globalization

Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent

payal — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0000

My fascination with the anti-globalization movement, like my own baby steps into activism, is a late bloomer. I came of age when my peers were shutting down Seattle. I was reading Marx for the first time in college when IMF protestors took to the streets in DC. Yet throughout my extended adolescence, radical politics was background noise. I never paused to find out why globalization made people so angry. Like a lot of people growing up white and middle class, militancy was excessive and embarrassing. Admirable in heroes of the past, the world is civil now (I felt), with no need for insurrections or rage against the machine.

Yet most of the activists in the streets of Seattle also came from nice, white, middle-class homes in suburbia. In fact, this was a common critique of the anti-globalization movement in North America. Instead of multiracial inclusion, the movement seems to reproduce the same racial and class privilege so abhorrent in global capitalism.

This is precisely the criticism AK Thompson tackles in Black Bloc, White Riot. His response is not a how-to for recruiting people of color and/or those lower on the socioeconomic scale. Instead, his aim is to analyze the anti-globalization movement in its white, middle-class character. I.e., rather than complain that the movement is too white so let's find some black and brown people, he wants to account for why young white people came to the movement at all. After locating it in the particular experience of whiteness, he can proceed to the limitations of the movement's politics (as well as its strengths).

Referencing radical favorites like Paulo Freire, Audre Lorde, and Fight Club, and full of phrases like "the white experience of constitutive lack," the book reads like many a lefty intellectual's work. Whether you find this annoying or exhilarating, the arguments boil down to a few simple ideas. A key theme is turning toward a politics of production rather than representation, by which Thompson means focusing on how to get things done, not the symbolic significance of objects and images. For instance, don't worry that gas masks look monstrous in the eyes of the media; focus on the fact that wearing them allows protesters to face tear-gas-hurling police. It's about what one does, not how one appears.

Thompson also emphasizes the importance of violence. Violence, he argues, is a productive force like labor, which puts one in direct material contact with the world and explodes the representational politics that are deadly to the soul (when nothing substantial is accomplished) and deadly to the body (when unjust social structures persist in creating poverty, illness, and climate change). As force is monopolized by governments, historically it is only when groups proved capable of violence that they received political recognition and agency: colonized peoples, immigrants, and women.

In Chapter Four: “You Can't Do Gender in a Riot,” Thompson anticipates criticism that advocating violence amounts to accepting a sexist, patriarchal model. He argues the material fact that women can and have engaged in violent political struggle. Furthermore, participation in violence is one arena that allows activists to transcend gender. He quotes a female Black Bloc member, who explains how the baggy clothes and black hooded sweatshirt allows her gendered identity to disappear—a perfect example of the politics of production.

I wouldn't recommend this book as a first introduction to the movement. But if you are familiar with the stakes and the story of anti-globalization, it's an analysis worth considering, regardless of race and class background.

Written by: Charlotte Malerich, December 24th 2010

The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between the Rich and the Poor in an Interconnected World

admin — Sun, 23 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

By Jacqueline Novogratz

Rodale

Would you give up a promising career in international banking to pursue a lifetime of attempting to understand and eradicate global property? Jacqueline Novogratz began her career as an international banker at Chase Manhattan Bank. As a member of the Credit Audit team for Chase Manhattan Bank, Novogratz was responsible for reviewing the quality of the bank’s loans in other countries, especially in troubled economies. As time went on, Novogratz began to explore the possibilities of working with the poorest people. As her interest grew in helping the impoverished, she found a New York City based microfinance organization that focused on lending to women. The Blue Sweater tells the story of Novogratz’s career from international banking to philanthropy.

After leaving her job at Chase Manhattan Bank to work with the microfinance organization, she was sent to Africa to work with women. Novogratz had never imagined herself working in Africa. She was unprepared for the hostility she experienced from the African women and the amount of corruption and lack of credibility in some of the programs. Although she began her trip to Africa as a naïve idealist, she began to learn that she needed to listen to program participants to truly understand what was needed. While in Rwanda, Novogratz participated in the founding of Duterimbere, a microfinance organization that would lend exclusively to women. She also assisted in setting up a successful bakery operation for single women. The Rwandan genocide had a devastating effect on the organizations she helped to establish.

After spending time in Africa, Novogratz had the opportunity to attend graduate school for business administration and to work with other international organizations. Novogratz directed the Philanthropy Workshop and the Next Generation Leadership program for the Rockefeller Foundation. During this time, Novogratz also founded the Acumen Fund, an organization based on “patient capital.” Patient capital is a combination of venture capitalism and traditional charity that focuses on lending to social entrepreneurs. The programs sponsored by Acumen Fund are also based on the idea the poor will pay for goods and services, instead of the model of traditional charity.

