Nikita Dhawan - The Global and the Postcolonial:

Rethinking Gender and Politics in the Era of Globalization

power / globalization / constitution of political orders
1. laws of legitimacy of the state have opened up new forms of agency for the ci
vil/radical society
-> this is not necessarily a positive development.
We shouldn't be enthusiastic about his development:
Who are the subjects of resistance? Who are the victims?
under neoliberal ultra-globalization
democracy has changed into a hollow slogan.
'rule of experts' -> modern techno-politics
legitimacy is not insured by participation, but by supposed caring for the subje
cts wellbeing.
nation-states have been forced to accept globalization.
predictability of capital movements as a major goal!
inability and unwillingness of the states to focus on a majority of their popula
tions
'lofty ideals of human rights'
alterglobalization often focus on globalization of risks (Ulrich Beck)
INGOs are entitled to name and shame governments to make them behave well. (Riss
e)
--> erazes questions of sovereignity
street politics SEEMS to have transformed our view of social movements
transnational subaltern counter-publics enable priorly obliterated people. ( Nan
cy Fraser )
// Fraser argues for less struggles for recognition and more materialist struggl
es.
contra Fraser: these movements emerge from the crisis of representation within t
he traditional labor movements.
Unions have MISERABLY FAILED to represent informal labor.
/The unemployed cannot strike!
All these diverse movements display a new call for reality and materiality of th
e masses.
Bodily message of popular sovereignity (Butler + ?: Bodies on the street???)
Bodily politics: hunger strikes, self-immolations!
--> in the moment, the existence of the body is jeopardized, we cannot look away
.
despite these strong concepts 'bare life' etc. are Eurocentric!
Precarization only emerged (as a concept) when the social welfare state was dism
antled in the West.
--> in the non-Western world, this has already been the norm for decades.
only when the IMF reforms Greece, this is scandalized!
Even though there is 40% unemployment in Andalucia, it is still mostly undocumen
ted Moroccan workers who work in agriculture
--> disenfranchised groups can only unevenly access the counterpublics.
at the world social forum for women in Tunisia 2013: young woman was silenced wh
en she tried to speak up, possibly due to her head-scarf
transgender and queer people were silenced and harrassed on Tahrir square.
Turning Foucault upside down:
"Where there is resistance, there is power!"
Spivak: subalternity = exclusion from the public sphere
(Gramsci: exclusion from the state...)
well-known paradox: in the moment a subaltern (group) speaks up, they aren't sub
altern anymore! --> de-subalternization
--> Fraser's attempt to put together 'subaltern social spheres' has to fail.
Indignados are by no means subaltern.
The Indian farmer who commits suicide 'macht seine Interessen nicht geltend'
Against Beck:
We might face the same storm, but we do not sit in the same boat.
SO: WHAT ARE THE DANGERS OF STAGING A STATE-PHOBIC DISCOURSE OF CIVIL SOCIETY?
transnational counterpublics (like global feminism) have reenforced elitism.
(there is no global sisterhood!)
NGOs tend to reduce deprivileged people to victims
--> civil society instead of radical politics.
//// it seems as if the more radical politics is voiced by people who are alr
eady socially advantaged. how do we deal with this?
the state as a 'pharmakon': medicine and poison (Derrida)
example: rape incident in India, subsequent mass protests which were neither org
anized by a party nor by any NGOs.
--> Indian state was shamed (which was to be expected)
the Indian civil society organizations named four demands:
- death penalty
- castration
- CCTV in public spaces
- offender data base
within weeks, the government reacted and set up new laws. [it was then accused o
f merely reacting to popular demands]
important to note: 85% of the rape survivors are lowest class (dalit)
it was a middle class woman in the capital who incited protests.
the postcolonial states introduces techniques to govern that do not make them be
held accountable. (Foucault)
--> pepper spray sales etc.
--> women movements are in a dilemma: the state is a male entity, but should it
still be addressed?
Wendy Brown: 'waning sovereignty of the postcolonial, neoliberal state'
the state CREATES vulnerabilities, which cannot be undone by the civil society,
but only by the state!
the state is the only effective emancipator!
Foucault has tought us, that the essentialization of the State obliterates the v
ariation of states across the world.
/Foucault warns: statephobia is deeply inscribed into the neoliberal ideology as
well as in alterglobalization movements.
Following Foucault, civil society itself is a dispositif of the state.
--> this is not about reengineering the state, but about reconfiguring governmen
talities.
"how to make possible a state that is accountable for its actions and effects?"
counterhegemony is not the refusal to be governed, but the demand 'not to be gov
erned like that'
Aristotle: not everybody is fit to govern! But:democracy entails to put every ci
tizen in the position to govern, to make claims in the formality of law and inte
rest.
/this is not the 'nanny state'
Q&A:
Spivak: affirmative sabotage
HObsbawm: 'insurgencies of the present are sporadic and pre-political'
Who could be the political subject that Dhawan favors:
- violence is of course always gendered: women can only be violent towards thems
elves.
- Spivak does not only talk about the material, but also the mental possibility
for intervention.
the subaltern cannot even imagine the sense of accountability.
--> the subject constitution also has to be reconfigured.
- (nation-state) sovereignty is endangered by 'responsibility to protect' and ci
vil right circumvention of the nation-state (Risse's boomerang)
- peculiar relation of women to the state insofar as women can stylize themselve
s as 'victims' but face a paternalistic reaction by the state.
we need to rethink issues of vulnerability! Foucault: 'rape is just as a punch
in the face' highlights that we undertake a sorting out of certain parts of the
body.

LIMITS of vanguardism:
Reading of Lenin's vanguard theory.
How are we as intellectuals