Kaavya Asoka

Bloomberg’s New York: Class and Governance in the Luxury City

brittany — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Julian Brash’s Bloomberg’s New York is an anthropological study of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his administration’s implementation of a particular type of neoliberal urban governance (the “Bloomberg Way”) since taking office in 2002, “branding and marketing the city as a luxury good,” an agenda aimed not only at “advancing the economic elite’s class interests” but in shaping the culture and geography of the city of New York by prioritizing this demographic. A thoughtful and rigorous analysis of class, urban development, and neoliberal governance in the context of New York City during the Bloomberg years, Bloomberg’s New York is a thought-provoking read primarily aimed at scholars of urban studies.

Brash’s work interestingly contextualizes the politics of governance in New York City in its “post-fiscal crisis era” but also shows how this paved the way for an individual like Michael Bloomberg (the “CEO as Mayor”) to take on the mayoralty of the Big Apple. The most interesting section of Brash’s work is the more theoretical chunk of this book, which employs an analysis of Bloomberg’s governance style—the Bloomberg Way—of running New York City “like a business,” viewing residents as “clients” and branding the city itself as a product to be marketed to a select demographic. The penultimate section of Brash’s study is a close look at the Bloomberg administration’s promotion of the Hudson Yards plan, contextualized by elite driven redevelopment drives in New York. Brash also illuminates with extensive ethnographic evidence the deeply contested public debates that surrounded the city’s bid to host the 2012 Olympics, highlighting differing perceptions of New Yorkers of what this meant for New York, and pointing the reader to the ruptures that this debate revealed in economic, political, cultural, and other differences between New Yorkers which have long characterized the fabric of this city.

Brash’s meticulous uncovering of the mechanics of class interests underpinning the shaping of the cultural, economic and political space of global cities is in the context of New York, but certainly poses important questions applicable to both urban scholarship of other cities and in furthering our understanding of class as a unit of analysis. For example, Brash calls for a more rigorous interrogation of the interests of the “transnational capitalist class” (or “TCC”)—shorthand for the owners of globalized means of production—and how these interests have a physical and cultural impact on the local spaces in which these classes are formed, live and work. His injunction not to “abstract” elite class interests from the physical spaces they inhabit comes as an important reminder in a time where their transnational mobility (enabled by the travel and technology that global capital allows) can easily allows us to forget the increasingly bigger and more powerful role that private enterprise and business interests have on the physical shaping and growth of cities today.

From a feminist perspective, it is important to note that Brash uses class as his primary unit of analysis but declares at the outset that his understanding of the term extends beyond its use as the individual’s relation to the means of production and that class is mediated by a range of other factors such as race, gender, and sexuality. While he acknowledges how class relationships may be displaced by other identities (such as gender), his own analysis is not necessarily engaged in these debates for the purposes of his book.

Written by: Kaavya Asoka, April 8th 2011

The Last Pretence

payal — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

By Sarayu Srivatsa

Harper Collins

In the South Indian town of Machilipatnam, Mallika gives birth to twins, Tara and Siva. Emotionally and psychologically damaged when her daughter dies during childbirth, Mallika finds herself unable to love Siva who is a constant reminder of Tara’s death. Pretending that Siva is Tara, both Mallika and Siva embark on a downward spiral of self-destruction that ends in tragedy. Sarayu Srivatsa’s The Last Pretence tells Mallika and Siva’s stories, their learning and unlearning of love and loss, and attempts to question, through stories of childhood, marriage, and motherhood, how identities and experiences of gender are shaped.

Its book jacket advertises The Last Pretence as a "novel that takes nothing for granted", and that "grapples with notions of love, gender and sexuality", a description that probably attracted readers who were intrigued by the idea that modern Indian-English writing was taking on gender stereotypes, particularly in the specific context of South India, where this theme has been relatively under-explored in contemporary Indian fiction. Alas, The Last Pretence falls far short of being revolutionary, both in craft and in plot.