I thought Novogratz’s story was inspiring and instructional. The Blue Sweater is accessible to those who do not have a background in international finance. Her commitment to helping people living in poverty in a meaningful way is based on the idea that all people are interconnected.

Written by: Rekesha Spellman, May 23rd 2010

Becoming Indian: The Unfinished Revolution of Culture and Identity

admin — Sat, 22 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

By Pavan K. Varma

Penguin Books

Pavan K. Varma’s most recent book, Becoming Indian, argues that cultural freedom has eluded formerly colonized nations, specifically India. He sees a need for a cultural revolution in India. Although it reads at times like an extended opinion piece, Varma makes convincing arguments highlighting the importance of reclaiming language, architecture, and art in a way that empowers indigenous knowledge rather than oppressing it. He examines concepts and examples related to language, architecture, and art with regard to modern Indian history, contemporary events, and personal experiences.

Varma believes that the real strength of empires lay in the colonization of minds, and he views modern history as one that has resulted in cultural and ideological consequences. He explores how English has become a tool for upward mobility and questions the cost, as the loss of one’s own language is seen as a gain in India. He uses the example of young people performing Shakespeare in English with no knowledge of theatre in their own languages to illustrate this pervasive ignorance. He also compares the success of writing in English to the sure failure of writing in Indian mother tongues to illustrate a flaw in today’s Indian value systems. Convincingly, he critiques the concept of providing important information, such as health and traffic signs on the highways, in English.

Although India has been independent since 1947, Varma argues that colonialism persists in the realms of language, politics, and self-image. Varma believes that globalization is leading to the desire for a homogeneous identity. To counteract this, he believes it is important to know one’s cultural roots in order to move forward into the future.

From a feminist perspective, it is interesting to note the ways in which the British have historically seen Indians as effeminate, and thus treated them with less respect. The power dynamics within post-colonial societies are especially tricky as colonization has already permeated people’s minds. According to Varma’s arguments, what may be necessary is not only a contemporary Indian cultural revolution but also one that involves all sectors of society, from the lowest to the highest castes and socioeconomic backgrounds.

Written by: Lakshmi Saracino, May 22nd 2010

Family, Gender, and Law in a Globalizing Middle East and South Asia

admin — Tue, 11 May 2010 08:00:00 +0000

Edited by Kenneth M. Cuno, Manisha Desai

Syracuse University Press

Family, Gender, and Law in a Globalizing Middle East and South Asia makes available twelve essays that were presented, in earlier forms, at the 2004 symposium of the same title, which took place at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The essays, edited by Kenneth M. Cuno and Manisha Desai, include analysis of eleven nation-states from Morocco to Bangladesh. With thirty-one pages of works cited, this is a valuable reference on an increasingly critical topic. Major themes include the impact of colonialism and postcolonial struggles with national identity; religious politics, and in particular religion’s impact on family law; and international standards, as outlined in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and related conventions, versus nationalist efforts for self-determination without perceived pressures from outside.

The issues dealt with in these essays are complex, and I am wary of oversimplifying any of them. In the discussion of the role of colonialism, one idea that emerges is that colonial patriarchies interact with local patriarchies, creating hybrid forms that become sites of negotiation and contestation. Another idea that recurs is the interplay of religion, local custom, and the state, three venues for regulating behavior and establishing social mores. In practice, as contributor Shelley Feldman points out in her discussion of Bangladesh, this means that constitutional reform alone is insufficient to create change, because it will not (necessarily, or sufficiently) impact local customs and religious laws.

Taken together, the analyses shed light on one another. The reader can see commonalities among the nations in these interrelated regions, as well as critical differences that make each locality’s challenges unique. It becomes apparent that, as the editors point out in the introduction, “neither nationalism nor elite women’s feminism guarantees the ‘liberation’ of women.” Thankfully, these discussions also highlight many ways in which women are actors, participating in many ways, from liberatory habits of daily life to transnational feminist organizations.

Written by: Lisa Rand, May 11th 2010

East African Hip Hop: Youth Culture and Globalization

admin — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:01:00 +0000

By Mwenda Ntarangwi

University of Illinois Press

Ntarangwi’s book on hip hop culture in East Africa could be used as an academic treatise for music and cultural classes in any university in America. Generally speaking, when we create something, very rarely are we aware of the far-reaching implications that creation may have outside of our immediate scope. Hip hop has been one such creation. Similar to jazz, hip hop was, in part, created out of the need to communicate what did not want to be heard, at first. Put in this matter of fact way, it was only natural that this phenomenon spread across cultures with very similar communication glitches.

