Neoliberalization E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Serie: Antipode Book Series
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 582

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2011

Beschreibung

The book is an analysis of cultural, social as well as political economic expressions of neoliberalization and argues for an appreciation of the relational geographies of neoliberalization.

• In-depth empirical research spanning a variety of world regions
• A range of topics including homelessness, comparative politics, economic development and social policy
• Reviews how neoliberalism is enacted as a way to highlight the complexity and contingency of this economic model
• Engages in debates within anthropology, gender studies, geography, health studies, international studies, planning, political science and sociology

Leseprobe

Contents

List of Figures

List of Plates

List of Tables

List of Contributors

Preface

1 Introduction: Reading Neoliberalization

Neoliberalism: Ideology, Policy and Program, State Form, Governmentality

The Collection: States, Networks, Peoples

Conclusions

Part I “Mainstream” Economic Development and its Alternatives

Introduction to Part I

2 Competing Capitalisms and Neoliberalism: the Dynamics of, and Limits to, Economic Reform in the Asia-Pacific

The Asia-Pacific in Historical Context

Capitalism in East Asia

Regionalism and Neoliberalism

Concluding Remarks

Notes

3 Neoliberalizing the Grassroots? Microfinance and the Politics of Development in Nepal

Neoliberalism, Neoliberalization and the Politics of Microfinance

Foundation in Development Finance

Contingencies of Neoliberalization: Negotiations over the Means and Ends of Governance

Contradictions of Rural Finance – “Living within and against Neoliberalism”

Conclusion

Part II Within and between States and Markets: the Role of Intermediaries

Introduction to Part II

4 Learning to Compete: Communities of Investment Promotion Practice in the Spread of Global Neoliberalism

Liberalism, Neoliberalism, and the Competition for FDI

International Organizations – Pathologically Neoliberal?

Investment Promotion as Rule-intermediation

Refraction of the Neoliberal Competitive Ethos

Southeast Asia: Neoliberalism’s Divergent Peripheries

Africa: The International Community Looks in on the “Dark Continent”

Conclusion: A Global Community of Investment Promotion Practice?

5 Temporary Staffing, “Geographies of Circulation,” and the Business of Delivering Neoliberalization

The Geographical Expansion of Temporary Staffing and the Rise of “Flexible” Labor Regulation

The American Staffing Association (ASA) and the International Confederation of Temporary Work Businesses (CIETT): Representing Temporary Staffing, Keeping the Faith and Spreading the Word

Sites of Exchange, Diffusion, Learning, and Networking: of Forums and Summits

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Notes

6 Neoliberalizing Argentina?

Neoliberalizing Argentina?

Neoliberal Argentina?

Doing Neoliberalization: the IMF and Argentina

Opposing and Mediating Neoliberalism

Conclusion

Notes

Part III States and Subjectivities

Introduction to Part III

7 Neoliberalizing Home Care: Managed Competition and Restructuring Home Care in Ontario

Neoliberalizing Health Care, Policy Transfer and Managed Competition

The Rise of Managed Competition in Home Care in Ontario

Neoliberal Provincial Politics

Managed Competition and Home Care Workers

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Notes

8 Spatializing Neoliberalism: Articulations, Recapitulations, and (a Very Few) Alternatives

Setting

Controversy

Situated Public Spectacles of Otherness

Fear and Loathing in Woodridge

Border Patrols: Now You See’em, Now You Don’t; or, from Visibility to Invisibility or Proper Visibility

Conclusions

Acknowledgments

Notes

9 Co-constituting “After Neoliberalism”: Political Projects and Globalizing Governmentalities in Aotearoa/New Zealand

Globalization, Neoliberalism, Neoliberalization

Neoliberalization in New Zealand

Globalization

Knowledge Economy/Knowledge Society

Sustainability

Creative Industries

Social Development

States, Networks, Peoples

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

10 Conclusion: Reflections on Neoliberalizations

Bibliography

Index

Antipode Book Series

General Editor: Noel Castree, Professor of Geography, University of Manchester, UK Like its parent journal, the Antipode Book Series reflects distinctive new developments in radical geography. It publishes books in a variety of formats – from reference books to works of broad explication to titles that develop and extend the scholarly research base – but the commitment is always the same: to contribute to the praxis of a new and more just society.

