Lars Salomonsson Christensen Anthropology of the Global Economy, Anna Hasselström Exam June 2009 C O N T E N T S :

Transcription

1 1 C O N T E N T S : Introduction... 2 Collier & Ong: Global assemblages... 3 Henrietta L. Moore: Concept-metaphors... 4 Trafficking as a global concept... 5 The Global as performative acts... 6 Conclusion... 7 Literature... 9

2 2 Introduction In this assignment I want to discuss two theoretical terms of viewing the Global: Collier & Ong s Global Assemblages and Henrietta L. Moore s concept-metaphors. The main idea of this paper, besides to introduce and discuss the two terms, is to critically discuss how we as anthropologists and other academic disciplines can study multiple and complex phenomenas as the global economy. How do we capture and understand global economy? How is the global economy represented? And not at least, how do we as anthropologists represent a study of the global economy? The discussion is inspired by Paul Rabinow and his Midst anthropology s problem. According to Rabinow the task of the analyst is to understand and describe phenomenas as the Global and not to explain or fix problems. With help from Foucault and his definition of problematization, Rabinow suggests that the analyst should investigate and understand how different reactions towards an object are made possible (Rabinow 2005: 43). That is why it s necessary for an analyst to separate between a first order observation, where the problem is pointed out, discussed, fixed, act upon, explained and so on, and then a second order observation where the analyst is focused on how the problem is handled who is saying what, doing what and why? (Rabinow 2005: 40-51). The reason why I include Rabinow in this paper is to situate my own position as an anthropologist and as a second order observer: As I later will argue, it is through observing the first order observations that it becomes possible to ask different questions that can help the anthropologist to map and understand complex concepts as the Global. In the first chapter I will introduce the terms global assemblages and concept-metaphors to discuss them up against each other: Where do they agree, where they differentiate from each other and where the overlaps are. In the following two chapters I will discuss global assemblages and concept-metaphor together with Johan Lindquist s article and lecture about trafficking: How is it possible to understand a global concept as trafficking through theoretical tools as global assemblages and concept-metaphors? In the last chapter I will include the term performativity from the American philosopher Judith Butler in my discussion after reading Carla Freeman s feminist perspective on the global in Is Local: Global as Feminine: Maculine? (2001) and Henrietta L. Moore s inclusion of crossing the sex/gender distinction in her article (Moore 2004: 73) According to Butler gender is not something we have but something we do : Gender is constant chains of processes - reproduced and

3 3 constituted by acts, practices and speeches within discourses (Butler 1990: 25). Would it be possible to expand the discussion of concept-metaphors and global assemblages with a feminist position as Butler s performativity to suggest that the global is something we act and do, just as gender? Which questions would then be possible to ask if we think the global constituted as acts, practices, speech/language, and processes? In the last chapter I will discuss how we can use performativity to study trafficking as a global concept in the frames of the exhibition trafficking at Etnografiska Museet. But let s start with discussing the two main characters of this assignment: The global assemblages and the concept-metaphors. Collier & Ong: Global assemblages Collier & Ong raise the questions of how we can study complex, abstract, mobile, transformable, dynamic phenomenas as techoscience, ethics and governmentality in a global context? How is the Global formed? To explorer global phenomenas Collier & Ong introduce the concept of global assemblages. Global assemblages are a theoretical tool to look at how these phenomenas is produced as a hybrid: It involves multiple entities coming together, emerging and situated as a specific heterogeneous, partial and unstable product. Global assemblages cannot be reduced to its involved parts or reduced to a single logic (Collier & Ong 2005: 12+13), just as the global assemblages implies both human and non-human actors in the emerging of new materials and discursive relations (Collier & Ong 2005: 17). Another important perspective of Collier & Ong is their critique of the epochal telling of the Global, as the macro stories or what they call the grand diagnoses (Collier & Ong 2005: 17). Instead they want another approach, where it s the relations and practises in the shifts of moral, ethical and political discourses and activities which are central objects for the studies. It s in the micro stories, small relations and mutations the global assemblages constantly are being formed (Collier & Ong 2005: 17). With Rabinow in mind, you could say, they are positioned as second order observers interested in how the first order observations is performed. Global assemblages is a complex, abstract theoretical term but as I will discuss later on, human trafficking can be studied as an example of a global assemblage produced through a mix of different actors, both humans and non-humans.

