Invisible
Lives
Stories
of Innovation and Transition in Mumbai
By
Brooke McKean
University
of Washington, Seattle
This
analysis studies relations between slum-dwellers and the state to
understand the growth of slums during an era of economic success in
Mumbai. I argue that a dialectical relationship between the state and
slum-dwellers perpetuates frictions and allows the state to deny
services to its most disenfranchised citizens. Negative perceptions
construct slum-dwellers outside the social order as “liminal citizens.”
Yet, on the other hand, the government has very little power to subvert
or influence slum-dwellers because it chooses to define them as
non-citizens. As such, slum-dwellers have the power to manipulate and
innovate completely outside the formal system, creating a “shadow
hegemony.” pdf
The Changing Winds of Civilization
The
Aboriginal and Sovereignty Between the Desert and the State
By
Luke Caldwell
University
of Washington, Seattle
The
antagonistic
relationship between the Australian state and the Aborigines has deep
and problematic roots. Beginning with the racist doctrine of terra
nullius, I look at how more than two hundred years of legal policies
have consistently constructed the Aborigine as a problem that required
a state solution. I argue that these policies are predicated on a
complete denial of native sovereignty and have increasingly alienated
native communities. By refusing to engage with the source of these
problems, the state has created significant barriers to native
rehabilitation and has hijacked reconciliation efforts to strengthen
its hegemony instead of native groups. Rather than solving the
“Aboriginal problem”, these state policies have created it by placing
Aborigines in an ambiguous political space that functions as a medium
for civilizing the native—a process through which the native is killed
and reborn in a form that is unproblematic for the
state. pdf
Golden Beaches
&
Adventuresome
Wilderness
The
Neocolonial Timeshare in Indonesia
By
Elizabeth Adams Parciany
University
of Washington, Seattle
The
last few decades
have been witness to a flood of information about destructive resource
extraction projects around the world. However, the tourism industry has
been curiously absent from many conversations about harmful extraction.
The purpose of this paper is to bridge the two industries together,
revealing their similarities and exposing the tourism industry’s
reliance on, and contribution to, destructive extraction processes.
Exploring the coordinated rise of both “hard” and “soft” development in
Indonesia over the last century, I argue resource extraction and
tourism are closely related manifestations of a colonial relationship
between Indonesia and the “developed” West. Pressured and persuaded by
the rhetoric of free market ideologues, the Indonesian government has
embraced a position of colonial subordination whereby their resources
and goods serve to benefit the developed world at a near total expense
of the ecological and social wellbeing of Indonesia. pdf
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