Unimpressed by the writing, I asked myself if the author’s intentions had any merit. The principal character upon whom Srivatsa’s gender-play is enacted is Siva, who struggles with his gender identity because of his mother’s desperate inability to cope with her daughter’s death. But in what sense are we supposed to find Mallika’s behavior towards Siva troubling? Clearly, some combination of her delusion that her son is her daughter, but also that she sees her son as a girl, and that she treats him as such. Mallika’s ‘disturbing’ behavior includes dressing Siva up in girls' clothes; piercing his ears, and breast-feeding him for longer than necessary, which we are led to believe confuses his self-identity and his notions of what it would mean to be a girl (to be loved by his mother). Ultimately this leads him away from home, fuels his exploration of his own sexuality through his quick and sometimes brutal sexual encounters, and finally leads to his inability to negotiate his personal peace in Srivatsa’s fictionalized world.

In dabbling with issues of gender and sexuality Srivatsa appears like a young child with a stick—gently prodding some fascinating multi-legged creature under a rock. Curious, not intentionally cruel, but ultimately uncomprehending, she speaks as an outsider to the experiences of her characters, making them less believable and more allegorical in order to make broader didactic (but again, superficial) points about gender, culture and the nature of patriarchy.

Perhaps Srivatsa’s biggest failing is the superficiality with which she writes; for example, the historical context of Machilipatnam, a town "where the British first landed to trade in dyes" on the Coromandel coast of southern India – is more or less absent from the book, with limited interweaving of even its fictionalized history through the cursory mythology of George Gibbs and his incestuous relationship with his sister. It also includes a peek into the eunuch sub-culture in India (the stock shining symbols of gender subversion) where half-yawning, half horrified, the reader is dragged into a short (but seemingly necessary) scene of castration involving a sharp knife, hot oil and a grinding stone, cheaply highlighting the cruel repercussions of gender deviance in a straight world.

Marred by poor characterization, predictability, and unproductive diversions (inexplicable inter-religious riots seem to randomly pepper this slim novel) from an otherwise heavy-handed plot driven by unnecessary brutality and an unconvincing lack of detail, I found the long-listing of The Last Pretence for the Man Asian Literary prize undeserving. Lacking in originality and failing to deliver but the most prosaic of prose, The Last Pretence most damningly shrivels before a feminist gaze where it is slowly sucked into the quicksand of the hetero-normative aphorism that any deviations to established gender norms will be ruthlessly punished by society, and ultimately (spoiler alert!) cannot survive.

Written by: Kaavya Asoka, February 4th 2011

Imagining Black Womanhood: The Negotiation of Power and Identity Within the Girls Empowerment Project

beth — Sat, 20 Nov 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Stephanie D. Sears

SUNY Press

Imagining Black Womanhood by Stephanie D. Sears is a sociological account of the experiences of young African-American girls within the Girls Empowerment Project (GEP), an “Afri-centric, womanist, single-sex, after-school program” in Sun Valley, the largest housing development in Bay City, California. Set against the backdrop of a “nation’s collective anxieties” regarding Black women and girls, Imagining Black Womanhood is a well-researched and thoughtful interrogation of race, gender, and class and how the experiences of young Black girls struggling to resist stereotypes within and outside the GEP project speak to broader questions of power, privilege, and politics. Despite the (ironically) unimaginative title, Imagining Black Womanhood is a commendable effort by Sears to question, with equal academic rigor, discourses of empowerment, as well as oppression, in addition to showing how the biases that inform many of the stereotypes that these girls must struggle against come from across the political spectrum and across racial lines.

Sears sets the historical stage well, by tracing images of poor Black women and girls as “welfare queens” to the Reagan administration’s dismantling of the welfare state and its promotion of “trickle-down” economics, with its explicit finger-pointing at the “impoverished African-American female” as an undeserving recipient of benefits. By laying bare the racial and gender stereotypes that underlie these and other predominant images (such as “teen mothers”) of young Black women in the public imagination, Sears demonstrates how discourses from both Black and dominant communities have attempted to control the sexuality of young Black women—and have shaped the context for the growth of projects such as GEP.