4 4 Henrietta L. Moore: Concept-metaphors Henrietta L. Moore is interested in how anthropologists can approach the Global and she argues that even though we can never truly or exactly explain and understand globalization it is possible to reach out for representations of the Global through the shared ideas, experiences, concepts, language and discourses we have of globalization. For this purpose Moore introduces the conceptmetaphors which, as the global assemblages, is a theoretical tool to understand and study multiple and hybrid phenomenas as the Global. Moore explains concept-metaphors as shared spaces, not only as theoretical abstractions, but also as a set of practices, processes and representations. Just as the global assemblages include both human and non-human actors, Moore underlines that conceptmetaphors is not purely academic theory but they also include non-academic practices and actors (Moore 2004: 74) the Global includes a whole range of different experts as we all seems to have an idea of what it is. Her main concern is how the anthropologist can avoid the distinction between the local and the global. In this context she includes the feminist writing about how the sex/gender distinction should be crossed and how this discussion has opened up for new ways to debate and negotiate gender. In the same way Moore wants to cross the distinction between local and global to open up for new ways to study how the global as a concept-metaphor is produced (Moore 2004: 74). Moore argues, it s the relations between them which are important how the production of the global is the production of everyday life (Moore 2004: 78). Just as Collier & Ong, Moore is positioned as a second order observer, as they both discuss the processes on how the Global is produced as shared spaces and flows of knowledge, experiences, relations, strategies, arguments, data and representations. They both agree on that even though we can t point out the Global, it s an experienced reality and a concept recognized by the involved actors, individuals and groups. Where Moore is interested in how the Global is produced in the relations between the everyday life and the discourses about the Global in a historical context, Collier & Ong seems more interested in the appearance of the new socio-materials and discursive relations as a dialectic production. Now where the theoretical discussion of the global assemblages and the concept-metaphors is framed, let s see how we can use the theoretical terms to view trafficking as a global concept.

5 5 Trafficking as a global concept Anthropologist Johan Lindquist write about how trafficking is constituted as a market, how it is represented in the public and how the agenda of trafficking is created as the global war against trafficking (Lindquist: 7). His main interest for his study is the NGO industry and how they represent trafficking and prostitution on the island Batam through technologies as the documentary film to create evidence and testimonial basis for the problems of trafficking and the NGO s own work to fight it (Lindquist: 14). My point with including Lindquist is to use his work as an example of what it means to look at phenomenas as trafficking as a global assemblage or concept-metaphor. First of all we see that Lindquist s work is based on second order observations: His main concern is how trafficking is produced as a global problem within a transnational system of NGO s, governments, film industry, and activists. Lindquist is not interested in producing knowledge about the people being trafficked, but he is instead focused on how the concept of trafficking is produced through technologies, knowledge, power relations and financial resources (Lindquist: 7). Just as Moore s conceptmetaphor Lindquist highlights the discursive practices in which the war against trafficking is created within and how the public demand of evidence is produced such as the documentary film. Lindquist s platform for his study is the everyday life of the prostitutes in Batam and the present of the NGO s work with the women and children. But through the NGO s work and the documentary films the prostitution on Batam is shaped as a global problem in a broader transnational interest (Lindquist: 9). So it s the relations between a local site as Batam and the transnational systems of NGO s, activists, health care, laws, knowledge production and film industry that is producing trafficking as a global concept-metaphor. Besides the technologies trafficking is also formed as a kind of market or what we could call a global assemblage. If we look at trafficking as a global assemblage there are especially two aspects of trafficking that is worth to consider. The first one is how technologies as the film industry takes part of producing trafficking as a global issue not only the documentary films but also main stream commercial films is distributing the concept of trafficking and anti-trafficking campaigns transnational. Another part is the moral issues involved. As Lindquist argues, the concept of trafficking and the fight against it are within a global discourse of morals and politics in how the prostitutes on Batam are represented as victims exploited by criminal networks. Many of the NGO s

6 6 dealing with trafficking are Christian organisations, so Lindquist is asking which agenda lies behind the anti-trafficking campaigns (Lindquist: 23). Also the socio-materials are taking part of trafficking as a global assemblage. As I mentioned technologies as films are part of producing the concept of trafficking, but also financial resources and money, the campaign materials from the NGOs knowledge production such as posters, fliers and websites and the healthcare materials as safe sex-information, condoms and HIV-tests are all materials, representations and artefacts parts of the production of trafficking. How can the term performativity contribute to the discussion of studying the Global? The Global as performative acts Carla Freeman asks if the Global has a gender, since the local is recognized as being feminine and the global as masculine. Just as Moore Freeman is questioning the distinction between local and global and she underlines that the knowledge produced about the Global is often gendered as masculine. She wants to rethink the relations between the local and the global and challenge the space of the Global as all masculine dominance (Freeman 2001: 1012). Inspired by feminist theory she uses the Caribbean higgler as an intersectional and transnational figure crossing class and race to make local (women) actors visible and include them and their acts in global practices (Freeman 2001: 1032). So according to Freeman the Global is formed in how we think of it as gendered and there is a link between gender and the Global. Are gender and the Global constituted in the same processes? In 1990 the American philosopher Judith Butler introduced the term performativity and how gender is performed through discursive practices and acts. This includes not only how we do gender through language, but also how materials and knowledge are discursive producing gender. Gender is treated as something essential and natural, regulating through normative concepts of rights and wrongs, natural and unnatural (Butler 1990: 33). In Bodies that Matter Butler develops performativity and, inspired by Foucault, she argues that both the biological sex just as gender is performed through knowledge about our body produced by science and academia (Butler 1993: 2). So knowledge production is a central issue for Butler. How can we use performativity in the concept of trafficking?

