Urban Displacements: Governing Surplus and Survival in Global Capitalism. SusanSoederberg, London, 2021: Routledge, 331 pp., ISBN 9780367236199, £34.99 (paperback).

Author(s):  
Richard Waldron
Keyword(s):  
Somatechnics ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 198-215
Author(s):  
Robert McRuer

Theorists of neoliberalism have placed dispossession and displacement at the centre of their analyses of the workings of contemporary global capitalism. Disability, however, has not figured centrally into these analyses. This essay attends to what might be comprehended as the crip echoes generated by dispossession, displacement, and a global austerity politics. Centring on British-Mexican relations during a moment of austerity in the UK and gentrification in Mexico City, the essay identifies both the voices of disability that are recognized by and made useful for neoliberalism as well as those shut down or displaced by this dominant economic and cultural system. The spatial politics of austerity in the UK have generated a range of punishing, anti-disabled policies such as the so-called ‘Bedroom Tax.’ The essay critiques such policies (and spatial politics) by particularly focusing on two events from 2013: a British embassy good will event exporting British access to Mexico City and an installation of photographs by Livia Radwanski. Radwanski's photos of the redevelopment of a Mexico City neighbourhood (and the displacement of poor people living in the neighbourhood) are examined in order to attend to the ways in which disability might productively haunt an age of austerity, dispossession, and displacement.


2020 ◽  
Vol 16 (9) ◽  
pp. 1656-1673
Author(s):  
V.V. Smirnov

Subject. The article discusses financial and economic momenta. Objectives. I determine financial and economic momenta as the interest rate changes in Russia. Methods. The study is based on a systems approach and the method of statistical analysis. Results. The Russian economy was found to strongly depend on prices for crude oil and natural gas, thus throwing Russia to the outskirts of the global capitalism, though keeping the status of an energy superpower, which ensures a sustainable growth in the global economy by increasing the external consumption and decreasing the domestic one. The devaluation of the national currency, a drop in tax revenue, etc. result from the decreased interest rate. They all require to increase M2 and the devalued retail loan in RUB, thus rising the GDP deflator. As for positive effects, the Central Bank operates sustainably, replenishes gold reserves and keeps the trade balance (positive balance), thus strengthening its resilience during a global drop in crude oil prices and the COVID-19 pandemic. The positive effects were discovered to result from a decreased in the interest rate, rather than keeping it low all the time. Conclusions and Relevance. As the interest rate may be, the financial and economic momentum in Russia depends on the volatility of the price for crude oil and natural gas. Lowering the interest rate and devaluing the national currency, the Central Bank preserves the resource structure of the Russian economy, strengthens its positions within the global capitalism and keeps its status of an energy superpower, thus reinforcing its resilience against a global drop in oil prices.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bashir Abu-Manneh
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Steve New

The scourge of modern slavery has led to legislation in various countries requiring firms to engage in a particular form of supply chain transparency. However, these regulatory initiatives have been widely perceived to be, by themselves, a weak response to such a serious challenge. This chapter argues that assessment of these initiatives hinges on the interpretation of modern slavery itself: Are extreme forms of labor exploitation aberrations of an otherwise blameless system, or are they intrinsic to the functioning of contemporary global capitalism? If the latter, then new types of transparency might be needed that go beyond firms reporting on their policies and efforts. The chapter introduces the idea of interrogational transparency as a mechanism by which civil society actors (including consumers, activists, and researchers) can develop accountability dialogues with powerful corporations. To illustrate these points, the chapter examines emergent patterns of transparency within the food giant Nestlé.


Author(s):  
Paul Amar

This chapter offers a global history, as well as cultural, legal, and political–economic analysis, of “trafficking,” a set of relationships and processes often constituted as the dark mirror of globalization. First, the chapter traces how the term “trafficking” emerged. Second, it examines the evolution of “trafficking” in the context of “drug wars,” from the imperial Opium Wars in China in the early nineteenth century to the twenty-first-century “narco” battlegrounds of Mexico. Third, it surveys how global studies-related research has developed critical lenses for analyzing the politics of “sex trafficking” and “human trafficking.” Finally, it examines the term “trafficker” as selectively deployed along racial and social lines in ways that produce obscuring pseudo-analyses of the violence of global capitalism that preserve the impunity of certain powerful actors, create monstrous misrepresentations of globalizing forms of violence, and stir moral and racial panics on a global scale.


2021 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 153-157
Author(s):  
Bob Jessop

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