Published

Neoliberalization: States, Networks, Peoples

Edited by Kim England and Kevin Ward

The Dirty Work of Neoliberalism: Cleaners in the Global Economy

Edited by Luis L. M. Aguiar and Andrew Herod

David Harvey: A Critical Reader

Edited by Noel Castree and Derek Gregory

Working the Spaces of Neoliberalism: Activism, Professionalisation and Incorporation

Edited by Nina Laurie and Liz Bondi

Threads of Labour: Garment Industry Supply Chains from the Workers’ Perspective

Edited by Angela Hale and Jane Wills

Life’s Work: Geographies of Social Reproduction

Edited by Katharyne Mitchell, Sallie A. Marston and Cindi Katz

Redundant Masculinities? Employment Change and White Working Class Youth

Linda McDowell

Space, Place and the New Labour Internationalism

Edited by Peter Waterman and Jane Wills

Spaces of Neoliberalism

Edited by Neil Brenner and Nik Theodore

Forthcoming

Cities of Whiteness

Wendy S. Shaw

The South Strikes Back: Labour in the Global Economy

Rob Lambert, Edward Webster and Andries Bezuidenhout

Decolonizing Development: Colonial Power and the Maya

Joel Wainwright

© 2007 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

BLACKWELL PUBLISHING

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9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK

550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia

The right of Kim England and Kevin Ward to be identified as the Authors of the Editorial Material in this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

First published 2007 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd

1 2007

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Neoliberalization: states, networks, peoples/edited by Kim England and Kevin Ward.

p. cm. — (Antipode book series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4051-3431-6 (hardcover: alk. paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4051-3432-3 (pbk.: alk. paper)

1. Neoliberalism. 2. Free enterprise—Social aspects. 3. Economic development—Social aspects. 4. Capitalism—Social aspects. 5. Comparative economics. I. England, Kim, 1960-II. Ward, Kevin, 1969-

HB95.N428 2007

338.9-dc22

2006032841

The publisher’s policy is to use permanent paper from mills that operate a sustainable forestry policy, and which has been manufactured from pulp processed using acid-free and elementary chlorine-free practices. Furthermore, the publisher ensures that the text paper and cover board used have met acceptable environmental accreditation standards.

For further information on

Blackwell Publishing, visit our website:

www.blackwellpublishing.com

In memory of:

Graham Ward (16 August 1946 – 23 November 2002)

Judith Ward (15 November 1987 – 4 July 2003)

Figures

Figure 3.1Recent regulatory and programmatic changes in Nepal’s rural financial sectorFigure 5.1CIETT’s member federations

Plates

Plate 3.1A microfinance “centre meeting” where rural womenreceive micro-loans and disciplinary training inbanking and self-reliance, Deuri Village, Nepal, 2002Plate 3.2Homogeneous micro enterprises? Residents of Deuri village (including microfinance clients) selling processed grain products in the weekly open market, Deuri Village, Nepal, 2002Plate 4.1Raffles City Tower – home to the Singapore Economic Development BoardPlate 4.2National Bank of Kenya Building – home to the Investment Promotion Centre, KenyaPlate 5.1Staffing companies: the agents of new economy assetsPlate 5.22003 Executive forumPlate 5.3IT services summitPlate 5.4Healthcare summitPlate 6.1Pickets mass to defend the Bruckman occupied factory, Buenos Aires, March 2003Plate 6.2A memorial to the “disappeared,” San Telmo, Buenos AiresPlate 7.1Personal support worker helping with the basic activities of daily livingPlate 7.2Quality of care versus cost-saving

Tables

Table 1.1From philosophy to practices: details of neoliberalismTable 3.1Institutional (re)configuration of the financial sector of NepalTable 5.1CIETT’s imagining of the global market for temporary staffingTable 6.1A short history of Argentina’s political economy

Contributors

Mark Beeson: Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics at the University of York, England (formerly Senior Lecturer in International Relations, University of Queensland, Australia). His research interests center on the political economy of East Asia. He is the author of Regionalism, Globalisation and East Asia: Politics, Security and Economic Development (Palgrave, 2006). He is also the editor of Contemporary Southeast Asia: Regional Dynamics, National Differences (Palgrave, 2004), and Bush and Asia: America’s Evolving Relations with East Asia (Routledge Curzon, 2006).

