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SUMMARY:Commodifications\, Capitalism\, Counter-movements: Perspectives fr
 om Southeast Asia - Professor Tania Murray Li\, Professor of Anthropology\
 , University of Toronto
DTSTART:20160223T170000Z
DTEND:20160223T190000Z
UID:TALK64416@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:30092
DESCRIPTION:The contemporary trajectory of global development\, sometimes 
 glossed "neoliberal\," is said to be characterized by the expansion of mar
 kets\, and the extension of the commodity form to more domains of life. Na
 ture\, ideas\, debt\, risk\, genes\, carbon\, pollution: anything\, it see
 ms\, can be commodified and circulated in order to generate profit. Pushed
  too far\, the commodification of everything puts human life at risk.  Ac
 cording to Karl Polanyi\, recognition of the risk produces push-back in th
 e form of protective counter-movements. Of particular concern to Karl Pola
 nyi was the commodification of land\, which is the basis of human life\, a
 nd the treatment of humans as mere units of labour. This was his warning: 
 "Robbed of the protective covering of cultural institutions\, human beings
  would perish from the effects of social exposure\; they would die as the 
 victims of acute social dislocation through vice\, perversion\, crime\, an
 d starvation. Nature would be reduced to its elements\, neighbourhoods and
  landscapes defiled\, rivers polluted\, military safety jeopardized\, the 
 power to produce food and raw materials destroyed...”  This lecture re-
 examines movements for and against commodification of land and labour from
  the perspective of Southeast Asia\, and re-centres capitalism as a key te
 rm of analysis. Southeast Asia is an important location from which to revi
 sit these topics for several reasons. First\, the region has a long histor
 y of transactions in commodities\, including land and labour\, enabling us
  to ask: if the present is different\, how so?  Second\, colonial powers 
 played an ambivalent role in the commodification process\, deeming sectors
  of the native population inappropriate market subjects\, with effects tha
 t still resonate. Third\, the agricultural frontier continues to expand\, 
 as land and labour are mobilized to produce commodities for global markets
 . Counter-intuitively\, it is smallholders\, not plantations that organize
  their production on competitive\, capitalist lines. Finally\, Southeast A
 sia is the site of prominent writing about counter-movements said to be gr
 ounded in indigenous traditions\, subsistence ethics\, moral economies\, n
 otions of shared poverty\, Asian values\, the Asian family\, and the Asian
  village. Contemporary counter-movement imaginaries invoked in projects to
  involve forest-villagers in combating climate change run up against the d
 ynamic\, often capitalist\, processes in which the same villagers are invo
 lved. 
LOCATION:Large Lecture Theatre\, Department of Geography\, Downing Site
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