This timely and far-reaching book addresses the long-term impact of the recent global economic cr... more This timely and far-reaching book addresses the long-term impact of the recent global economic crisis. New light is shed on the crisis and its historical roots, and resolutions for a more robust, resilient future socio-economic model are prescribed.
This article examines the emergence since 2011 of the 'Diaosi' (loser) identity among Chinese sec... more This article examines the emergence since 2011 of the 'Diaosi' (loser) identity among Chinese second generation migrant workers. This subjective identification of a new social category with little hope can be contrasted with the hopeful policy constructions of a strong China eager to promote the civilizing 'suzhi' (population quality) of its population nationally and internationally. Yet, as this article shows, in four steps, these phenomena are intertwined. First, it locates the emergence of this 'Diaosi' subject in the global and national dialectics of hope in China since the global financial crisis. In brief, while transnational policy and business actors constructed emerging markets, especially China, as objects of hope and sources of demand, the Chinese party-state had been hoping, since the 1990s, to build national strength and improve the sushi (quality) of its population. It was in this conjuncture that the Diaosi subject emerged. Second, drawing on neo-Foucauldian and neo-Gramscian scholarship, Diaosi marginality is related to the interaction among global capitalist production, the socialist market economy, continuous state domination via a household registration system (hukou), and the civilizing discourse of 'suzhi'. Focusing on the suzhi-hukou discourses and practices, it examines this ensemble as a biopolitical population management system that devalues migrant workers' lives and labour-power, obliging migrant workers to live and work in marginal conditions. A recent expression of this marginality is the making of the Diaosi subject position. Third, it shows how the Diaosi embody their multiplex loser identity and marginality affectively and expressively in their everyday demeanour. This signification system is characterized by a fragmented and 'contradictory consciousness' that combines resistance and resignation. Fourth, it examines recent efforts by state/corporate capital and the party-state to re-make and re-hegemonize Diaosi life in the name of consumption, civility and social stability. The article ends with remarks on the potential of (neo-)Gramscian insights on subalternity and subalterns for examining the complexities of marginal social categories such as the Diaosi and their embodiment of contradictory consciousness as well as the passive revolution and (re-)hegemonization that are involved.
Sum, N.-L.(2008) Rethinking Globalisation: Re-Articulating the Spatial Scale and Temporal Horizon... more Sum, N.-L.(2008) Rethinking Globalisation: Re-Articulating the Spatial Scale and Temporal Horizons of Trans-Border Spaces, in State/Space: A Reader (eds N. Brenner, B. Jessop, M. Jones and G. MacLeod), Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, USA. doi: 10.1002/ ...
The global system has seen sweeping changes in recent years and this has precipitated a revival o... more The global system has seen sweeping changes in recent years and this has precipitated a revival of interest in the relationship between Europe and Asia. This book examines the extent and nature of the regional linkages between East Asia and the European Union. Issues discussed include: the reactions and approaches of both regions to the Asian Crisis; postcolonialism and the balance of power in Europe-Asia Relations; trade relations between Europe and Asia and the revival of the Silk Road; and the development of the role of Asia-Europe Meetings.
One widely held view of globalization equates it with the Americanization of world society or, at... more One widely held view of globalization equates it with the Americanization of world society or, at least, with the re-making of the world according to the prescriptions of the neo-liberal ‘Washington Consensus’. In this chapter I present a two-pronged critique of this view. It focuses on internal divisions in the American camp over the remaking of geo-economic and geo-political relations; and it also emphasizes the way in which this division is being appropriated across borders to construct new regional identities and interests. One way to tackle this would be to examine the role of regional organizations, such as APEC, in remapping regional identities, such as the ‘Asian-Pacific’ (see, for example, Higgott 1997). But this chapter considers the dialectic of globalization-regionalization through a study of the evolution of tradecompetitiveness-development discourses in the US and Japan since the 1980s. This approach reveals a complex remaking of trans-border identities at the regional and national, as well as firm, levels. A key role here is played by the positing of different types of ‘other’ in and through three ‘new kinds of orientalism’.
