scholarly journals The Geopolitical Aesthetics

Prism ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 170-187
Author(s):  
Calvin Hui

Abstract This article focuses on contemporary Chinese film director Jia Zhangke 賈樟柯 (b. 1970–) and his engagement with what critical/cultural theorist Fredric Jameson (b. 1934- ) calls geopolitical aesthetics or cognitive mapping. Through the county-level city (xiancheng 縣城) perspective, the block (bankuai 板塊) structure, the interplay of real and fictional, and the intertextual and transmedial references, Jia explores the possibilities of representational forms and aspires to map and scan the otherwise unrepresentable totality that is global capitalism in China. In this essay, the author engages with Jia's film Shijie 世界 (The World; 2004) and examines the portrayal of the migrant workers and their performances in the World Park in Beijing, China. Focusing on political economy and social class, he suggests that The World renders visible the dialectic of mobility and immobility of the migrant workers within the context of global capitalism in China. Shifting gears to gender, he explains how the female migrant workers, dressed in lavish and extravagant costumes and performing exotic dances for the tourists in the World Park, can be regarded as a productive site for deciphering the otherwise imperceptible contradictions of globalizing China. In particular, the author analyzes the film's opening sequence to show that the world featured on-screen is located at the disjuncture between reality and fantasy.

Author(s):  
Joshua Armstrong

This chapter reads Lydie Salvayre's Portrait de l’écrivain en animal domestique (2007). In this novel, Salvayre’s anxieties about allowing oneself—and even herself as author—to be domesticated by the logic of global capitalism are condensed into the pathological relationship between her narrator avatar (who incarnates politically-engaged literature) and the satirical Jim Tobold, the richest man on the planet and ‘uncontested champion of globalization’—a character who, incidentally, bears more than a passing resemblance to Donald Trump. Tobold sees the world at the level of the master, corporate map, from which he can make boardroom decisions in perfect disregard for their harmful, ground-level side effects. This chapter revisits and further explores Bruno Latour on cartographic megalomania, and draws on Fredric Jameson on cognitive mapping, and David Harvey on the self-defeating contradictions of the infinite expansion paradigm of capitalism in a world of increasingly finite resources. Moreover, it develops the Salvaryean notion of the paralipomenon, offering a new perspective on Salvayre’s underlying (engaged) literary strategy, one that, by focusing on the seemingly insignificant details of a hegemonic discourse—such as that of free-market capitalism—reveals its inherent contradictions and flaws.


2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Sareh Nazari

Throughout history, migration has been considered an indispensable part of human life. It has occurred due to various reasons, among which searching for new job opportunities has always been a chief one. This happens when workers observe lack of vacancies in their homeland, while there are chances for them in other regions and countries. It impels local workers to move to leave in search of better conditions in their careers, along with having the desire for a better life. However, divergent factors such as demographic change, socio-economic and political crises, and huge wage gaps between developed and developing countries play undeniable roles. Half of these migrants who move across borders for employment are women. Most of these women migrate from Asia especially India, Pakistan and Nepal to developed countries in the world to achieve new opportunities and a better life. The aim of this study is to identify the distribution of international female migrant workers around the world by applying compilation methodology approach, utilizing library documentation method and secondary analysis of qualitative data. The findings indicate that there is a strong connection between gender gap at work and the destination of female migrant workers. Nowadays, Northern, Southern and Western Europe and North America have the least gender gap between women and men at work. These regions are also the main destination of female international migrants. This research also predicts that in the future the destination of these women will be East Asia which is experiencing remarkable gender equality at work.


Author(s):  
Gregory Rosenthal

In the century from the death of Captain James Cook in 1779 to the rise of the sugar plantations in the 1870s, thousands of Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) men left Hawaiʻi to work on ships at sea and in nā ʻāina ʻē (foreign lands). Beyond Hawaiʻi tells the story of these forgotten indigenous migrant workers and their experiences of global capitalism. Each chapter tells a unique narrative of a different Pacific Ocean industry and those Hawaiian workers who traveled and toiled there: from sandalwood harvesting to whaling to guano mining to gold mining—in Hawaiʻi, California, the Arctic Ocean, China, and beyond. Using the writings of the workers themselves, published in nineteenth-century Hawaiian-language newspapers, Beyond Hawaiʻi argues that Native Hawaiian migrant workers and the global capitalist economy they served are essential to understanding how the world’s greatest ocean became a “Hawaiian Pacific World”—the world that Hawaiian labor made.


2021 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-91
Author(s):  
Kawthar Yasser Al Othman

My article investigates the experience of migration from the Middle East to America in Mohja Kahf’s novel, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf. To understand the narrative of the world of migrants, it would be helpful to perform a cognitive cartographic analysis. Kahf performs a form of social and psychic cartography by exploring migrants’ space through the character of the coming-of-age girl, Khadra, by situating the turning points in her character at certain places. I classify these places into three types: space of conflict, space of illumination and space of reconciliation. The text can be read as a map of the represented transatlantic space(s). However, this map shows particular locations in which Khadra is involved. Khadra’s character develops through her physical interaction with certain geographical, urban and cultural spaces. Hence, this text emphasises the role of literature in the process which Fredric Jameson terms “cognitive mapping” and provides an understanding of the experience of migration. Since space in the context of Kahf’s narrative is a mental, cartographic construct as it is being explored and grappled with all the time, I employ a geocritical approach in my analysis of the book.