Joan Eakin: Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences, University of Toronto, Canada. Her research interests include the sociological dimensions of work-related health and safety, prevention and rehabilitation, and qualitative research methodology. Her recent research on provincial return-to-work policy has been transformed into a satirical theater production, Easy Money (described in Moving Population and Public Health Knowledge into Action: A Casebook of Knowledge Translation Stories. Ottawa: Canadian Institutes of Health Research, 2006).

Kim England: Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington, USA. Her research interests focus on local labor markets and women’s paid employment, caring labor, the home as a paid workplace (foreign domestic workers and paid home health care workers), and politics and ethics of fieldwork. She is the editor of Who Will Mind the Baby? Geographies of Child-Care and Working Mothers (Routledge, 1996).

Denise Gastaldo: Associate Professor, Faculty of Nursing, University of Toronto, Canada. Her research interests consider gender, health promotion, power relations in health care, international health, and critical social theory. She is the co-editor of Paradigmas y diseños de investigación cualitativa en salud. Una antología iberoamericana [Paradigms and designs in qualitative health research: An Ibero-American anthology] (Universidad de Guadalajara Press, 2002).

Catherine Kingfisher: Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Lethbridge, Canada. Her research interests include personhood, neoliberalism as a cultural system, poverty policy, and language and discourse. She is currently researching the impact of the New Zealand Experiment on southern Alberta. She is editor of Western Welfare in Decline: Globalization and Women’s Poverty (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002) and author of Women in the American Welfare Trap (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996).

Wendy Larner: Professor of Human Geography and Sociology, School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, England. Her research interests include political economy, governmentality, economic geography, and social policy. She is co-editor (with William Walters) of Global Governmentality: New Perspectives on International Rule (Routledge, 2004), and author of a wide range of journal articles and book chapters.

Richard Le Heron: Professor of Geography in the School of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Auckland, New Zealand. He has recently co-edited books on Knowledge, Industry and Environment (Ashgate, 2002) and New Economic Spaces: New Economic Geographies (Ashgate, 2005). His research interests include the geographies of agri-food regulation, governance and governmentality, and the development of socio-scientific knowledge in the context of globalizing economic processes.

Nicholas Lewis: Lecturer in the School of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Auckland, New Zealand. Recent research examines industry-scale governance and projects of industry creation in New Zealand. He recently completed a postdoctoral fellowship exploring these themes in the wine, fashion, and export education industries. He has particular interests in how industries are mobilized in neoliberal programs of government and in the promotion of the new economy.

Patricia McKeever: Professor, Faculty of Nursing, and Co-director of the Health Care, Technology, and Place Training Program, University of Toronto, Canada. A health sociologist, her research interests focus on children who have disabilities or chronic illnesses and the places where they receive health and social support services. She has written on a range of topics that focus on home care and children with disabilities.

Pete North: Lecturer in the Department of Geography, University of Liverpool, England. His research interests focus on social movements and localization as a challenge to globalization. He is the author of Alternative Currencies as a Challenge to Globalisation? (Ashgate, 2006) and Money and Liberation: The Micropolitics of Alternative Currency Movements (University of Minnesota, 2007).

Nick Phelps: Reader in the Department of Geography, Southampton University, England. His research interests cover issues relating to multinational enterprise and economic development, the political economy of inward investment attraction, and the political economy of edge urban development. He is co-editor (with P. Raines) of The New Competition for Inward Investment (Edward Elgar, 2003) and co-author (with N. Parsons, D. Ballas, and A. Dowling) of Post-Suburban Europe Planning and Politics at the Margins of Europe’s Capital Cities (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2006).

