Dealing with sentient surplus: A moral economy of greyhound rehoming

2021 ◽  
pp. 251484862110548
Author(s):  
Emily Grace Stevens ◽  
Tom Baker ◽  
Nicolas Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Value Creation ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Discursive Practices ◽  
Moral Economic

This paper explores greyhound rehoming as a practice through which the sentient surplus of New Zealand's racing industry is dealt with. We bring nature-society geography and moral economy scholarship into productive alignment to ask how and to what effect new forms of value are (re)generated from greyhound bodies and lives that have been cast outside the pale of value as surplus. Accounts offered by both literatures tend not to venture beyond the commodity and are yet to fully engage with the entangled nature of morality and the economy. We seek to address these gaps by mapping the workings of a project that attempts to deal with the moral-economic excess of a capitalist nature(culture). By drawing on interviews with five key rehoming actors and an analysis of industry-affiliated documentary material, we trace the material and discursive practices that are aligned around surplus greyhounds in the interest of making value realisable again. Out of our analysis emerge three configurations through which the bodies and labours of these creatures are brought back into the pale of value: as companions-in-waiting, as undead things, and as transformational figures. While these orientations are contested and the value generated from them unevenly distributed, they see value in this capitalist natureculture be reworked so that accumulation can continue. We argue that sentient surplus is a productive paradox that allows the moral and the political to be brought into a fraught but ultimately productive alignment that obscures the contingencies, asymmetries and grim realities of value creation and distribution in greyhound worlds.

Moral economy: What’s in a name

2017 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
James G Carrier
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Economic Activity ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
The Past ◽  
Empty Symbol ◽  
The Social ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Moral Economic

The idea of moral economy has been increasingly popular in the social sciences over the past decade, given a confusing variety of meanings and sometimes invoked as an empty symbol. This paper begins by describing this state of affairs and some of its undesirable corollaries, which include unthinking invocations of the moral and simplistic views of some sorts of economic activity. Then, referring especially to the work of EP Thompson and James C Scott, this paper proposes a more precise definition of moral economy that roots moral economic activity in the mutual obligations that arise when people transact with each other over the course of time. It thus distinguishes between the moral values that are the context of economic activity and those that arise from the activity itself. The solution that the paper proposes to the confused state of ‘moral economy’ can, therefore, be seen as terminological, as the sub-title suggests, but it is intended to have the substantive benefits of a better approach to economic activity and circulation and a more explicit and thoughtful attention to moral value.

The political, economic and cultural drivers of police corruption

2020 ◽  
pp. 73-94
Author(s):  
Danny Singh
Keyword(s):  
Police Officers ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
Police Corruption ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Illicit Markets ◽  
Economic Necessity ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Systemic Corruption

This is another theoretical chapter that generates a framework to thread through the context of Afghan policing. Theories related to a political economy approach to examine the interrelationship between bureaucratic agents and economic elites and the coping strategies of poorly waged public officials and police officers. This theoretical basis informs some aspects of the political and economic drivers of corruption. The political drivers specifically cover systemic corruption which is when corruption becomes institutionally embedded from the top to the lower levels. In addition, patronage, nepotism and ethnic favouritism forms a ‘moral economy’ to deter meritocratic recruitment. Moreover, state capture occurs when main parts of the state are infiltrated by narrow criminal and affiliated political interests for profit making, usually with illicit markets. The economic drivers are focused on corruption as a means of economic necessity, namely low pay, and opportunities to engage in corruption due to weak oversight or limited sanctions if detected for malpractice. The cultural drivers cover culture, motivation and the socialisation of behaviour within police forces and specific anti-corruption training that can help to mitigate police corruption.

Ritual Time and Popular Expectations of Papal Rule in Early Modern Rome

2019 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 29-49
Author(s):  
John M. Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
The People ◽  
The Future ◽  
Imminent Death ◽  
Early Modern Rome ◽  
The City

The political and ritual life of early modern Rome provided its inhabitants ample opportunities not only to express grievances with papal government but also to voice expectations of newly elected pontiffs. Three ritual moments in particular—each linked as a cycle related to the pope’s reign—looked toward the future. These were the papal election, the possesso (the newly elected pontiff’s procession to San Giovanni in Laterano), and the pope’s death. As the papal election commenced in the conclave, Romans communicated their hopes for a pontiff who would adhere to a traditional moral economy by keeping the city abundantly supplied with grain and other foodstuffs. The ceremonies connected to the possesso reinforced these concerns; during the pope’s procession from Saint Peter’s to San Giovanni, the people greeted him with placards, statues, and ritual shouts, which reminded him to uphold this sacred duty. A pope who failed to abide by this moral economy faced popular discontent. This took the form of murmuring and pasquinades that wished for his imminent death, thus anticipating an end to his odious reign and to the future freedoms of the vacant see, a time in which the machinery of papal government and justice halted, allowing the people to vocalize their anger. Immediately on the heels of the pope’s death came the papal election, starting the cycle anew. This paper will argue that the rhythms of papal government enabled the people to articulate their expectations of papal rule, both present and future, grounded in traditional paternalism.