East African Hip Hop succinctly details the impact hip hop has had on the East African population, as well as the impact East African hip hop artists are having on youth in their respective communities. Ntarangwi opens with the effects of globalization and youth culture in East Africa. Globalization has often resulted in an entire continent being left out of a process of ideas and decisions that factor in the value of their resources, while devaluing the people that could benefit the most. The remnants of colonialism and neocolonialism are embedded into the psyches of those that profit, as well as those that are taken advantage of in this profitization. Indirect rule, which is often synonymous with “puppet,” makes it difficult to tell which leaders desire to act in the best interests of their constituents, especially when they are all of the same color. This tactic was a major part of colonialism and is one distinctive aspect that affects what is communicated across cultures. However, in the U.S., the assumption of who the perpetrators are rarely ventures outside of historical context. With Ntarangwi’s use of Malcolm X as an example, what is seen as a struggle against White supremacy in American hip hop is seen as a struggle for land ownership and access in East African hip hop. The indoctrination of Western values and its bootstrap mentality are also what have colored communication.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa has given rise to an increase in the number of songs about its concern by East African hip hop artists, as well as societal issues concerning gender and tradition. Even with this increase, the tradition of chastity, or the appearance of it by women, has typically made the topic of sexuality a silent one, for fear of the repercussions of challenging cultural mores. East African hip hop is changing this perception as well.

Ntarangwi touches on so many important issues that have propagated the spread of hip hop into a portion of the world that has, up until recently, been kept silent. A portion of the world that has been silent both forcibly and because only now is the medium of hip hop one of the most powerful ways with which to get a message across. Ntarangwi has effectively expounded upon a subject matter that can no longer be silenced.

Written by: Olupero R. Aiyenimelo, February 4th 2010

The End of Poverty?

admin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 08:52:00 +0000

Directed by Philippe Diaz

Cinema Libre Studio

I haven’t seen Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story, or any of his films, but I rejoice that he made these films, especially this last one, which dares to challenge “our” economic system. Now, quickly following Moore’s film is another full-length feature challenging capitalism, The End of Poverty? directed by Philippe Diaz.

The documentary opens soon in New York, at a commercial theater, but also at the radical Bluestockings bookstore on the gentrifying Lower East Side, where the seats are less posh but most of the audience will already be aware of many elements of the critique.

The financial meltdown has triggered anticapitalist scorn that could soon evaporate, or this moment may be viewed by future generations as the turning point in the end of capitalism. The more films saying “enough already,” the better. Diaz takes note of Moore’s film: “It is great that Michael Moore is attacking the bankers and the financial establishment in his new film, but the end of greed on Wall Street will not end poverty in the world.” He argues that people are poor because their community wealth has been stolen to make other people rich.

The thesis of The End of Poverty? is that from the conquest of the Americas, capitalism is linked to colonialism and drives postcolonial imperialism and neoliberalism—and creates poverty. Aerial shots of cities interweave with talking heads (in comfortable settings), including Nobel prize-winning economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen and the head of the Venezuelan Women’s Bank Nora Castaneda, and with visits to the homes and desolate landscapes where the poor live. The experts explain “primitive accumulation,” the “Washington consensus,” and “hegemony,” decry export economics, and flog the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

I liked the forthright cataloging of U.S. foreign interventions (violent coups, assassinations) to install compliant regimes and win access to natural resources and markets in the global South. John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, explains how the stick of veiled threats is delivered with the carrot of megabucks so that violence is only occasionally needed.

The target audience of The End of Poverty? seems to include the nonprofit antipoverty establishment. The film would be “preaching” to the already converted anti-imperialist Left, as the ideas in the film have been percolating in the antiglobalization movement for years. (The film does pull the argument together well, however.) Perhaps it is aimed at the policymakers; the filmmakers abstain from skewering the hypocrisy of contemporary ones. For the wider audience, whose education does not include the readings of academic Marxism, the exposition is a bit too laden with jargon.

Unwisely, I think, The End of Poverty? does explicitly limit itself to the extreme poverty (living on less than one dollar a day) of the developing world. There is no mention of foreclosed homes in the United States, and only a passing mention of the enclosure of the commons in England and to the poverty of New Orleans. The dispossession of farmers in Africa is not connected with the deindustrialization of cities in the United States. Debt that impoverishes the developing world and its people has a correlation in consumer debt. Yet, a job in a windowless cubicle is a homeopathic dose of oppression compared to la mita, being forced to work and live underground for six months at a time as silver miners were. The homeless of New York may live in a rich country, but they are not getting much of the wealth. Perhaps yet another anticapitalist film will take up these connections.

