Global Fissures : Postcolonial Fusions

2003

KTH 234, 1280 Main St W, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON L8S 4M4 (905) 525-9140 Ext. 27556 http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~global/ CONDITION INSTITUTE ON GLOBALIZATION 2003 HUMAN Preface This collection of short essays comes to the Institute by way of a conference entitled Content Providers of the World Unite! The Cultural Politics of Globalization, which was held at McMaster University in October 2001. The initiative for the conference came from Susie O'Brien and Imre Szeman, both faculty members in the Department of English at McMaster University. They were ably assisted in their organizational efforts by Stephanie Parker, a part-time employee of the Institute at the time and a student in McMaster's Theme School on Globalization, Social Change and the Human Experience.

Studies in Canadian Literature Etudes En Litterature Canadienne, 2007

Ariel-a Review of International English Literature, 2009

In his latest New Left Review article titled "How to Begin from the Beginning," Slavoj Zizek points out that the world today is confronted with four major antagonisms: Eco-environmental crisis, challenge to the established parameters of intellectual property, the unethical potential of biogenetic technology, and "new forms of social apartheid--new walls and slums" (53). In his view, the fourth antagonism, "the one between the included and the excluded," stands out as the crucial one, for without it "all the others lose their subversive edge" (53). In focusing on the antagonism between the included and the excluded, Zizek purports to uncover or foreground the "need for communism" the antagonism generates. Zizek's notion of the excluded versus the included recalls what Judith Butler's conception of the excluded expounded in a different context. In Precarious Life, Judith Butler discusses the fate and situation of a different ki...

Sociological Theory, 2002

I sketch aspects of a critical theory of globalization that will discuss the fundamental transformations in the world economy, politics, and culture in a dialectical framework that distinguishes between progressive and emancipatory features and oppressive and negative attributes. This requires articulations of the contradictions and ambiguities of globalization and the ways that globalization both is imposed from above and yet can be contested and reconfigured from below. I argue that the key to understanding globalization is theorizing it as at once a product of technological revolution and the global restructuring of capitalism in which economic, technological, political, and cultural features are intertwined. From this perspective, one should avoid both technological and economic determinism and all one-sided optics of globalization in favor of a view that theorizes globalization as a highly complex, contradictory, and thus ambiguous set of institutions and social relations, as well as one involving flows of goods, services, ideas, technologies, cultural forms, and people.