Rethinking Moral Economy

2001 ◽  
Vol 95 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Clay Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
American West ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Water Politics ◽  
Moral Indignation ◽  
The Third ◽  
Political Analysis ◽  
Economic Incorporation ◽  
Social Goods ◽  
Moral Economic

I establish three closely related claims. The first two are interpretive, the third theoretical. (1) The prevailing conception of moral economy in political science, presupposed by opponents as well as advocates, rests too heavily on the distinction between nonmarket and market-based societies. (2) The prevailing conception of moral economy reduces to the unduly narrow claim that economic incorporation of a nonmarket people is the basis for the moral indignation that leads to resistance and rebellion. (3) Reconceptualizing moral economy in terms of social goods reveals additional grounds for politically significant moral indignation and permits moral-economic political analysis of a larger set of cases and phenomena. Water politics in the arid American West illustrate the power of a conception of moral economy based on social goods.

The Political and Moral Economy of Aging: Not Such Strange Bedfellows

1992 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meredith Minkler ◽  
Thomas R. Cole
Keyword(s):  
Health Resources ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Pension Systems ◽  
Life Issues ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Catastrophic Coverage ◽  
Political Economic

The authors develop E. P. Thompson's concept of moral economy as a useful complement to contemporary political economic analysis in problem areas involving moral conflict. Defined as the shared assumptions underlying norms of reciprocity in which an economic system is grounded, moral economy is seen as holding particular relevance for the study of aging. The evolution of pension systems, the “senior revolt” against catastrophic coverage in the United States, and debates over the allocation of health resources between generations are used to illustrate the utility of a combined political and moral economy for enriching our understanding in these areas. Marx's concept of a “morality of emancipation” is described as holding particular promise for the development of a new moral economy of old age that would move beyond alienation by giving broad attention to quality of life issues at each stage of the life course.

Contingency and responsibility in Confucian political theory

2018 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 615-636 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sungmoon Kim
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Causal Relationship ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Position ◽  
Political World ◽  
The Common

In this article I investigate the Confucian sense of responsibility from the framework of “moral economy,” understood as a causal relationship between one’s virtue and non-moral goods including political position/success, and “contingency,” the failure of moral economy, and argue that early Confucians’ astute understanding of the contingent nature of the political world enabled them to subscribe to the non-causal sense of responsibility. Contrary to the common argument that Heaven was invoked by the Confucians in order to shield themselves from responsibility for their political failures, I argue that they imposed a more expanded sense of responsibility both on them and on the rulers, largely preoccupied with realpolitik. In their effort to restore moral economy between the ruler’s virtue and his political position in particular, I show Confucians engaged in what I call reverse moral economy, at the heart of which was to constrain the ruler’s arbitrary use of political power.

scholarly journals Multiscalar moral economy

Focaal ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Tijo Salverda
Keyword(s):  
Moral Economy ◽  
Land Grabbing ◽  
Rural Residents ◽  
Local Character ◽  
Economic Exchanges ◽  
Local Actors ◽  
Non Local ◽  
Heuristic Device ◽  
Moral Economic

This article addresses the relevance of the moral economy concept in light of unequal socioeconomic relations between a European agribusiness and rural residents in Zambia. It argues that the moral economy concept offers a helpful heuristic device for analyzing how relationships are constituted, negotiated, and contested among interdependent actors with “opposing” socioeconomic interests. To explain the dynamics of their relationships, however, the moral economy concept has to extend beyond its usual, spatially restricted (i.e., local) focus. Instead, “external,” distant, non-local actors, such as foreign critics concerned about “land grabbing,” also influence the local character of moral-economic exchanges between the agribusiness and rural residents. Hence, the article proposes a multiscalar perspective to account for the influence of a wider array of actors.

On the Idea of the Moral Economy

1994 ◽  
Vol 88 (3) ◽  
pp. 653-667 ◽  
Author(s):  
William James Booth
Keyword(s):  
Rational Choice ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Rational Choice Theory ◽  
Choice Theory ◽  
Moral Economy ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
Limited Attention ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Moral Economic

The moral economic school, which has flourished among anthropologists, economic historians, and classicists, has received only limited attention from political scientists. This is perplexing, since at its core is to be found an intersection of debates over rational choice theory, the character of modern and premarket societies, and the normative standing of the market—in other words, over issues of formidable importance to our discipline. I seek to correct that neglect by mapping out and critically analyzing the moral economists' conception of modernity, their critique of the economic approach to human behavior and institutions, and their attempt to formulate an Aristotelian theory of the economy. These projects, though flawed, together are more than rich enough to provide fertile ground for political scientists and philosophers. I conclude with a discussion of the moral economists' effort to develop a normative theory of the economy together with a related critique of the market.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document