Labor and Social Change in Neoliberal Times

Presentation Location

Governors I

Document Type

Event

Start Date

8-4-2022 2:00 PM

End Date

8-4-2022 3:30 PM

Description

  • James Daria, Session Chair
  • Maya Wilson (Georgia State University). More Money Less Problems? Police Officers Surviving Wage Labor and its Challenge to American Police Reform.
    As political and social unrest continues to sensationalize police reform, the future of the American criminal justice apparatus is unclear. As reform policies are aging, accountability of the judicial system waning, and the poverty line rising, current American police reform is not informed by knowledge of the police job/occupation and the people who take on this role. A set of negative representations of police have gained popularity within American mainstream culture and are used in police reform decision-making. These representations are also apparent within anthropological research that tends to not offer outside perspectives. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan area on a local police organization within a socioeconomically affluent city, I argue a differing perspective on the newer generations of officers and the realities of working towards the American Dream. This paper suggests that the current pool of patrol officers are the forgotten generation of adolescents who witnessed the crack epidemic and the culture that emerged from it, were exposed to police militarization, and served the country in the longest recorded war of American history. These experiences shaped their beliefs and drove their passions to be conduits for the future of American policing. Challenging their pursuits of policing as a career, salary competitiveness, or lack thereof is funneling these officers to affluent cities, back to the military, and into private consulting roles within the criminal justice apparatus. By exploring how wage labor impacts these officers' lives, we can begin addressing the future of American policing. Key words: policing, racialization, neoliberalism, professionalization.
  • Matt Samson (Davidson College). On Ethnography as Accompaniment: Conversations at the Margins of Religion and Public Anthropology in Mesoamerica
    Based on ethnographic research on religious change and ethnicity in Central America and Mexico for nearly three decades, the notion of “accompaniment” provides a reflexive standpoint for considering how anthropologists engage with diverse publics in Mesoamerica and the United States. The analysis centers on recent experiences as part of a team producing a study document on Central America for a religious audience in the United States and preliminary fieldwork with a small Protestant denomination in El Salvador seeking to expand a development model that might support the “arraigo” (rootedness) of youth in their home communities, thereby decreasing the desire to emigrate and avoiding some of the life and death issues faced with making that choice. The ethnography considers how religion can serve as a vehicle for confronting social and environmental justice concerns in specific places while simultaneously providing space for Mesoamerican voices to be heard by broader publics, particularly in regard to issues such as immigration and “development.” The research indicates the strength of multivocalic approaches, including the need to include indigenous spiritualities and worldviews, in the ongoing analysis of religious pluralism in Mesoamerica. Key words: accompaniment, ethnography, religious change, multivocality, Mesoamerica.
  • Mandy Muise (Davidson College) International Conservationism as the New Neocolonialism: Pluriversal Politics and Amerindian Participation in Guyana’s REDD+ Agreement.
    International environmental conservation agreements, such as the 2009 Guyana-Norway REDD+ agreement, are endeavors that exchange financial capital for environmental protection through virtual carbon credit trading. This paper draws upon theories of cosmopolitical potentialities as a means of critically analyzing the Guyana-Norway agreement, arguing that although the specifics of the REDD+ agreement are framed as equitable and unanimous, the historic and contemporary status of the two nations mark REDD+ as an inherently exploitative agreement. Although claiming to be participatory and collaborative, the REDD+ agreement preys upon Guyana’s colonially situated economic dependence and restricts land access, keeping Amerindian populations in a place of subjugation. Through limitations upon Amerindian use of land, already vulnerable populations are restricted from economically productive activities such as logging, mining, and other extractive industries. In this paper, I will push back against the argument of environmental necessity that supports the presence of the REDD+ agreement in favor of a perspective that centers Amerindian rights to political participation and community self-determination. Furthermore, I propose that the Guyana-Norway agreement, due to its foundations in a wholly Western rationality, eliminates any possibility of equitable political participation for Guyanese Amerindian groups. As an alternative, I argue for a cosmopolitics centered around pluriversality, incommensurability, and mutual difference that recognizes the agency and ability of Guyanan Amerindians in unrestricted land usage, conservation, and environmental innovation. Through this de-centering of Western rationality, I argue that cosmopolitics provides economically and politically viable solutions for conservation agreements by encouraging meaningful political participation across ethnic and racial divides in Guyana. Key words: cosmopolitics, Amerindian rights, international conservationism, neocolonialism.
  • James Daria (Georgia College and State University). The Coloniality of Labor: Migrant Farmworkers, Modern Slavery, and the Global Agro-Export Industry.
    In 2021, a modern slavery ring was discovered in the onion industry in southern Georgia. Dozens of Mexican and Central American migrant farmworkers were held in conditions of forced labor - some at gun point. Two workers died of the conditions. While agricultural workers suffer conditions of “modern slavery” in global food chains, agricultural corporations reap enormous profits. What is the relationship between our modern, global food system and the continuation of modern slavery? Who ends up in conditions of extreme exploitation in the agricultural workforce around the world? Aníbal Quijano’s elucidation of the modern/colonial word system, and its often-overlooked concept of the coloniality of labor, helps us elucidate the connections between race, labor, and global hierarchies. Drawing from ethnographic research with indigenous migrant farmworkers on both sides of the US-Mexican border, I argue that the coloniality of labor is an important analytical tool for understanding the violence of global capitalism today as much as it was at its inception five hundred years ago.