Do films—especially documentaries—that chronicle the devastation caused by capitalism have the power to break the stranglehold centrist ideology has on political debate in the United States? Perhaps. This film unveils the sham that is capitalist development, but suggests few steps ordinary citizens can take to change policies. Unanswered is an older question: What is to be done?

Written by: Frances Chapman, November 12th 2009

Translating Childhoods: Immigrant Youth, Language, and Culture

admin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:33:00 +0000

By Marjorie Faulstich Orellana

Rutgers University Press

Writing a book and having it published is not the accomplishment it used to be. While academic presses are not known for being as competitive as popular presses, they appear to be on the precipice of absurdity. Translating Childhoods: Immigrant Youth, Language, and Culture is an additional finger’s width of movement toward the edge.

Translating Childhoods is an ethnography. Its research was conducted through observation and collecting data from diaries and interviews. The author studied children of immigrants (and at times immigrants themselves) who fulfill the function of translator for their family, and this is the subject of the book.

Faulstich Orellana, while able to avoid participation, chooses to wade into the ongoing debate in the social sciences about whether, as such, the social scientist should act as a physical scientist. Should they aim for aloofness and attempt detachment, or acknowledge their biases and preferences and address them in their writing? She subscribes to the latter position. Married to an immigrant, much of her motivation and mindset in writing this book are acknowledged by her as being the result of her personal relationships.

Child translators form a stratum of unrewarded workers in society, particularly important in a globalizing world. The children acting as translators are unrewarded in monetary terms while being relied upon for financial matters, and precariously teeter on the edge of adulthood while remaining children. Faulstich Orellana would like to focus on the often ignored economic implications of this work, an emphasis which forms a basis of feminist theories in political economies. Ultimately, subordinates in society often work the hardest while earning the least both financially and socially.

The book reads as many other academic books do: as a formulaic, un-inventive, well-stated thesis in a poorly written publication. While the subject is interesting, it is insufficient. Faulstich Orellana creates additional suspense by emphasizing the dichotomies of the children’s familial positions—child and authority figure, dependent and depended upon—however, these are inadequate in holding the book up, and 125 pages (not including appendices) felt more like the reverse, 521 pages. Faulstich Orellana’s fastidiousness in defining her terms and explaining her methodology contributes to the uninitiated reader’s understanding; however, her circular references, not very cryptic foreshadowing, and academic namedropping make this brand of scholarly writing particularly unreadable.

Written by: Elisheva Zakheim, October 16th 2009

Things Fall Away: Philippine Historical Experience and the Makings of Globalization

admin — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:32:00 +0000

By Neferti X. M. Tadiar

Duke University Press

Things Fall Away is a scholarly book, not composed for easy reading or comprehension. Tadiar writes as an expert in the areas of political science, anthropology and economics. Consider the following: _Refurbished as well as unreconstructed nationalism and transnationalisms, battles for state power and civil liberties, identity-based claims to political and economic enfranchisement, liberal-democratic ideals of civil society—such are the familiar trajectories of world-historical agency in these times, trajectories from which all other manner of human and parahuman lives, pasts, presents, and futures, cultural imaginations, and virtual realities are jettisoned. These things fall away…_Yet Tadiar writes poetically at times and offers beautifully detailed and researched explanations of the dangers and losses we face as the world undergoes a new transformation: globalization. Given the current economic and political struggles we face, Tadiar’s examination of the post-colonization period of the Philippines and the knowledge it offers about the process we are undergoing is particularly timely as well as brilliant. She brings heart to her explanations as she illustrates the role of literature and poetry in providing a picture of effects of these changes on the subaltern.

She views global politics and economics through the lens of feminist theory. Her description of how Philippine women, since the beginning of the military dictatorship in 1972, became the primary economic asset of the country is eye opening. In chapter one, she offers a joke that circulated in the Philippines in the 1980s: “Gas, rice, sugar—everything is going up! The only things coming down are panties!”

While lamenting the misogynist view, the author describes the role of prostitution as a prospering industry for the country. Tadiar sees a parallel in the Philippines being a hostess nation, servicing the needs and desires of her clients.

The author writes graphically about the effects of economic and political transformations. She will not let that history die or disappear and she warns of the consequences of building a culture on human wounds.

Tadiar offers the concept of global tragedy, a general feeling that there is no hope and efforts to change the world of the subaltern have failed. She also speaks of divine sorrow and the hope that change is still possible.