Marcus Power: Lecturer in the Department of Geography, Durham University, England. His research interests include geographies of (post)development, post-colonialism and geopolitics, audiovisual geographies, and the politics of cultural identity and post-socialist transformations in Southern Africa. He is the author of Re-thinking Development Geographies (Routledge, 2003).

Katharine N. Rankin: Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Program in Planning, University of Toronto, Canada. Her broad research interests include feminist perspectives on development, comparative market regulation, financial restructuring, planning history and theory, South Asia. She is the author of The Cultural Politics of Markets: Economic Liberalization and Social Change in Nepal (Pluto Press and the University of Toronto Press, 2004).

Yogendra B. Shakya: Research and Evaluation Coordinator, Access Alliance Multicultural Community Health Centre, Canada. His research addresses development politics, rural credit reform, gender planning, and immigrant issues.

Roseline Wanjiru: Doctoral Student, School of Geography, University of Leeds, England. Her research focuses on the current problems and prospects of the clothing and textile industry in Kenya.

Kevin Ward: Reader in Geography, School of Environment and Development at the University of Manchester, England. Co-author of a number of books including Spaces of Work: Global Capitalism and the Geographies of Labour (with Noel Castree, Neil Coe, and Michael Samers; Sage, 2003), and Managing Employment Change: the New Realities of Work (with Huw Beynon, Damian Grimshaw, and Jill Rubery; Oxford, 2002) and author of numerous journal articles and book chapters. His research interests focus on state spatiality, the politics of urban development and social reproduction, and labor market restructuring.

Preface

Were you in New Orleans in March 2003, at that year’s Association of American Geographers (AAG) conference? Or perhaps you were in Philadelphia in March 2004, Denver in March 2005, or Chicago in March 2006, at those years’ Association of American Geographers conferences? If you were at any of these events you might have been struck by the large number of panels and paper sessions that were organized on or around the theme of “neoliberalism.” The same could be said about the last few conferences of the Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers. Academics working on issues that, on first glance at least, seemed largely unconnected, such as the restructuring of the UK healthcare sector and the policies pursued in the name of “development” in South West Mexico, have suddenly found themselves part of a much larger conversation, one that some at least have found deeply problematic (Castree 2006). No one appears to have been immune. The great and the good, those gatekeepers of the discipline, faculty and postgraduates alike, have set about analyzing, dissecting, and unpacking the term, and what it might mean for their own area of expertise. Reflecting on her attendance at just such a panel at the 2003 AAG, Wendy Larner (2003: 509) asked, “what was this thing called neoliberalism that everyone was talking about?”

Uncomfortable with how the term was being used, she cautioned those working on its further explication to take care. She contended, referencing similar concerns voiced by Gibson-Graham (1996) over the conversations and discussions around the term “globalization,” that those who talked and wrote about neoliberalism risked naturalizing “it.” To avoid this, which was both intellectually and politically imperative, Larner (2003: 512) pleaded that those of us working on its excavation and refinement should “overcome the fear and hopelessness generated by monolithic accounts of the ‘neoliberal’ project.”

In areas such as cultural geography, development studies, political ecology, and urban political economy, between which there have not always been too many conversations in the past, suddenly there was common ground. Neoliberalism brought together those of us – and we include ourselves – working in apparently, at least on face value, different areas of the discipline. And, of course, reflective of the times in which we live and work, the dialogue over neoliberalism was transdisciplinary. It involved geographers engaging with work produced in cognate disciplines, such as anthropology, economics, gender studies, planning, political science, and sociology.

It was in this academic context that the two of us were thrown together. We met, for the first time, in May 2002, at a Worldwide Universities Network workshop on neoliberalism, organized by Jamie Peck of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Adam Tickell of the University of Bristol. This event took place against the backdrop of the quintessential English university town of Bristol, a setting that provided a fine context in which to mix academic and social performances. The workshop brought together a range of different types of geographers and geographies. The focus was on exploring the possibility that some of us might begin collaborating on understanding the different aspects of neoliberalism. We are not sure what else came out of this twoday event, but after jointly chairing a session, at the request of the organizers, we continued our dialogue for some months, and decided to organize a panel session at the 2003 AAG – one we guess that might have prompted Wendy Larner’s (2003) editorial! After this our conversations continued. At this time, much of the human geography work on neoliberalism that can now be seen had not yet appeared. We had to look outside the discipline for guidance, primarily to anthropologists, development economists, political scientists, and sociologists. Four of these guides – political scientist Mark Beeson, sociologist Wendy Larner, anthropologist Catherine Kingfisher, and anthropologist/planner Katharine Rankin – agreed to become involved in our book.