Author(s):  
Tyas Retno Wulan ◽  
Lala M. Kolopaking ◽  
Ekawati Sri Wahyuni ◽  
Irwan Abdullah

Social remittances (ideas, system practice, and social capital flow from the receiving country to the home country) of Indonesian female migrant workers (BMP) in Hong Kong appeared better and more complete than other BMP in other countries like Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, or Singapore.  Based on that research, we are encouraged to do extensive research in order to identify factors  that push  BMP’s social remittances development  in Hong Kong, to identify kinds of social remmitances they receive  and to understand on how far their social remittances become a medium to empower them and their society.  This study is done in qualitative method that uses an in-depth interview technique and FGD.  Subjects of study are BMP, the government (Ministry of Manpower and Transmigration and BNP2TKI), NGOs, migrant workers’ organization and researchers of BMP. The study done in Cianjur (West Java), Wonosobo and Banyumas (Central Java) and Hong Kong indicates that during their migration process, female migrant workers not only have economical remittance that can be used for productive activities, but also social remittances.  The social remittances are in the form practical knowledge such as language skill and nursery; knowledge on health, financial management; ethical work; the mindset changing and networking. The study  indicate that female migrant workers are extraordinary women more than just an ex-helper.  Their migration has put them into a position as an agent of development in society.Key words: Indonesians  female migrant workers, social remmitances, empowerment


Author(s):  
Arun Kumar L.S

International business is essential for the countries to generate Economic growth or to increase in exports and reduce in imports, it encompasses all commercial and economic activities between the nations to promote the ideas, resources, transfer the goods and services, technologies across the national borders. In every country has limited resources therefore a country cannot produce all the goods and services that it requires. The present context of the world, there is imbalance in production and supply factors due to Covid-19 pandemic, which has resulted in market imbalances (demand and supply). The world economy has been hit hard by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, as on June end more than ten 10 million people around the globe had been affected by this pandemic, India, USA and others are worst hit countries with decrease in GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and increase in unemployment rate. It may be useful to also note that prolonged lockdowns will eventually imply production shortfalls, may lead to increase in unemployment; decrease in demand for products, slowly running out stocks. In recent forecast of World Trade Organisation (WTO) indicated a clear fall in world trade between 13 per cent and 32 per cent in 2020, perhaps the highest fall since the Great Depression of 1930s. India and world can overcome the challenges by specific government fiscal and monetary policies, by providing economic relief packages and increase in employment opportunities by digitalisation in all the sectors of the economy to increase in accountability, convenience, and gross production, and investment, job security to casual labours or migrant workers. These factors may change the world present situation to productive or welfare economy. The purpose of the research paper is to explain Economic and Business crisis, due to covid-19 in present situation in India and the world. KEY WORDS: C0VID-19, GDP, ECONOMY and GLOBAL CRISIS.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 553-570 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quan Gao ◽  
Junxi Qian ◽  
Zhenjie Yuan

This article provides a multi-scaled, grounded understanding of how secularization and re-sacralization occur simultaneously in a context of rapid modernization. Recent geographical scholarship in the geography of religion have exhibited deficient reflection over the geo-historical contingencies and complexities of secularization and secularity. This article seeks to re-conceptualize secularization as a multi-scaled, grounded and self-reflective process through an empirical study of the hybrid, contradictory processes of secularization and postsecular religious revival in a ‘gospel village’ in Shenzhen, China. In this rapidly urbanizing village, Christian belief inherited from Western missionary work has gradually lost its hold amidst modernization and urbanization. However, the inflow of rural migrant workers has re-invigorated the church. Christianity has created possibilities for postsecular ethics and resistances, enabling migrant workers to materially, symbolically and emotionally settle in a new socio-economic environment. Also, new situated religiosities arise as theological interpretations are used to negotiate and even legitimize social inequalities and alienation. This article therefore argues that the postsecular turn in human geography needs to consider how the postsecular articulates, and co-evolves with, secular conditions of being in the world. It highlights the hybrid and contested nature of the secularization process, which gives rise not only to disengaged belief and immanent consciousness but also to new aspirations for, and formations of, religiosities.


2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-136 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Kalter

AbstractIn the second half of the twentieth century, the transnational ‘Third World’ concept defined how people all over the globe perceived the world. This article explains the concept’s extraordinary traction by looking at the interplay of local uses and global contexts through which it emerged. Focusing on the particularly relevant setting of France, it examines the term’s invention in the context of the Cold War, development thinking, and decolonization. It then analyses the reviewPartisans(founded in 1961), which galvanized a new radical left in France and provided a platform for a communication about, but also with, the Third World. Finally, it shows how the association Cedetim (founded in 1967) addressed migrant workers in France as ‘the Third World at home’. In tracing the Third World’s local–global dynamics, this article suggests a praxis-oriented approach that goes beyond famous thinkers and texts and incorporates ‘lesser’ intellectuals and non-textual aspects into a global conceptual history in action.


1996 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 239-273
Author(s):  
Constance Lever-Tracy ◽  
David Ip

This article explores two new and related phenomena of the late twentieth century that will surely play a major role in shaping the world of the twenty-first: the economic development and opening up of China, and the emergence onto the world economic stage of diaspora Chinese businesses, producing a significant, identifiably Chinese current within global capitalism. Each of these has, we believe, been crucial and perhaps indispensable to the other.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document