World-Literature, Commodity Frontiers, and Aesthetic Form

This article speaks of a literary comparativism provided by the environment-making dynamics of commodity frontiers. How is world-literature imbricated in these movements? How do texts mediate the logic of commodity frontiers and how might this mediation be differently inflected by the specific political ecologies of sugar, coffee, oil, or rubber? To approach literature from this angle clearly resonates with Patricia Yaeger’s call to attend to the energy resources that make texts possible (2011). By responding to this call through the optic of the commodity frontier, I seek to underscore the necessity of understanding those resources in terms of the systemic logic and structural relations of capitalism as a world-ecology.

The conviviality of the overpoliced, detained and expelled: Refusing race and salvaging the human at the borders of Britain

Paul Gilroy’s theorisation of conviviality has proved exceptionally generative in (urban) sociology. But any announcement of a ‘convivial turn’ should be approached with caution. In much of the literature on ‘everyday multiculture’, racism is insufficiently theorised, structural relations of hierarchy and inequality fade from view, and culture loses its unruly potential. This article seeks to rethink and reclaim the radical potential of conviviality, by working with the narratives of people deported from the UK to Jamaica. The article first argues that the social and political implications of conviviality can be better registered when placed in relation to state violence and state racism. The article then analyses the accounts of deported people who show that conviviality is about much more than getting along across difference, but can represent a wider ethics of ‘refusing race and salvaging the human’. Indeed, when people subject to extraordinary forms of state racism – overpoliced, detained and then expelled – still reject all defensive investments in racial categories, proving themselves not only against racism but ‘against race’, they reassert the normative, ethical and prefigurative character of convivial cultures.

The analysis of structural relations in the Russian economy

Subject. The article investigates structural relations in Russia’s economy. Objectives. I delve into the basis for structural relations in Russia’s economy. Methods. The study is based on the systems approach and the method of statistical, neural network and cluster analysis. Results. I spotlight the establishment of optimal structural relations in the Russian economy. The article presents a set of material properties of the Russian economy, which hamper the emergence of optimal structural relations, sustainable growth and constructive development in the modern circumstances. What underlies structural relations in Russia is that its growth can be fed with domestic borrowings and paid services for the public, retail turnover, which depend on salaries and investment in capital stock, while changes in the foreign exchange rate are pegged to the turnover of foreign trade and deficit (surplus) of the consolidated budget. Conclusions and Relevance. Maintained with domestic borrowings and variation of the foreign exchange rate, economic growth, as the basis for structural relations in the Russian economy, is a sufficient indicator to evaluate the performance of the Russian government. The findings contribute to the knowledge and competence of the Russian government to set up consistent goals for creating optimal structural relations in the Russian economy.