Reformulating the possibilities for action in this global world constitutes a major issue in contemporaneous social sciences and a central challenge of the alter-globalization/global justice movement. This book proposes to discuss it starting from concrete experimentations by social actors who have contested globalization in its neoliberal form, implemented participatory organization models and promoted a nascent global public space. It is based on extensive field research conducted since 1999 in Europe, Latin America and at eight world social forums. Reviews "The question of how we can change the world cannot easily be answered, but Geoffrey Pleyers has shown masterfully in this beautifully written and finely researched book that the way we now imagine those answers in changing, in part because of the way the alter-globalization movement has altered our understanding of ourselves as global citizens." Henrietta L. Moore, University of Cambridge, Review in European Journal of Sociology "The distinction between the way of subjectivity and the way reason that Geoffrey Pleyers proposes in his book clarifies the dynamics and tensions that we experience in groups and assemblies of the “Indignados” in Barcelona. It is a conceptual tool that has been of great help me in group facilitation and positive management of conflicts, both online and in assemblies as it allows overpassing tensions among positions that seem irreconcilable and developing an empathy based on mutual understanding." David Leal Garcia, Indignado (15M) in Barcelona “Pleyers projects a complex view of the alter-globalization movement, alternating narratives and perspectives within the movement and a rigorous analysis that captures the movement’s potentials, contradictions and creative tensions. (…) Several theoretical and methodological issues, such as the social construction of scales, multi-referential identities, the construction of knowledge within grassroots social movements, and the differences of political cultures between activists of different origins are still pending in social movement studies in the global era. All these analyses are welcome and will have as an essential reference Pleyers’ outstanding global ethnography of social actors.” Breno Bringel, State University of Rio de Janeiro, International Sociology "What is missing from much of today's media coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement and related international struggles against corporate globalization and Western imperialism is the question of where these movements have come from and why they've all emerged at this particular time. Geoffrey Pleyer's book makes an important contribution to addressing the prehistory of the Occupy protests, and it can inform those participating in these struggles as well as students and scholars of social movements." Jackie Smith, Review in Mobilization "Provides an excellent overview of the main debates within the movement through a meticulously constructed research programme … [Pleyers'] thorough and balanced account of the development of alter-globalisation offers an immensely valuable resource for both researchers and activists." Review in Capital & Class “The topic of this book is a process that accompanies globalization like a shadow: counter-movements driven by activists from different walks of life, and in different sites. … The book is timely because the alterglobalization movement, which began to grow under neo-liberalism during its heyday, has emerged anew after the world financial crisis. Those who seek to understand and study these new phenomena will find in this book many descriptions, concepts, and analytical perspectives that are useful and perceptive.” Juan E. Corradi, Review in Contemporary Sociology 41(5) "The kind of book that students of the alter-globalisation movement have been waiting for years for … An indispensable read for anyone - students, academics, activists or politicians - who is looking for an elaborate and sophisticated discussion of some of the most crucial political issues of our time." Review in Journal of Democratic Socialism “Pleyers’ reflections push us towards many decisive questions about the process of globalisation and its impact on our political and social worlds.” Silke Trommer, Review in Helsinki Review of Global Governance "Utterly convincing and theoretically robust ... This kind of scholarship is what the alter-globalisation movement and indeed the world deserve." Giuseppecaruso's Weblog Endorsements “Pleyers’ study provides an indispensable tool to understand what is happening at Occupy Wall Street and possible futures of this movement”. John Krinsky, City University New York, Editor of “Social movement studies” “This book will be the main reference for those who want to understand how the global justice movement shapes today's world, how it modifies our perception of action, but also of democracy, and how this new actor articulates local and personal meanings with general concerns for the future of humanity.” Michel Wieviorka, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, ISA President 2006-2010. “Pleyers has traveled the world to offer readers the most sweeping look yet at this crucial global movement, including how it has changed in the face of the recent crisis of the very capitalism it criticizes. By showing us a movement grappling continuously with the Pyramid Dilemma over top-down versus bottom-up approaches, this book helps us think about the most basic issues of democracy and social change.” James M. Jasper, CUNY Graduate centre “This important book is the first scholarly account of the alter-globalization movement. This highly original analysis of the way the movement is constructed around the tension between its two logics - subjective experience and expertise based on reason - helps us to understand not only the movement itself but also the role that the movement plays in inventing global citizenship.” Mary Kaldor, Director, LSE Global Governance. “An outstanding example of contemporary sociological research that rises to the immense demands of a truly global ethnography. Pleyers’ book is bound to become the definitive account by a contemporary of the alter-globalization movement.” Martin Albrow, London School of Economics. “Well-documented and relying on the most in-depth analyses. This book presents a movement both truly global and adapted to the economic context of each country and region.” Alain Touraine, EHESS Paris.

Law & Social Inquiry, 1998

Eve Darian-Smith's review of my book is an excellent, engaging, thoughtful, and provocative essay, and I am happy for having provided the pretext for it. It raises several issues, all of them relevant. I shall concentrate on two of them, in my view the most important ones. The first issue concerns the character and epistemological location of the critical theory I propose in the book. According to Darian-Smith, my position, which I call oppositional postmodernism, is not sufficiently spelled out. The second issue concerns the conceptualization of globalization and the hierarchies of the world system. According to my reviewer, I accept all too acritically such modernist dichotomies as global/local, core/periphery, and North/South, thereby indicating my "deeper ideological and moral leanings" (Darian-Smith 1998, 115) at the cost of coherence and consistency with my epistemological concerns laid out in the first part of the book. Rather than responding intra-textually to these criticisms-that is to say, rather than resorting to passages in my book where Darian-Smith's criticisms may be said to be partially preempted, an easy strategy in the case of such a lengthy book-in this comment I will develop my position on the two issues I have singled out and let the reader grasp the project I undertake in the book and the direction of my current thinking.

Choice Reviews Online

Critical Inquiry, 1994