Globalizing Sportscapes

2021 ◽  
pp. 36-50
Author(s):  
D. Parthasarathy
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Urban Poor ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Political ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Sport Consumption ◽  
Spatial Exclusion ◽  
Urban Working

D Parthasarathi’s paper centres global sportscapes as indicative of global-local linkages and transnational flows of investment in clubs across nations and the spread of viewership and consumption across continents, but offers a different scope and perspective, through football within the political economy of leisure as it is played in the streets of Mumbai, Singapore and Bangkok. The changing politics of class, ethnicity, aspirations, and leisure among the urban working classes in these cities is illustrated using the lens of globalizing football. Heterotopic uses of public spaces through the sport of football, served as a counterstrategy of the urban poor, migrants, minorities and working classes against the dehumanizing and disciplining effects of alienating work and urban spatial exclusion. Some of these are also channeled into sport consumption cultures.

Coercive commodities and the political economy of involuntary consumption: The case of the gambling industries

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (12) ◽  
pp. 2762-2779 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Young ◽  
Francis Markham
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Monopoly Power ◽  
The Political ◽  
Credit System ◽  
Sale Price ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Commodity Production ◽  
Secondary Exploitation

Coercive commodities are those goods and services that promote ‘akratic’ consumption – that consumption recognised by consumers themselves to be contrary to their own best interests, all things considered. The production of coercive commodities has become an increasingly significant economic project of fractions of the capitalist class. As a form of secondary exploitation, coercive commodities facilitate the extraction of surplus profits from the savings and assets of the working classes, thus impeding the accumulation of a workers’ hoard that may act as a potential blockage to value realisation in consumption. We use the example of commercial gambling to illustrate the political economy of coercive commodity production. The gambling production system is driven by a core dynamic between spatially fixed capital, the pressures of competition, and the technological generation of akrasia. The geographical expression of this dynamic is determined by the contingencies of the ‘harm maximisation’ policies of the state and the political efforts of individual capitalists to gain and reproduce monopoly power. Gambling production is effective as a form of secondary exploitation because, in addition to the profits accrued by exploiting labour, it extracts surplus profits by diverging sale price from value, by harnessing monopoly power, and by increasing the volume of consumption through akrasia. It is this extractive power, amplified by the consumer credit system, that forms the basis of the systemic utility of coercive commodities in late capitalist economies.

scholarly journals The political economy of surveillance in the (wannabe) global city

2011 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 523-526 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gemma Galdon Clavell
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Local Level ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Official ◽  
Security Technology ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Local Politicians ◽  
Comprehensive Picture ◽  
Electoral Expectations

Many authors have highlighted the need to look at the political economy of surveillance in order to provide a comprehensive picture of our increasingly surveilled societies. However, an analysis that stressed only the material interaction between public and private actors, or the formal relationships between markets, technologies, policy and politics would leave out a broader understanding of the motives and expectations that are taking shape alongside the increase of surveillance mechanisms.   The fact that Barcelona (Spain) has so far only installed CCTV systems in the city center, in areas used intensively by tourists, reveals a picture that takes the political economy of surveillance beyond the corporation-meets-public-official discourse, which highlights private profit and the role of lobbies and lobbyists as a key reason behind the ascendance of surveillance technologies in public spaces, and addresses a more complex setting where the electoral expectations of local politicians meet the economic interest of the private shop owner meet the political aspirations of local media moguls meet the pressure to sell safe cities in the context of a global drive to see security technology and surveillance as the solution to all urban evils (and fast track to winning elections).   By looking at the actual articulation of the actors and interests involved in promoting security policies based on surveillance and monitoring of behavior in Barcelona’s public spaces, this piece presents less-explored understandings of the political economy of surveillance, making a case that highlights how global pressures, processes and imaginaries are received and negotiated at the local level.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document