This article adopts a discursive-cum-material approach to China's new 'One Belt One Road' (OBOR) ... more This article adopts a discursive-cum-material approach to China's new 'One Belt One Road' (OBOR) geostrategic imaginary and its development through the intertwining of geopolitics and geoeconomics of hopes and fears. It first contextualizes this development after the 2008 financial crisis when China promoted a vast stimulus package that inflated existing property and infrastructure bubbles and fuelled another in finance. Resulting debates over crisis management enabled an incoming President Xi to articulate a set of hope-based discourses that came to include 'China Dream', 'new normal', and OBOR. Familiar cartographic statecraft techniques and novel spatial metaphors were used to promote OBOR's allegedly 'win-win' strategy discursively. The OBOR imaginary was translated materially, and importantly, into policies that promoted a grand trans-regional 'spatial fix' to postpone China's over-accumulation crises. This strategy is consolidating a China-oriented infrastructural mode of growth in production, financial and security. As this absorbs ever more productive and financial capital, we see the emergence of contradictions, antagonisms, and conflicts, especially in the use of bilateral loan-debt contractuality to appropriate strategic infrastructure. The article concludes with a call for an affective turn examining the intertwining of geoeconomics and geopolitics in the analysis of trans-regional spatial fixes.
A cultural political economy (CPE) approach is adopted to examine the rise of discourses about th... more A cultural political economy (CPE) approach is adopted to examine the rise of discourses about the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies and about their implications for power shifts in the world system. Forces such as international investment banks, economic strategists, international organizations, national governments, business media, etc. contributed in constructing and circulating ‘BRIC’ as a new economic imaginary and investment form. These involved constructions of ‘hope’ and ‘strength’ over three overlapping stages: an investor story, an investor-consumer story, and now an investor-consumer-lender story. This amalgam of discourses and practices (which are subject to continuing renegotiation in response to changing circumstances and further shifts in the balance of forces) has facilitated the gradual sedimentation and naturalization of BRIC as a potential ‘group’ and has mediated particular power shifts in the global political economy. Specifically, this (trans-)national privileging and popularization of ‘BRIC’ is contributing to the (re-)making of investment patterns and neoliberal social relations.
This book review argues that Sum and Jessop's Towards a Cultural Political Economy presents a... more This book review argues that Sum and Jessop's Towards a Cultural Political Economy presents a challenging and rewarding prospectus for cultural political economy, offering a highly comprehensive theoretical positioning of their project in relation to their own previous work and other existing scholarship on the interconnections between culture and political economy. The review also suggests that the book's brief case studies indicate directions that future work in cultural political economy might most beneficially explore and develop.
This timely and far-reaching book addresses the long-term impact of the recent global economic cr... more This timely and far-reaching book addresses the long-term impact of the recent global economic crisis. New light is shed on the crisis and its historical roots, and resolutions for a more robust, resilient future socio-economic model are prescribed.
This article examines the emergence since 2011 of the 'Diaosi' (loser) identity among Chinese sec... more This article examines the emergence since 2011 of the 'Diaosi' (loser) identity among Chinese second generation migrant workers. This subjective identification of a new social category with little hope can be contrasted with the hopeful policy constructions of a strong China eager to promote the civilizing 'suzhi' (population quality) of its population nationally and internationally. Yet, as this article shows, in four steps, these phenomena are intertwined. First, it locates the emergence of this 'Diaosi' subject in the global and national dialectics of hope in China since the global financial crisis. In brief, while transnational policy and business actors constructed emerging markets, especially China, as objects of hope and sources of demand, the Chinese party-state had been hoping, since the 1990s, to build national strength and improve the sushi (quality) of its population. It was in this conjuncture that the Diaosi subject emerged. Second, drawing on neo-Foucauldian and neo-Gramscian scholarship, Diaosi marginality is related to the interaction among global capitalist production, the socialist market economy, continuous state domination via a household registration system (hukou), and the civilizing discourse of 'suzhi'. Focusing on the suzhi-hukou discourses and practices, it examines this ensemble as a biopolitical population management system that devalues migrant workers' lives and labour-power, obliging migrant workers to live and work in marginal conditions. A recent expression of this marginality is the making of the Diaosi subject position. Third, it shows how the Diaosi embody their multiplex loser identity and marginality affectively and expressively in their everyday demeanour. This signification system is characterized by a fragmented and 'contradictory consciousness' that combines resistance and resignation. Fourth, it examines recent efforts by state/corporate capital and the party-state to re-make and re-hegemonize Diaosi life in the name of consumption, civility and social stability. The article ends with remarks on the potential of (neo-)Gramscian insights on subalternity and subalterns for examining the complexities of marginal social categories such as the Diaosi and their embodiment of contradictory consciousness as well as the passive revolution and (re-)hegemonization that are involved.