Written by: Karyn Hall, October 15th 2009

China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing’s Expansion in Africa

admin — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 23:17:00 +0000

By Serge Michel, Michel Beuret

Nation Books

In China Safari: On the Trail of Beijing's Expansion in Africa, Serge Michel and Michel Beuret invest a lot of time and energy in examining China’s presence in African countries. They travel to various places to interview different people in order to find out what affects Chinese business has across the continent. China is quickly colonizing African counties with a speed that must make Western colonizers like America, England, and France (to name a few) burn with envy.

The environment doesn’t matter, the people don’t matter, and future generations certainly don’t either. What is important is the almighty dollar—er, yuan. Nobody and nothing is indispensable. Even the average Chinese laborer who travels from the mainland to work the fields, factory, pipelines, and mines is expendable. He makes more money in the Congo than he ever could in China, and as an added bonus, if he dies in a work-related accident, it will net his family back home a few extra yuan—so his death isn’t seen as a complete waste, but an honorable sacrifice.

It isn’t just the natural resources that China is trying to take as it competes with Western countries for contracts. African governments favour doing business with China and give construction contracts to Chinese companies. In return, all these nations have to do is hand over a bit of oil, which then increases the need for construction of more pipe lines. (More contracts for China!), or other enviable resources—like Niger's uranium. China may give out loans to build dams and highways, but the money comes with a cost: Chinese labor is preferred instead providing jobs for local people, the construction quality is poor, and there are no unions to protect the workers.

Also, Chinese businesses have made, and continue to make, a lot of money off of selling their cheap manufactured goods to African consumers. Whatever the consumer needs, from Islamic prayer mats to plastic souvenirs sold by the Nile River to rifles and handguns for regional warring, China makes all of the items at a cheaper cost than its competitors.

The information China Safari offers about the Chinese exploitation of African (and Chinese) workers is a hefty wake up call for those in the pursuit of global fair trade and environmental and human rights. The bleak reality of industrial “progress” in places across the African continent are well-documented in this book__. The authors leave no stone unturned. The amount of research they did for this book is staggering, and I was shocked to read just how deeply China has sunk its claws into the world's poorest continent.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, October 13th 2009

Enterprising Women in Urban Zimbabwe: Gender, Microbusiness, and Globalization

admin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 08:52:00 +0000

By Mary Johnson Osirim

Indiana University Press

In the early 1990s, Mary Osirim took a team of interviewers to several urban areas in Zimbabwe to learn about the lives and financial status of women working in the “microenterprise sector.” She found that while women were largely excluded from education and much of the Zimbabwean economy, some had found a niche as crocheters, seamstresses, hairdressers, and “market traders” in fruits and vegetables and other goods.

There is plenty of sociological theory—the author is, after all, an eminent sociologist—much of it concerning the damage wrought by globalization generally and more specifically by the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the Economic Structural Adjustment Program of 1991, which seem here to overshadow colonialism and even patriarchy as root causes of poverty and oppression. And there are a lot of statistics: “Seventy-nine percent of the traders reported that they made all decisions about the use of profits from their enterprises”—which are suggestive, if taken from small sample sizes.

The essence of Enterprising Women in Urban Zimbabwe is in the voices of the women themselves. These women are trying to survive in jobs that have them vending in outdoors stalls in all weather and economic vagaries—many of them providing for families and extended families. The interviewers ask questions like “Why did you start this business?” and “Who makes the decisions in your family?” and “Does your husband assist with domestic duties?” The answers, although too often painfully synoptic, provide a mixed picture of these women’s experiences. Many of them are living on dreams deferred, still hoping that a career as nurse or air hostess is not entirely out of reach.

One crocheter reports, “I’m happy because [my husband] does not hit me. I live nicely. He gives me money.” One of the recurrent themes embedded here is the struggle for autonomy as made manifest in the women’s earnings: “Husband makes decisions about money and bills.” In some of the accounts, one can hear echoes of the novels of Buchi Emecheta, although her work captures a different time and place.

Time and place present a problem in this study. First, the interviews are fifteen years old, and so are most of the bibliographic references. In the Zimbabwe of the early 1990s, many apparently held out hope that Robert Mugabe would acknowledge the role women played in gaining Zimbabwean independence by creating meaningful reforms allowing women greater access to education and the workplace. Locating the study specifically in Zimbabwe is also somewhat problematic in that the workers are “cross-border traders" coming from, traveling to, and trading with nations throughout the region. In the strictest sense, their lives and experiences are not exclusively Zimbabwean.

