néolibérales et de fortes hiérarchies de race et de genre, puis évolue vers une lecture transatlantique de la ville néolibérale et explore la manière dont les enjeux politiques de la masculinité s’articulent avec la gouvernance urbaine. L’entretien prolonge la réflexion de Parker sur ces questions en prenant en compte les récentes recherches de son interlocuteur, George Katito, sur la manière dont les masculinités, influencées par les forces économiques mondiales, interfèrent avec le processus de gouvernance urbaine et peuvent en même temps le façonner.Brenda Parker’s book Masculinities and Markets centers this conversation. From discussing how Milwaukee stands out as an American case study of raced, gendered, neoliberal urban politics to a transatlantic reading of the neoliberal city, this author interview explores the paradoxes and entanglements of masculinities and power with urban governance. Parker extends her reflection of these tensions as she brings her work into dialogue with the interviewer George Katito’s recent work on how global political economic forces impinge upon how masculinities simultaneously collide with and shape process of urban governance

“The Paradoxes of State Power” by Gary Gerstle

“Power,” its nature and definition, is the core problematique of political philosophy’s more ambitious academic oeuvres: among them Hobbes’ Leviathan that has, over the course of the last three centuries, provided a vocabulary to reflect upon the state, rights, and social contract between sovereign political entities and individuals with curtailed liberties (Hobbes, 2010). In more recent works of political philosophy, power as an objective “good” has been further “problematised”: Conspicuous ..

Pink Atlantic : la puissance américaine et la construction des identités gay à Paris et à Londres (années 1940-1980)

La construction des identités gay à Paris et à Londres depuis la fin de la deuxième guerre mondiale reflète l’ascendance du pouvoir politique, culturel, et économique états-unien et ses enjeux. Suivant l’œuvre de l’historien Alain Bérubé sur la Deuxième Guerre mondiale, ce projet de recherche part de ce moment quand des villes états-uniennes deviennent centrales aux rapports transatlantiques de savoir, capital économique, et influence culturelle. Dans ce contexte particulier, une conscience d’une identité homosexuelle masculine émerge, structurée par les échanges transatlantiques des nouveaux réseaux militants et culturels. Cela suscite résistances et adaptations. À Paris l’opposition à l’influence américaine sur la construction des identités gay se développe dans les politiques de la gauche comme celles de la droite où les deux s’accordaient curieusement sur ce sujet. Ce n’est qu’à la fin des années 70 et au début des années 80 qu’une influence états-unienne s’impose sur les identités gay de la capitale française. Les commerces américains en recherche des nouveaux marchés gay retrouvent une niche parisienne. Parallèlement, les petites entreprises parisiennes, inspirées par les modèles américains, construisent des espaces de consommation et d’acceptation de l’homosexualité masculine. L’arrivée des pratiques spatiales et comportements de consommateurs américains participe considérablement à la reconstitution des identités individuelles et collectives gay parisiennes. À Paris, comme à Londres, les identités gay se sont approprié, mais aussi ont renégocié et résisté les sémiotiques, pratiques politiques, sociales, et économiques nées dans les villes états-uniennes devenues globales, dans le sens que donne Saskia Sassen au mot.The construction of gay identities in Paris and London since the end of the Second World War has reflected the rise of American global political, economic, and sociocultural power. Building upon historian Alain Bérubé’s work on the Second World War, this thesis begins at this critical turning point when American cities became central to transatlantic flows of knowledge, economic capital, and cultural influence. It is within this context that a consciousness of a shared male homosexual identity began to emerge. Resistance, and adaptation, to this nascent awareness and the political activist and cultural networks that fed it, soon ensued. In Paris, the Left and Right made for strange bedfellows as they opposed the new transatlantic gay politics. As such, it would only be in the late 1970s and at the dawn of the 80s that American influence began to play a significant role in shaping gay identities in the French capital. At this point, American capital in search of new markets in Europe found an unexploited market in Paris. Furthermore, small business inspired by American models created spaces of consumption, and acceptance, for gay men. Americanized spatial practices and consumer behavior thus began to play a crucial role in the construction of individual and collective gay identities in Paris. In both Paris and London, gay identities took form as gay men appropriated, resisted ,and negotiated the symbols and political, social and economic practices of American-turned-global cities. “Global” understood in Saskia Sassen’s sense of the word

Continuity, little change?: US-Africa policy under the Obama administration

Recibido con unas expectativas excepcionalmente altas que conducirían a una nueva era en la política Estados Unidos-África, los primeros años de la administración Obama prometen más continuidad, en oposición a la oleada de cambios en la política africana de Bush. Aparte de una leve modificación en la retórica y tono, existen pocos puntos de cambio sustantivo en las relaciones de Estados Unidos hacia África. Dadas las contribuciones más importantes de la era Bush con respecto a la salud pública y la promoción de la democracia, construir sobre e

Sex, profit, and political power : California and its influence on Paris’s queer business, press and politics in the late 1970s and 80s

In late 1970s Paris, San Francisco Nights and Far West, popular institutions in the city’s new queer nightlife, helped fashion new sexual norms. They were part of a constellation of California-inspired places that stimulated new imaginings of how queerness could be expressed and embodied. Indeed, large Californian cities, San Francisco in particular, provided a profit model based on queer consumption that participated in the creation of a new queer Paris. As the decade came to an end, the mobilisation of a gay vote in California also fed Parisian activists with the inspiration to organise a queer voting bloc in Paris to influence national elections and lobby for an end to discriminatory, anti-gay sections of the penal code. These re-imaginings of politics and urban economy challenged cherished French universalist ideals. As such, opposition accompanied the embrace of California-inspired visions of queer life. Both support and resistance attested to the growing global power of California, and of the United States. Drawing upon archival research, this paper explores California as a cultural reference, commercial brand, and political aspiration in the construction of a new queer Paris at the end of the 1970s and the dawn of the 1980s.https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ycas202024-05-16Future Afric

African developments: continental integration in Africa - AU, NEPAD and the APRM

Africa has seen political and institutional change over the last decade, yet in the 50th year of independence of numerous states, the profundity of change remains unclear. The prospect of successful continental integration has arguably suffered a loss of political drive with the absence of authoritative, clear minded political leadership - two of the key champions of the ‘African renaissance’, Olusegun Obasajano of Nigeria and Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, have both exited office. There is a dearth of energetic leadership with the drive to promote integration – and arguably an even greater dearth of strong and viable institutions on the continent. New institutions have been created: in 2001, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) was established, the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) was transformed into the African Union (AU) in 2002 and the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM) was created. However, while these institutions share an intertwined history, interaction between them is often poor. Organisational mandates overlap while the conflicting interests of African states stifle delivery on Africa’s governance and development agenda. Despite similarity in names, the AU is not comparable with the EU. External partners should thus avoid overly ambitious expectations towards a fundamentally still intergovernmental international organisation. Regional organisations will have to be considered when looking for partners in Africa. External partners should, however, measure the AU on its declarations and engage with it, as it is the best bet on integration there currently is