Sum, N.-L.(2008) Rethinking Globalisation: Re-Articulating the Spatial Scale and Temporal Horizon... more Sum, N.-L.(2008) Rethinking Globalisation: Re-Articulating the Spatial Scale and Temporal Horizons of Trans-Border Spaces, in State/Space: A Reader (eds N. Brenner, B. Jessop, M. Jones and G. MacLeod), Blackwell Publishing, Malden, MA, USA. doi: 10.1002/ ...
The global system has seen sweeping changes in recent years and this has precipitated a revival o... more The global system has seen sweeping changes in recent years and this has precipitated a revival of interest in the relationship between Europe and Asia. This book examines the extent and nature of the regional linkages between East Asia and the European Union. Issues discussed include: the reactions and approaches of both regions to the Asian Crisis; postcolonialism and the balance of power in Europe-Asia Relations; trade relations between Europe and Asia and the revival of the Silk Road; and the development of the role of Asia-Europe Meetings.
One widely held view of globalization equates it with the Americanization of world society or, at... more One widely held view of globalization equates it with the Americanization of world society or, at least, with the re-making of the world according to the prescriptions of the neo-liberal ‘Washington Consensus’. In this chapter I present a two-pronged critique of this view. It focuses on internal divisions in the American camp over the remaking of geo-economic and geo-political relations; and it also emphasizes the way in which this division is being appropriated across borders to construct new regional identities and interests. One way to tackle this would be to examine the role of regional organizations, such as APEC, in remapping regional identities, such as the ‘Asian-Pacific’ (see, for example, Higgott 1997). But this chapter considers the dialectic of globalization-regionalization through a study of the evolution of tradecompetitiveness-development discourses in the US and Japan since the 1980s. This approach reveals a complex remaking of trans-border identities at the regional and national, as well as firm, levels. A key role here is played by the positing of different types of ‘other’ in and through three ‘new kinds of orientalism’.
This article adopts a discursive-cum-material approach to China's new 'One Belt One Road' (OBOR) ... more This article adopts a discursive-cum-material approach to China's new 'One Belt One Road' (OBOR) geostrategic imaginary and its development through the intertwining of geopolitics and geoeconomics of hopes and fears. It first contextualizes this development after the 2008 financial crisis when China promoted a vast stimulus package that inflated existing property and infrastructure bubbles and fuelled another in finance. Resulting debates over crisis management enabled an incoming President Xi to articulate a set of hope-based discourses that came to include 'China Dream', 'new normal', and OBOR. Familiar cartographic statecraft techniques and novel spatial metaphors were used to promote OBOR's allegedly 'win-win' strategy discursively. The OBOR imaginary was translated materially, and importantly, into policies that promoted a grand trans-regional 'spatial fix' to postpone China's over-accumulation crises. This strategy is consolidating a China-oriented infrastructural mode of growth in production, financial and security. As this absorbs ever more productive and financial capital, we see the emergence of contradictions, antagonisms, and conflicts, especially in the use of bilateral loan-debt contractuality to appropriate strategic infrastructure. The article concludes with a call for an affective turn examining the intertwining of geoeconomics and geopolitics in the analysis of trans-regional spatial fixes.
A cultural political economy (CPE) approach is adopted to examine the rise of discourses about th... more A cultural political economy (CPE) approach is adopted to examine the rise of discourses about the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) economies and about their implications for power shifts in the world system. Forces such as international investment banks, economic strategists, international organizations, national governments, business media, etc. contributed in constructing and circulating ‘BRIC’ as a new economic imaginary and investment form. These involved constructions of ‘hope’ and ‘strength’ over three overlapping stages: an investor story, an investor-consumer story, and now an investor-consumer-lender story. This amalgam of discourses and practices (which are subject to continuing renegotiation in response to changing circumstances and further shifts in the balance of forces) has facilitated the gradual sedimentation and naturalization of BRIC as a potential ‘group’ and has mediated particular power shifts in the global political economy. Specifically, this (trans-)national privileging and popularization of ‘BRIC’ is contributing to the (re-)making of investment patterns and neoliberal social relations.
This book review argues that Sum and Jessop's Towards a Cultural Political Economy presents a... more This book review argues that Sum and Jessop's Towards a Cultural Political Economy presents a challenging and rewarding prospectus for cultural political economy, offering a highly comprehensive theoretical positioning of their project in relation to their own previous work and other existing scholarship on the interconnections between culture and political economy. The review also suggests that the book's brief case studies indicate directions that future work in cultural political economy might most beneficially explore and develop.
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Papers by Ngai-Ling Sum