Still, Enterprising Women in Urban Zimbabwe is a valuable report on the status of a worldwide phenomenon; the term “enterprising women” is more a generic label than a specific title: the transformative possibility of women’s entrepreneurial work throughout the world. At least in terms of this report, the experience of women in “microbusiness” has mitigated poverty for some, brought some measure of financial independence for some, and has changed the lives of a few. Overall, though, it does not, at least in Zimbabwe, seem to have had large-scale transforming effects in either the status of women or in the patriarchal traditions or the laws that still oppress them.

Written by: Rick Taylor, October 2nd 2009

Karma Calling

admin — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:49:00 +0000

Directed by Sarba Das

Shakti Productions

Director Sarba Das has taken the stomach-churning subject of credit card debt and used it as a hilarious plot device in this endearing romp of a screwball romantic comedy. Watching Karma Calling is definitely non-stop farcical fun as the maxed out Raj’s, a Hindu family living above their means in Hoboken, are pestered by credit card call center collectors based in India.

Ingenious scenes highlight the absurdity of our hyper-globalized world as the Indian collectors learn how to sound American and choose fake names based on popular American sitcoms. The plot thickens when a relative of the Raj’s arrives from India, intending to influence her family to stop eating meat and start meditating. Traditional India meets Americanized Indians and it all adds up to the exploration of basic human values: family unity, love and money.

The set up is this: one day, the smoothest operator from the India call center, the absolutely adorable and charismatic Rob Roy, calls the Raj house and daughter Sonal picks up the phone. Soon the two are chatting away and the chemistry is immediate. What Somal doesn’t know (because of his finely perfected American accent and slang) is that Rob is an ocean away instead of being a boy next door. Adding to this comedy of cultural errors is Sonal’s brother Shyam, who dreams of making it as a hip-hop artist with a song that features a Japanese title. While “hanging out in the ‘hood,” Shyam suddenly finds himself smitten with an Indian girl who recently arrived in the nabe and is about to marry a Dollar Store mogul in an arranged marriage. What to do? Meanwhile, Mr. and Mrs. Raj try to figure out how to pay the bills, duck the creditors and figure out life in America.

The film has broad laugh appeal, and better yet, many wonderfully hip, small moments that offer snappy insights. One of these moments occurs when a pompous trainer at the call center, seeking to win a trip to America, coyly passes out bags of Doritos, hoping to inspire demoralized Indians to act more like Americans. By flipping the equation of cultural identities and spotlighting deficits, Karma Calling nails it: no matter where you live, the color of your skin or how much money you have (or don’t have), what the world really needs now is love, sweet love. An additional caveat? To thine own self, be true!

Written by: Cheryl Reeves, July 15th 2009

Running on Empty

admin — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 17:09:00 +0000

Directed by Emily Marlow, Charles Stewart

Television Trust for the Environment

When I was perhaps ten years old or younger, I used to sit in front of the television on weekend mornings, and flip around until I found a Save the Children show. I’d then proceed to watch the entire episode, sitting cross-legged on the floor, and cry. For years afterwards I was always furious when my mother would flip past the standard image of a young child of color, starving and attracting flies, with a sound of disgust.

Running on Empty is part of the sixth season of _Life, an educational series put out by Television Trust for the Environment, which delves into globalization’s myriad of affects on poverty. This particular episode shows the effects, mostly ineffective, of the Millennium Development Goals, a plan signed by 192 United Nations members to halve poverty and hunger by the year 2015.

The film contrasts the lives of Dawn, a mother of three living in one of the poorest areas in Europe, and Asemu, a mother of two living in northern Ethiopia. Dawn and Asemu, both only twenty-two years old, depend on cash payments to buy food, clothing, and other basic necessities. The film deals with the question of whether it is more effective to give cash or food aid to families in need. The fear is that adults will spend the money on more frivolous items instead of necessities.

While Running on Empty logically decides that cash is the best form of aid, it also shows the women spending a large part of their meager resources on events described as “social obligations.” Dawn ends up borrowing six hundred and fifty pounds (over nine hundred dollars to us) for her children’s Christmas presents, and struggles to pay back the loans. Asemu doesn’t receive regular cash payments until five months after the harvest; and she must spend a large part of their harvest on a women’s gathering, at which the women take turns supplying the food.

The film ends agreeing that the Millennium Development Goals are not working. Dawn receives just enough money to survive on after she splits her cash between food, diapers, laundry, gas, and electric bills. While her children are not underfed, and she knows what kind of diet is best for them, she lacks the money to buy healthy food. Therefore, Dawn falls back on fries and other high-fat, high-calorie solutions.

Asemu, who receives one pound for every one hundred and thirty of Dawn’s, explains that the cash aid she receives hasn’t increased to keep up with inflation rates. Her youngest child is developing well, but her older son, born before the family began receiving aid, only started to walk at age four due to malnutrition. The damage done by lack of nutrition in his first two years will never be undone, and the family’s diet is still extremely poor in protein, with no money for fish or meat.