Against this background, Sears describes how despite its aim to “empower” and enable Black girls to counter racial and gender stereotypes, GEP inadvertently reproduced many of these discourses in both its structure as an organization as well as its method of work. GEP’s explicit aim, when it initially conducted an assessment of problems such as teen pregnancy and poverty among Black girls, was to “challenge and change…unequal power relations and resource distribution”—that is, the structural issues underpinning Black girls’ social status in Sun Valley. However, despite this goal, GEP’s more pragmatic choice to try and effect change in areas where they could have most impact, meant that they ended up addressing the symptoms of discrimination rather than challenging the structures of power responsible for them. In doing so, GEP fell back on middle class cultural values and notions of “respectability,” attempting to erase what they viewed as the cultural markers of the “ghetto underclass”—such as the hypersexualization and objectification of young Black women—but with them, also the sense of self-hood and lived experiences of the young girls of GEP.

The above is illustrated most interestingly in the section entitled “Dance Lessons,” in which Sears shows how the struggle over sexuality, power, and identity between GEP and the young girls who attend it, is enacted through the “embodied politics” of dance. Prompted by the Afro-centric ideology of GEP, GEP staff’s attempts to encourage the girls to perform African dances (this bearing, in their eyes, the respectable currency of tradition) is countered by the girls’ desire to “express who they are” through contemporary hip-hop numbers. Sears stages the generational and class confrontation between the GEP staff and the girls through their conflicting perceptions of “appropriate” displays of sexuality, respectability, and respect, thereby asking the question that lies at the heart of Imagining Black Womanhood—what does “empowerment” mean, and to whom? How are notions of empowerment intertwined with class and cultural values? And what happens when processes of empowerment attempt to reconstitute the identity of she who is seen to be a “recipient” rather than an equal participant in this process? Sears’ book is a dense but rewarding read, not just for academics but for anyone interested in confronting these questions.

Written by: Kaavya Asoka, November 19th 2010

Tea & Justice

brittany — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Directed by Ermena Vinluan

Women Make Movies

If your political leanings are more in line with musical acts like NWA or MDC, then Ermena Vinluan’s fifty-five-minute exploration of race and gender issues in the context of the New York Police Department may seem... tame?

Tea & Justice is a documentary about Asian women police officers in the NYPD that skirts the uneasy boundaries between a full-blown narrative of empowerment of Asian women breaking cultural and gender stereotypes to become police officers, their negotiation of the politics of being racial and gender minorities in what has historically been perceived as a racist and sexist institution, and the inherently violent nature of policing. Sometimes provocative, but generally unremarkable both politically and artistically, the film is perhaps worth watching (once) for its almost accidental exposition of the gender and cultural politics at play.

The centerpiece of the film is the personal stories of three women, who share their experiences of discrimination and defiance as part of the two percent of NYPD officers who are Asian women. Their stories are interwoven with the public’s perceptions of Asian culture, women, and police officers. Officer Ormsby, for example, tells of how being compelled to serve tea to her male colleagues at a Japanese firm prompted her to find a new career. This is against the backdrop of interviews with New Yorkers, some of whom (predictably) feel that men make better officers, while others subscribe to the great equalizing power of the gun.

In an interesting history of the NYPD, Vinluan highlights how various social movements opened up space for women in policing; for example, the NYPD got rid of regulation high-heels, lip-stick, and smaller guns for female officers in the 1970s. Somewhat disingenuously, the director also traces images of women warriors in Asian mythology to support her claim that ‘being an Asian woman cop is not so odd after all’. While Asian culture is full of examples of remarkable women, I found it difficult to believe that most people would identify policewomen with being leaders or warriors, a contradiction amplified by the inclusion of interviews discussing racially charged incidents of police brutality in the United States, such as the beating of Rodney King.

In her haste to bridge the gap between images of subservient Japanese tea-servers and Vietnamese warrior princesses, Vinluan seems to have confused empowerment and oppression. This speaks to the broader issue of the film’s selective critique of the police along gender and racial dimensions, and failure to adequately question its inherently violent role in maintaining law and order.