7 7 As an example I will look on how trafficking is performed as a global concept in the frames of the exhibition about trafficking in Etnografiska Museet. The main goal of the exhibition was to present how trafficking is a global problem: that trafficking is not just something that involve poor people in development countries but it is also something related to Sweden and affects the social life. A big part of the exhibition was based on knowledge from the NGO s: Who are the victims of trafficking, where are they from, how are they trafficked and how can they be helped? It is in this knowledge production trafficking is performed and enacted, produced within a codex of moral and through normative regulations, as Butler argues (Butler 1990: 129). The tour guide of the exhibition is also part of the performative act of trafficking: In her speech and through her story telling of the persons involved in trafficking the concept is constituted and reproduced as narratives. As it was a museum the exhibitions contained a lot of socio-materials and artefacts, which also tell stories: The police rapport about the illegal immigrants from China and their belongings, letters from prostitutes, jewelleries used as trade for people, representations as art, websites news paper and films. The exhibition also used dramatic effects as barb wire and lights to tell stories, switching from local micro stories (like the images of local brothels in Stockholm and Götheborg) to the transnational mobility of trafficking as it was illustrated with the world map with red lines crossing all over. And not at least the important question: how is gender performed in the exhibition? For example women as victims and the invisible male prostitutes. Conclusion What I wanted in this paper was to discuss how we can use theoretical terms as global assemblages and concept-metaphors to study abstract, complex and multiple concepts as the Global. Both the global assemblages and the concept-metaphors can highlight the multiple in the concept of the Global and that phenomenas like the Global emerge when something is coming together. This means both human and non-human actors: socio-materials, knowledge, technologies, ethics, politics and other discursive practices. The point was to discuss how the anthropologist can use the terms to understand global processes and use it as a tool to capture global processes. Together with performativity the advantage of global assemblages and concept-metaphors is to open up for spaces where the anthropologist can study relations within global concepts: The anthropologist can observe how people act, record what they re saying, read what they write, and all together make it possible

8 8 to understand how global concepts works. To include a term as performativity was an attempt to raise new questions which can be asked in the discussion of the Global. Performativity questions stabile and essential categories from a feminist position and reveals invisible power relations and discrimination structures as gender inequality, racism and homophobia constructed within the Global and how the production of the Global and the production of gender intervene and intersect with each other. In performativity lies a critique of what we think as being normal or natural a tool which can be used to critique normative statements as the nature of the Global market or as we have seen it in Carla Freeman s article that local is feminine and global is masculine. Performativity also agree in the importance of escaping the distinction between the local and the global: As Moore underlines, the anthropologist may not locate the Global: But the production of the global is the production of everyday life and that is possible for an anthropologist to study.

9 9 Literature: Butler, Judith: Gender Trouble. First audition, Routledge, 1990 Butler, Judith: Bodies that Matter. On the Discursive Limits of Sex. London, New York Routledge Collier, S. J. and A. Ong Global Assemblages, Anthropological Problems. Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Ong, Aihwa and Collier, Stephen J. (eds) Malden, MA.: Blackwell Publishing. Freeman, Carla Is Local:Global as Feminine:Masculine? Rethinking the gender of Globalization. In Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society vol. 26(4) pp Lindquist, J. Under review. Images and Evidence: Human Trafficking, Auditing, and the Production of Illicit Markets in Southeast Asia and beyond. Without year. Moore, Henrietta L Global Anxieties: Concept-Metaphors and Pre-Theoretical Commitments in Anthropology. In Anthropological Theory, vol 4(1), pp Rabinow. P Midst Anthropology s Problem. Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Ong, Aihwa and Collier, Stephen J. (eds) Malden, MA.: Blackwell Publishing. Exhibition: Trafficking, Etnografiska Museet. 19th May (