The show is well filmed, with segments in Ethiopia and South Wales, and does a striking job at drawing parallels between the different types of poverty the two families live in. In the end, neither can afford to give their children the nutrition they desperately need for proper development, despite all of the rich promises of our “world leaders.”

Written by: Ilinca Popescu, June 1st 2009

The Life You Can Save: Acting Now To End World Poverty

admin — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:45:00 +0000

By Peter Singer

Random House

For his writings against speciesism, most notably Animal Liberation, some people think of Peter Singer as the father of the animal rights movement. Singer is also an accomplished philosopher, ethicist, writer, and bioethics professor. But with academic notoriety comes controversy; Singer has long balanced criticism for his utilitarian ethics perspectives while acting as an advocate for the rights of animals and poverty-stricken people. In his new book, Singer expands his ethical arguments in favor of eradicating poverty and lays a theoretical foundation for ending extreme poverty and the powerlessness that it both causes and reinforces.

Drawing on the general facts relating to poverty, Singer breaks down ethical arguments about how to give and why. Every chapter begins with an exercise in "practical ethics." The reader is forced to examine contradictions in generosity and weigh the moral imperatives of saving a single life versus many lives. Singer offers a variety of tips for creating a culture of giving; for example, joining forces with like-minded philanthropists to rally enthusiasm, or doing away with anonymous donations to encourage more conversation about giving money away. Repeatedly, Singer asserts that as privileged people in the developed world who are universally better off than those battling poverty in the developing world, it is our moral obligation to equalize the masses.

The problem with The Life You Can Save is that poverty is not a one-dimensional issue that can be addressed with only large-scale measures. Singer writes about poverty in broad, sometimes offensively simplistic terms, relegating the cultural, socioeconomic, and regional specifics of poverty and its causes to appendix notes. While explaining what poverty is, Singer seems to forget the root causes and how so many of the supposed solutions of today (such as creating assets through investing and relying on large organizations) are built on models that brought us to our current global dilemmas (capitalism and corrupt governments). It is clear that Singer hopes to galvanize people to believe they can be part of the big-picture solution, but there is also something to be said for small scale alternatives that address the unique needs of specific continents, countries, cities, cultures, and people. To criticize residents of developed countries instead of oppressive oligarchies seems humorously shortsighted.

Singer does the predictable chastising of the spectrum; from "Don’t Be Evil" Google co-founders who use private planes to everyday people who needlessly buy overpriced bottled water and name brand coffee, Singer finds fault with every measure of wasteful spending. At the same time, he uncritically celebrates investment capital and the philanthropy of upper class white Americans like Bill and Melinda Gates and minister Rick Warren. Should a technology monopoly and homophobia at home be ignored when guilt-ridden white people send loads of money, vaccines, and church folk to Africa? Why are the majority of Singer’s examples white American men? Forgive me if I’m unconvinced and uncomfortable with the idea that one homogeneous group of leaders has all the answers.

In line with modern publicity, you can visit The Life You Can Save website to find the book in many languages and to learn about anti-poverty organizations that you can donate to. Then again, if you’re savvier than Singer assumes, you can also use the power of the Internet to find other ways to redirect your cash to the people in need.

Written by: Brittany Shoot, April 6th 2009

The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization

admin — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:40:00 +0000

Edited by Alys Eve Weinbaum, Lynn M. Thomas, Priti Ramamurthy, Uta G. Poiger, Modeleine Yue Dong, Tani E. Barlow

Duke University Press

The propagated image of the "modern woman" is usually White and lithely strutting the streets of New York or Paris. Hollywood films as well as vintage prints in hip clothing boutiques give us the familiar image of a short-cropped brunette in smart dress. The Modern Girl Around the World Research Group (comprised by the book's editors) has collected a group of essays suggesting that this fabulous 1920’s to 1930’s woman was an international phenomenon, and not merely a Western emulation. What we know as "flappers" were also labeled garconnes, moga, modeng xiaojie, kallege ladki, schoolgirls, vamps, and neue Frauen. In The Modern Girl Around the World: Consumption, Modernity, and Globalization, "girls" are defined as "young women with the wherewithal and desire to define themselves in excess of conventional female roles and as transgressive of national, imperial, and racial boundaries." Here, we can understand the modern girl not only as a consumer or mannequin, but rather a woman challenging convention and limitations.