Interesting interviews include one with Margaret Moore (Executive Director of the National Center for Women and Policing) who claims promoting diversity in gender and race is the only way to ensure fair treatment inside departments and in policing. Moore and others also argue that since most excessive force claims are made against male officers, recruiting more women—who are ‘naturally less aggressive’—is the solution. But by essentializing qualities to women like their ‘mothering’ instincts and tendencies towards less aggression, interviewees like Lieutenant Eric Adams (100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care) regurgitate classic stereotypes of women that Vinluan’s film is supposedly aiming to debunk. By failing to attribute their ‘natural’ credentials for making better officers to the historical subordination of women in care-giving and domestic roles—aren’t we back at square one?

Vinluan’s schoolteacher voice-overs and flat animation accompanied by platitudes like ‘she’s just a regular working mom!’ work against the film’s rare moments of subtlety, leading me to conclude that those parts that can be deemed thought-provoking are, in fact, inadvertent. Am I asking too much from Tea & Justice? Maybe. But given the eight film festival laurels adorning the DVD cover, I expected more.

Written by: Kaavya Asoka, October 25th 2010

Words and Money

mandy — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 02:00:00 +0000

By André Schiffrin

Verso

The creative culture industries have always been, and will continue to be, an important arena of concern for feminist politics. This is not only because feminism has had to rigorously contest the regressive versions of femininity mass produced by these industries for mainstream audiences but also because feminism has challenged these perceptions by generating alternative media, literature, and film.

In this sense, André Schiffrin’s latest book, Words and Money, is an informative read for those employed in the culture industries who subscribe to feminist ideologies. Schiffrin’s primary concern is how the corporatisation of publishing, films and cinema houses, independent bookstores, and the press is destroying smaller, independent agents of cultural production, and, with them, the culturally and intellectually diverse material they bring into the public domain. Picking up where he left off with The Business of Books, which examines the corporatisation of the publishing industry, Words and Money sketches out the disastrous effects of the pursuit of profit within the creative industries, and makes a passionate and compelling case for their need to receive adequate support in order to continue producing the important analyses, literature, and film with which they enrich the public domain. What’s more, Schiffrin has suggestions for how this can be done, making Words and Money an essential ‘how-to’ manual for industry insiders who want to save the independent creative sectors.

Words and Money covers four different sectors—publishing, cinema, bookstores, and the press—but the message it delivers in each case is the same. For example, Schiffrin recounts how publishing, a profession that was once free of the pressures of profit-making, is being transformed by the demands of global conglomerates to promote what sells, rather than what makes important historical or cultural contributions available to the reading public. He cites how French publisher Les Prairies Ordinaires was given a small government grant to translate a number of academic works by authors such as feminist cultural and literary theorist Judith Butler into French. He points out, however, that such small publishers cannot outlive these grants because systematic financial support is withheld due to the perceived lack of demand or profitability of their books, irrespective of the social value of their content.

So, what is to be done? University presses could house and subsidise small independent publishers. A small local sales tax on cinema tickets could be used to support an independent cinema house. Local libraries could give independent bookstores the space to open their own sales counters. These are samplings of what is perhaps the most useful contribution of Schiffrin’s work—his practical suggestions about how to save the independent creative industries, instead of simply bemoaning their demise.

As the publisher of Pantheon Books for thirty years, Schiffrin’s intimate knowledge of the industries he interrogates makes for a fact-packed read that is probably more appealing to industry insiders than the average reader who, like me, may be more interested in the politics without the macro-economics. By expanding on the few interesting cross-regional examples like Butler, Words and Money could have better driven home the great intellectual and cultural loss that the disappearance of the independent publishing industry or the independent press actually signifies.

Interestingly, Schiffrin is credited with bringing French writer and intellectual Michel Foucault’s work to America. Foucault’s contribution to the analyses of relations of power, the body, and sexuality are widely considered gargantuan contributions to feminist theory and have generated volumes of lively debate within feminist scholarship and academia. To me, a Foucault-less world presents a far more compelling, if chilling, example of what everyone stands to lose without the gems of the independent publishing industry.

Written by: Kaavya Asoka, September 10th 2010