Expelling the “Sinister Vilgrain”

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-147
Author(s):  
Jason Yackee
Keyword(s):  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Fertile Ground ◽  
Private Employer ◽  
Congo Brazzaville ◽  
Political Economic

Abstract This article tells the story of the Congo-Brazzaville's nationalization in 1970 of the Société Industrielle et Agricole du Niari (SIAN) and its affiliate Société Sucrière du Niari. At the time of independence, the company, controlled by France's Vilgrain family, was the Congo's largest private employer. The SIAN episode is fertile ground for exploring the theme of postcolonial entanglements from a political-economic perspective. It especially illustrates how those entanglements created both obstacles to and opportunities for neo-imperial influence, just as they did for acts of sovereign independence. The article suggests that the complex, multifaceted interdependencies among France, the Congo, and the Vilgrain family insulated the effects of nationalization on the larger Franco-Congolese relationship while eventually providing a measure of compensation for the despoiled investors. Cet article raconte l'histoire de la nationalisation en 1970 de la Société industrielle et agricole du Niari (SIAN) et sa société affiliée SOSUNIARI par le Congo-Brazzaville. A l'indépendance la SIAN—une entreprise sucrière contrôlée par la famille française Vilgrain—était l'employeur privé le plus important du pays. L'affaire SIAN nous offre un terrain privilégié pour explorer le thème de l'enchevêtrement politique et économique des anciens et nouveaux pouvoirs dans la période postcoloniale. Elle illumine comment ces enchevêtrements fournissaient des occasions pour, et posaient des obstacles à, l'influence néo-impériale et l'indépendance souveraine. L'article conclut que l'interdépendance de la France, du Congo, et de la famille Vilgrain servait à isoler les effets de la nationalisation sur leurs relations plus larges tout en assurant, après un certain délai, une mesure non-dérisoire d'indemnisation pour l'investisseur spolié.

The Transnationalization of Business Education

2022 ◽  
pp. 34-57
Author(s):  
John David Branch ◽  
David A. Wernick
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Business Education ◽  
Specific Form ◽  
Internationalization Of Higher Education ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Transnational Higher Education ◽  
Political Economic

Recent decades have witnessed the emergence and growth of transnational higher education, a specific form of internationalization which considers education as a product which can be packaged and sold abroad. This transnationalization of higher education is especially prominent in the discipline of business, which has wide student appeal. The purpose of this chapter is to review the transnationalization of business education. The chapter begins by situating transnational higher education within the internationalization of higher education more broadly. It then characterises transnational higher education, enumerating various definitions and transnationalization modes. Finally, it rationalizes transnational higher education from a geo-political/economic perspective.

Mediating Social Media's Ambivalences in the Context of Informational Capitalism

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Briziarelli ◽  
Eric Karikari
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
User Generated Content ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Informational Capitalism ◽  
Liberal Ideology ◽  
Transformative Function ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Mode Of Production

This essay explores the dialectics of media, by considering the socially reproductive and transformative function of social media from a political economic perspective. The authors claim that while media have consistently generated aspirations and fear of social change, their powerful capability of shaping societies depend on the historically specific social relations in which media operate. They engage such an argument by examining how the productive relations that support user generated content practices such as the ones of Facebook users affect social media in their capability to reproduce and transform existing social contexts. In the end, the authors maintain that the most prominent mediation of social media consists of the ambivalent nature of current capitalist mode of production: a contest in which exploitative/emancipatory as well as reproductive/transformative aspects are articulated by liberal ideology.

scholarly journals Conceptualizing Niche–Regime Dynamics of Energy Transitions from a Political Economic Perspective: Insights from Community-Led Urban Solar in Seoul

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (12) ◽  
pp. 4818 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daphne Ngar-yin Mah ◽  
Darren Man-wai Cheung
Keyword(s):  
Complex Dynamics ◽  
Energy System ◽  
Full Potential ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Energy Transitions ◽  
Five Factors ◽  
The One ◽  
Lock In ◽  
Political Economic

The complex dynamics between technological niches and regime “lock-in” are critical in determining the pace and outcomes of energy transitions. The socio-technical transitions literature has received growing scholarly attention, but it lacks consideration of the broader political and economic contexts. This paper aims to advance understanding of socio-technical transitions by conceptualizing niche–regime dynamics from a political economic perspective, with reference to a case study of solar in Seoul. Based on in-depth face-to-face interviews with 18 key stakeholders, we have three findings. Firstly, the politico-economic contexts have created an embedded environment in which five factors have a clear influence on niche–regime dynamics. Secondly, the politico-economic contexts created conducive conditions for niche developments on the one hand, but, on the other hand, have created inhibitive conditions that have cancelled out the positive forces and reinforced “lock-in”. Thirdly, the processes occur at multi-scalar levels: Community solar niches in Seoul are conditioned by the broader politico-economic contexts at city and national levels. We conclude that sufficient policy attention should be given to the political economy of a national energy system in order to create conducive conditions for community-led niches to realize the full potential that they could offer in energy transitions.

Privacy and the public/private dichotomy

Thesis Eleven ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 107 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Dawes
Keyword(s):  
Digital Economy ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Contextual Integrity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Conception ◽  
Political Economic

This essay reviews Helen Nissenbaum’s Privacy in Context (2010), focusing in particular on her dismissal of the public/private dichotomy. Taking issue with the problem she constructs of ‘privacy in public’, her unitary reading of the dichotomy and ‘socializing’ of the value of privacy, or what she calls ‘contextual integrity’, and her treatment of technology in the abstract, the essay then goes on to argue that the framework she proposes is incapable of addressing the contemporary incursion of market logic into every other aspect of social and political life in the digital economy, and therefore of protecting privacy at all. The essay concludes with an insistence on the need to approach contextual privacy problems from a political economic perspective and with a political conception of privacy, and for that to be founded upon a protean appreciation of the public/private dichotomy.

Another Climate Change Story: Looking Upstream

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-7
Author(s):  
Merrill Singer ◽  
Hans A. Baer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Economic System ◽  
Applied Anthropology ◽  
Narrative Approach ◽  
Social Response ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Economic Perspective ◽  
Sustainable Future ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Contemporary Climate

Abstract The applied anthropology of climate change seeks to bring the anthropological lens to the study of and social response to life on a warming planet. Recently, Practicing Anthropology published a special issue on Storying Climate Change! Here, we provide a critique of this set of papers from a political economic perspective based on the assertion that a threat of the magnitude of contemporary climate change warrants a more fully mobilized anthropological response than the local narrative approach called for in the special issue. Specifically, we argue that local stories of climate change experience are knotted together by the reigning global political economic system of capitalism and that this is a story we need to tell to build a sustainable future.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document