Neoliberalism as Exception

Ong Aihwa Ong

Description

Neoliberalism is commonly viewed as an economic doctrine that seeks to limit the scope of government. Some consider it a form of predatory capitalism with adverse effects on the Global South. In this groundbreaking work, Aihwa Ong offers an alternative view of neoliberalism as an extraordinarily malleable technology of governing that is taken up in different ways by different regimes, be they authoritarian, democratic, or communist. Ong shows how East and Southeast Asian states are making exceptions to their usual practices of governing in order to position themselves to compete in the global economy. As she demonstrates, a variety of neoliberal strategies of governing are re-engineering political spaces and populations. Ong's ethnographic case studies illuminate experiments and developments such as China's creation of special market zones within its socialist economy; pro-capitalist Islam and women's rights in Malaysia; Singapore's repositioning as a hub of scientific expertise; and flexible labor and knowledge regimes that span the Pacific.Ong traces how these and other neoliberal exceptions to business as usual are reconfiguring relationships between governing and the governed, power and knowledge, and sovereignty and territoriality. She argues that an interactive mode of citizenship is emerging, one that organizes people-and distributes rights and benefits to them-according to their marketable skills rather than according to their membership within nation-states. Those whose knowledge and skills are not assigned significant market value-such as migrant women working as domestic maids in many Asian cities-are denied citizenship. Nevertheless, Ong suggests that as the seam between sovereignty and citizenship is pried apart, a new space is emerging for NGOs to advocate for the human rights of those excluded by neoliberal measures of human worthiness.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Social theory
• Cultural studies
• Biological anthropology

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 19 juillet 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822387879
• Langue: English

Extrait

n eoliberalism

as e xception

.

n eoliberalism

as e xception

mutations in citizenship

andsovereignty

Aihwa Ong

duke university press

Durham and London

2006

∫2006 Duke University Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of

Americaonacid-freepaper$

DesignedbyAmyRuthBuchanan

Typeset in Carter & Cone Galliard

by Keystone Typesetting, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-

Publication Data and republication

acknowledgmentsappearonthelast

printed pages of this book.

To

alan dundes,

dear friend

and colleague

Acknowledgments ix

.

c ontents

Introduction: Neoliberalism as Exception, Exception to Neoliberalism 1

I.Ethics in Contention

1. Sisterly Solidarity: Feminist Virtue under ‘‘Moderate Islam’’ 31 2. Cyberpublics and the Pitfalls of Diasporic Chinese Politics 53

II.Spaces of Governing

3. Graduated Sovereignty 75 4. Zoning Technologies in East Asia 97

III.Circuits of Expertise

5. Latitudes, or How Markets Stretch the Bounds of Governmentality 121 6. Higher Learning in Global Space 139 7. Labor Arbitrage: Displacements and Betrayals in Silicon Valley 157

IV.The Edge of Emergence

8. Baroque Ecology, E√ervescent Citizenship 177 9. A Biocartography: Maids, Neoslavery, andngos 195 10. Reengineering the ‘‘Chinese Soul’’ in Shanghai? 219

Notes 241 Bibliography 261 Index 279

.

a c k n o wl e d g m e n t s

The essays gathered in this volume have been part of an ongoing reflection on what might be called an anthropology of the global. My aim has been to pose big questions through an ethnographic investigation of the lines of mutation that shape diverse situations of contemporary living. I thank the many indi- viduals and interdisciplinary programs that invited me to speak or to submit papers on these themes. Their enthusiasm and interest have stimulated me to revise work in progress and to pursue new lines of thinking. Some of the friends whose help, comments, and conversations have benefited me include Stephen J. Collier, Ching Kwan Lee, Ryan Bishop, Lisa Ho√man, Jesse San- ford, Dar Rudnyckyj, Donald Nonini, Andrew Ross, and Ken Wissoker. I also thank Shannon May for her suggestions and skillful editing. Part of the work was funded by a MacArthur Foundation grant to undertake research on risk and (in)security in Asian cities. As always, my husband, Robert R. Ng, provided a nice balance of sup- port and detachment, conditions that freed me to write in the midst of a busy family life.