We met again in September 2003 at the annual conference of the RGSIBG, and confirmed a book plan and structure. We finally landed our contract with the Antipode Book Series at Blackwell in the autumn of 2004. Of course, since we began this academic conversation the work published, in human geography and beyond, on neoliberalism and neoliberalization has grown tremendously. It seems at times that it is almost impossible to pick up a copy of a geography journal without at least one article making reference to neoliberalism or neoliberalization. In addition to standalone pieces, there have also been a number of special editions of geography journals on aspects of neoliberalism, such as what it has meant to practicing development professionals (Bondi and Laurie 2005), for our understandings of nature and the environment (McCarthy and Prudham 2004), and for the state of economy and society in South and Latin America (Perreault and Martin 2005). This is in addition to the first systematic foray into analyzing neoliberalism geographically, where the emphasis was on urban and regional state formations in Western Europe and North America (Brenner and Theodore 2002a). At the same time, those working on unpacking neoliberalism from outside of human geography have continued to pursue a set of interrelated interests. A couple of examples will suffice. Political scientists and sociologists have explored neoliberalism in the context of other related debates, such as those over the path dependency of state for nations, economic and political growth trajectories, and the interrelationship between citizen, gender, governmentality, and power.

During the three months over which we wrote this preface, never mind the introduction and conclusions, as we passed versions between our two e-mail boxes, so we incorporated more into our arguments, and associated bibliographies. Of course, the growth of work on neoliberalism and neoliberalization, as it perhaps expands in a manner not too dissimilar to the processes that it seeks to explain, makes our job as editors both harder and easier: harder because we now have to engage with all the work that has been published in the past few years, from different theoretical standpoints, using different methods in different parts of the world. Not wishing to impose structure and coherence where none exist, nevertheless, summarizing the state of research in this rapidly expanding and diversifying field has proved a challenge. Easier, of course, because there is now more written on the subject, which means we have a richer set of work upon which to draw. There is, of course, also more disagreement over what is meant by the term “neoliberalism” and how best to conceptualize and to study “it,” if we can even think of “it” as an “it.” Is it a cultural, economic, political, or social formation, or all four? Is it a hegemonic project? Is it a set of governmental technologies? Or is it a set of experiments, without common objective, largely disconnected, and malleable in the extreme? Does it constitute less, more, or a new form of state regulation? Do those working out of the political economy tradition, who stress governance, or those working out of the governmentality tradition and drawing on the work of Foucault, offer the best way of analyzing neoliberalism? Or is some theoretical rapprochement between these two epistemologically, methodologically, and theoretically different approaches possible, and desirable? The contributing authors to this edited collection try, in their own ways, to address some of these issues, as well as dealing with other intellectual challenges they set themselves during the course of their own chapters. They do so from different theoretical vantage points, writing about different parts of the world, often using different methodologies to write about neoliberalism. For one of the referees of this collection this “difference” was a problem. For others, however, this “difference” was a positive feature of the proposal. Perhaps not surprisingly, we err on the side of the latter.

In the producing of the collection we have accrued some intellectual debts, and it is time to acknowledge these. Thank you to the four referees who commented on the collection proposal. Together with the authors we have done our best to attend to your concerns. Three of you gave the proposal the “thumbs up.” One of you didn’t. We hope that in reading the finished product we convinced three of you that you were right and one of you that you were wrong. Noel Castree, as the editor of the Antipode Book Series, and then of the journal itself, supported its conception and oversaw its delivery. At the same time he too was drawn to intervene, to set out his thinking on neoliberalism and neoliberalization. Throughout the writing of the book he has done what all good editors – and overworked academics – do: stayed out of the way. Thanks Noel! Jacqueline Scott at Blackwell did a great job of encouraging us to submit without applying too much pressure, so thanks to her and her colleagues, Angela Cohen and Arnette Abel, all of whom have been admirably thorough and patient throughout the production process. It was important to both of us to publish as part of the Antipode Book Series. As the home for radical geography, the journal has published a lot of the work by geographers on neoliberalism. It was our hope that this collection would continue this intellectual lineage, and that once published it would sit comfortably alongside other books recently produced on the subject. The authors are also due our thanks. All have been a joy to work with. They commented on each others’ chapters in a positive and engaging manner, making the production of this volume a truly collective endeavor. We hope they like the final product.