Although The Modern Girl Around the World is published by an academic press, it is wonderfully accessible, and should be of interest to anyone interested in sociology, fashion, sexuality, and the development of the public image of women. There are sixteen essays besides the Research Group's own chapter on methodology. Geographically, the essays look at France, South Africa, India, China, and beyond. Personally, my favorite essays are Liz Conor's "Blackfella Missus Too Much Proud: Techniques of Appearing, Femininity and Race in Australian Modernity" and Kathy Peiss' "Girls Lean Back Everywhere," but all the essays have something valuable to say. Overall, the authors demonstrate that modernity is not a Western creation with foreign copycats, but rather a simultaneous movement.

From a practical point of view, this is a Women's Studies student or professor’s dream. Finding all of these essays in one compilation and including an extensive bibliography opens up the possibilities for transnational study without relying on an archive. For readers who seek an in-depth history of these movements, it is wise to note that The Modern Girl Around the World focuses instead on commodity and cultural flows as they occur. This is not a study of underground political movements, but rather women pushing the public and visible limits of agency.

It’s a shame that a book on image only has pictures in black and white, but I’m so grateful that a compilation like this finds a publisher at all. As a woman, teacher, and reader, I find The Modern Girl Around the World to be interesting and provocative. We live in a global world, and this compilation recognizes transnational trends. Points of disagreements within the essays and overall project only instigate productive dialogue.

Written by: Claire Burrows, April 4th 2009

Yours, Mine, Ours, or Theirs?: Accessing and Controlling Oil and Water

admin — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:02:00 +0000

Illinois Humanities Council

Chicago, Illinois

Humanities lectures and art openings are consistent sources of free entertainment, so I was delighted to attend “Yours, Mine, Ours, or Theirs? Accessing and Controlling Oil and Water,” a conversation hosted by the Illinois Humanities Council. Panelists provided an engaging and far-ranging forum regarding two globally vital substances of incomparable importance. Some theorize that just as twentieth century conflicts began over the control of oil resources, our future conflicts will be over water. In 2002, Fortune magazine was blithely reporting on bottled water as the next hot commodity. Within two years, they were publicizing Pentagon reports that speculated on future wars incited by a water shortage brought about by climate change.

The litany of casualties in the name of oil includes the blood of Ken Saro Wiwa in Nigeria and the child of the neighbors two blocks east, a military service banner hanging in their window. Oil is a substance that we can live without, conserve, or replace with alternate energy sources. Not so with water. Will future conflicts bring a quieter carnage in the form of mere famine and dehydration? Does any human have the claim to meeting fundamental needs, or will we perpetuate societies in which there are no rights—just commodities and people who survive through persistence and happenstance, chance, and tenacity—vicious inheritors playing a Darwinist game in a world concocted by Smith and Hobbes?

Future hot spots include the Ogallala Aquifer, Mexico City, Chad, and China. My imagination spun a future combining elements of Frank Herbert's Dune with Mad Max. The scenario made my head hurt. Good thing that I had packed water in an EcoUsable water bottle to wash down some aspirin. Their stainless steel bottles are 100% recyclable and available in three sizes. As I’m always thirsty, for me, there is no choice other than the 33-oz. version—mine has a fun pattern of dots and hoops on its enamel shell— but there is also a 25-oz. size featuring a more curvaceous shape and built-in water filter. I had rationalized my bottled water consumption by reusing the bottles for homemade sun tea, but there are economic and environmental reasons to stop buying bottled water, period.

The artist Chris Jordan created powerful images of American consumption in his series Running the Numbers including an image of the two million plastic bottles that are used in the United States every five minutes. After a brief self-congratulatory moment of not having used a plastic water bottle, but speculating about the carbon imprint of one made in China, I was promptly thrust back into demoralization after viewing an excerpt of The Water Front, a documentary covering four years of water conflict in Highland Park, Michigan.

Using the phrase “water scarcity” in a community on the shore of a freshwater inland sea would be absurd if not for the impact on people's lives. The financial crisis precipitated by the town's Chrysler plant shutting down resulted in the auctioning off of municipal water services. Bills skyrocketed, and unpaid tabs were added to property tax bills, resulting in a spate of foreclosures. One water company representative states that “Nothing is free,” and someone has to pay for cleaning and infrastructure, but it appears that the market has neither mercy, nor any conception of fundamental human needs or rights.

The invisible hand is neither just nor kind. Privatization trends suggest that they would sell you the air if they could. Zimbabwe's current cholera epidemic demonstrates the limitations of perceiving clean, potable water as anything other than a necessity. The faucet drips as I write this. If I replaced a washer, I might save three gallons a day...

Written by: Erika Mikkalo, February 18th 2009