CIAO DATE: 06/2009
March 2008
The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs
The neoliberal ‘good life’ demands one, unequivocal condition: convert or be disciplined. Conversion requires wholesale integration of the neoliberal Self’s policies, practices, and institutions at all sites of public policy-making for the Other, regardless of local histories, cultures, or desires. Discipline comes through economic, political, and sometimes military ‘conditionalities’ from the Self to the ‘non-compliant’ Other. That both conversion and discipline mean a kind of annihilation for the Other is, for the neoliberal Self, a necessary risk. This includes the rise of rival camps of hypermasculinity that lead, invariably, to perpetual cycles of competition and conflict. A ‘borderlands’ approach offers an alternative. Similar to ‘traveling’ theory from feminists of color, this notion of ‘borderlands’ also draws from pre-colonial experiences such as the ancient Silk Roads where peoples, societies, languages, religions, and ways of life mixed, merged, and moved. ‘Borderlands’, in short, exemplifies a multiple worlds ontology to world politics. Three cases illustrate the pitfalls of neoliberal Self/Other relations and why we need to move to the ‘borderlands’: (1) the Asian financial crisis (1997-1998), (2) US corporate corruption (2001-2002), and (3) the 9/11 Commission Report (2004).
Resource link: A Postcolonial-Feminist Alternative to Neoliberal Self/Other Relations [PDF] - 91K