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Apr 8th, 2:00 PM Apr 8th, 3:30 PM

Labor and Social Change in Neoliberal Times

Governors I

  • James Daria, Session Chair
  • Maya Wilson (Georgia State University). More Money Less Problems? Police Officers Surviving Wage Labor and its Challenge to American Police Reform.
    As political and social unrest continues to sensationalize police reform, the future of the American criminal justice apparatus is unclear. As reform policies are aging, accountability of the judicial system waning, and the poverty line rising, current American police reform is not informed by knowledge of the police job/occupation and the people who take on this role. A set of negative representations of police have gained popularity within American mainstream culture and are used in police reform decision-making. These representations are also apparent within anthropological research that tends to not offer outside perspectives. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in the Atlanta, Georgia, metropolitan area on a local police organization within a socioeconomically affluent city, I argue a differing perspective on the newer generations of officers and the realities of working towards the American Dream. This paper suggests that the current pool of patrol officers are the forgotten generation of adolescents who witnessed the crack epidemic and the culture that emerged from it, were exposed to police militarization, and served the country in the longest recorded war of American history. These experiences shaped their beliefs and drove their passions to be conduits for the future of American policing. Challenging their pursuits of policing as a career, salary competitiveness, or lack thereof is funneling these officers to affluent cities, back to the military, and into private consulting roles within the criminal justice apparatus. By exploring how wage labor impacts these officers' lives, we can begin addressing the future of American policing. Key words: policing, racialization, neoliberalism, professionalization.
  • Matt Samson (Davidson College). On Ethnography as Accompaniment: Conversations at the Margins of Religion and Public Anthropology in Mesoamerica
    Based on ethnographic research on religious change and ethnicity in Central America and Mexico for nearly three decades, the notion of “accompaniment” provides a reflexive standpoint for considering how anthropologists engage with diverse publics in Mesoamerica and the United States. The analysis centers on recent experiences as part of a team producing a study document on Central America for a religious audience in the United States and preliminary fieldwork with a small Protestant denomination in El Salvador seeking to expand a development model that might support the “arraigo” (rootedness) of youth in their home communities, thereby decreasing the desire to emigrate and avoiding some of the life and death issues faced with making that choice. The ethnography considers how religion can serve as a vehicle for confronting social and environmental justice concerns in specific places while simultaneously providing space for Mesoamerican voices to be heard by broader publics, particularly in regard to issues such as immigration and “development.” The research indicates the strength of multivocalic approaches, including the need to include indigenous spiritualities and worldviews, in the ongoing analysis of religious pluralism in Mesoamerica. Key words: accompaniment, ethnography, religious change, multivocality, Mesoamerica.
  • Mandy Muise (Davidson College) International Conservationism as the New Neocolonialism: Pluriversal Politics and Amerindian Participation in Guyana’s REDD+ Agreement.
    International environmental conservation agreements, such as the 2009 Guyana-Norway REDD+ agreement, are endeavors that exchange financial capital for environmental protection through virtual carbon credit trading. This paper draws upon theories of cosmopolitical potentialities as a means of critically analyzing the Guyana-Norway agreement, arguing that although the specifics of the REDD+ agreement are framed as equitable and unanimous, the historic and contemporary status of the two nations mark REDD+ as an inherently exploitative agreement. Although claiming to be participatory and collaborative, the REDD+ agreement preys upon Guyana’s colonially situated economic dependence and restricts land access, keeping Amerindian populations in a place of subjugation. Through limitations upon Amerindian use of land, already vulnerable populations are restricted from economically productive activities such as logging, mining, and other extractive industries. In this paper, I will push back against the argument of environmental necessity that supports the presence of the REDD+ agreement in favor of a perspective that centers Amerindian rights to political participation and community self-determination. Furthermore, I propose that the Guyana-Norway agreement, due to its foundations in a wholly Western rationality, eliminates any possibility of equitable political participation for Guyanese Amerindian groups. As an alternative, I argue for a cosmopolitics centered around pluriversality, incommensurability, and mutual difference that recognizes the agency and ability of Guyanan Amerindians in unrestricted land usage, conservation, and environmental innovation. Through this de-centering of Western rationality, I argue that cosmopolitics provides economically and politically viable solutions for conservation agreements by encouraging meaningful political participation across ethnic and racial divides in Guyana. Key words: cosmopolitics, Amerindian rights, international conservationism, neocolonialism.
  • James Daria (Georgia College and State University). The Coloniality of Labor: Migrant Farmworkers, Modern Slavery, and the Global Agro-Export Industry.
    In 2021, a modern slavery ring was discovered in the onion industry in southern Georgia. Dozens of Mexican and Central American migrant farmworkers were held in conditions of forced labor - some at gun point. Two workers died of the conditions. While agricultural workers suffer conditions of “modern slavery” in global food chains, agricultural corporations reap enormous profits. What is the relationship between our modern, global food system and the continuation of modern slavery? Who ends up in conditions of extreme exploitation in the agricultural workforce around the world? Aníbal Quijano’s elucidation of the modern/colonial word system, and its often-overlooked concept of the coloniality of labor, helps us elucidate the connections between race, labor, and global hierarchies. Drawing from ethnographic research with indigenous migrant farmworkers on both sides of the US-Mexican border, I argue that the coloniality of labor is an important analytical tool for understanding the violence of global capitalism today as much as it was at its inception five hundred years ago.