Closer to home, our debts largely lie with our respective family members. For Kim the thanks go to Mark and to her son Owen; for Kevin the thanks go to Colette and to his son Jack. All four in their own ways offered advice, encouragement, and support. And Kim’s parents, Mariel and Stan, provided excellent editing assistance. As feminist economist Nancy Folbre (2001: xii) comments, “the invisible hand of the market depends on the invisible heart of care.”

1

Introduction: Reading Neoliberalization

Kevin Ward and Kim England

Ideologically, the novelty of the present situation stands out in historical view. It can be put like this. For the first time since the Reformation there are no longer any significant oppositions – that is systematic rival outlooks – within the thought-world of the West; and scarcely any on a world scale either … What limitations persist to its practice, neo-liberalism as a set of principles rules undivided across the globe; the most successful ideology in world history (Anderson 2000a: 17).

The dilemma we all face as citizens is that, with few exceptions here and there … neo-liberalism has swallowed up the world in its clutches, with grave consequences for democracy and the physical environment that can be neither underestimated nor dismissed (Said 2000: 1).

There has everywhere been an emphatic turn towards neo-liberalism in political-economic practices and thinking since the 1970s (Harvey 2005: 2).

Perry Anderson, Edward Said, and David Harvey. Three of the most well-regarded social scientists of their generation. Each has written about the origins, rise, and consequences of neoliberalism for different parts of the world. Tying it into wider discussions of globalization, American Imperialism, imperial hegemony, and Empire, these three public standard bearers of the Left have each provided insightful accounts of the current phase of capitalism. Was this convergence by three eminent thinkers not enough to get most scholars (those for whom this book is the primary, but hopefully not the exclusive audience) interested in neoliberalism, then surely the changes under way around us should be. Rising inequalities of different types of capital – cultural, economic, environmental, social, and political – between as well within nations are frequently cited as tangible indicators of the imprint of neoliberalization. Wounds run deep and provide points of connection and alliances across space, across particular issues, even across perhaps otherwise disparate social groups, in ways that undermine the claims of those who remain committed to Margaret Thatcher’s famous assertion “there is no alternative” (TINA) (MacEwan 1999; Harvey 2005). Neoliberalism as a “radical-theoretical slogan” (Peck 2004: 403) might have its limits, but it does serve to unite. It offers a reference point, against which those who oppose it can define themselves, as Harvey (2006) has argued, for example as in the “another world is possible” maxim of the anti-capitalist-globalization movement, initially coined by the World Social Forum to capture its commitment to build alternatives to the free-market economics espoused by the World Economic Forum. As Susan George (2001: 4) put it (referring to Davos, Switzerland where the WEF meets annually): “ wants all the resources, all the wealth, all the power and all the freedom to extend his ascendancy across time and space” (see Beneria 1999, for a feminist analysis of the Davos man). Neoliberalism – in spirit if not in words – also binds together those with a stake in its continued reproduction. Government ministers, venture capitalists, the chief executives of multinationals, the largest owners of the media, the officials in international institutions: all are involved in practicing neoliberalization (Bourdieu 1998; Harvey 2006). The consequences of the actions of the “transnational capital class,” as Leslie Skair (2000) terms them, can be seen around the world: on the streets of the poorest cities of the global South, in the former coalmines of Eastern Europe, and in the Latin American rural villages decimated economically by the slump in the global price of coffee. And yet, it remains politically important to constantly draw attention to the links between those in positions of power and the inequalities witnessed in geographically dispersed yet socially interconnected areas of the world.