I have reached the end of my first gender studies course and have been thinking for a while of what to write in this particular blog. My thought process while brainstorming included questions like if I were to look back at a certain point in my undergraduate years and see social justice issue such as poverty, violence and migration of rural workers, how is the current societal structure such as neoliberalism take its role? I have decided to focus on Naomi Klein’s definition of neoliberalism as well as see its effects on issues such as the three mentioned above.

Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine

Neoliberalism as Naomi Klein, in her book Shock Doctrine brings an interesting and thought-provoking discussion into looking at Neoliberalism. She is a critical thinker and a Canadian economist who asks the question of how do we put our critical lens into viewing things. She notes that Latin American refer neoliberalism as the Washington consensus and North America calling free-market politics of privatisation, “de-regulation” in the interests of corporations. According to Klein, Latin America refers neoliberalism as “El Modelo” where politics impose on Latin America are fight through military dictatorships and next through conditions attached to loans that were needed in debt crisis of 1980s. Her experience thought Latin America demonstration would push to use the shock at natural disaster, to push through the water politics, that is, water privatisation, electricity privatisation, labour market flexibilization, displacing poor people on the coasts with hotel developers and this re-engineering of society in the interest of corporations which have been made possible under the banner of free-trade but now under banner of post disaster reconstruction.

Connecting this base of neoliberalism to poverty, Maia Green’s article on Representing Poverty and Attacking Representation will be discussed. Poverty in its sense is very much aligned to neoliberalism and the works of the capitalist market. Her main purpose of the article is to show and represent poverty through the lens of anthropology and argues that poverty is more than not having enough income but also intricate involvement with (1) social, (2) local, (3) national, and (4) international which are categories of consideration that produce poverty (Green 1110). Her key concepts discussed are that poverty perceived by students like us and people grown from developed countries have a misconception that poverty has become normalised and is kept as a part of our lives. However, Green produces new knowledge of poverty that goes beyond the poor. The rich and the wealthy and their inevitable power relations among themselves highlight poverty and the anthropological lens of poverty represents how the poor only have their bodies as an asset (1118). Green further gives examples on the buying and selling (commodification) of human organs such as blood, kidneys, and corneal in exchange of money to support economic needs of the poor. She concludes by arguing that it is important to look at poverty from an individual and humanitarian perspective and rather than emphasising on the poor itself, perhaps its now time to entail a positive space within the poor (1128). Also Green’s identification and classification of poverty has not brought about until the 1970s when the Bank introduced the term ‘poverty’. Therefore, without this lens of anthropology, at least personally, I would not have the thought of it as how it was argued by Green.

African business women in Nairobi

Green’s argument in creating positive space reminds me of the video we watched in class of how a social activist based in South Africa encourage local business that help flourish their income and basic necessities. By creating this atmosphere, they are enabling elimination of their status as “poor” as well as our perception of poverty.

Poverty, as argued by Jacquelin Monroe are due to lack of parental support and family’s insufficient economic needs. The perpetuation of poverty is the main root cause of modern slavery, also known as, human trafficking in Nigeria (75). They argue that children are sold by parents to agents who are in charge of child trafficking. Moving on to Jo-Laidler and Hunt’s argument is one of the reasons that violence is practiced among gang members is because they want the respect and honor- we can see identity formation is being created through the use of violence. Furthermore, they elaborate that identity is used to create belonging (449). As a stereotyped community in the broader society, they are maintaining their power through the usage of destructive and unnecessary force. In case of female gang members, Laidler and Hunt argue that these gang community are acting masculine not to balance the actions of their male counterparts, but rather because part of them have responsibility to take care the economic needs of their family (446). These two examples of roots causes of poverty and violence among gangs are particularly intriguing to note that although we do not see any neoliberalism take place, we see that the class gap and income different among different ethnicities and people in the society are produced by the privatization and consumeristic culture that we practice daily.

Also, Jo-Laidler and Hunt’s argument is one of the reasons that violence is practiced among gang members is because they want the respect and honor- we can see identity formation is being created through the use of violence. Furthermore, they elaborate that identity is used to create belonging. As a stereotyped community in the broader society, they are maintaining their power through the usage of destructive and unnecessary force. In case of female gang members, Laidler and Hunt argue that these gang community are acting masculine not to balance the actions of their male counterparts, but rather because part of them have responsibility to take care the economic needs of their family.

Young rural migrant female worker at Foxconn located in Shenzhen. Foxconn is owned by Apple.

Nets built by the Foxconn building to prevent suicide attempts. So far a couple of workers committed the act due to harsh working conditions.

This summer, I ran into this documentary called “What the Health” (2017) produced by Joaquin Phoenix and I am so glad that I had the chance to look at this because at this time of the society. It not only gave a sense of danger of eating processed meat, but shocking to see how private corporations were funding thousands of millions of dollars to big American health organisations such as the American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, Susan G. Komen (fight breast cancer), and so on. I was able to see through a transparent lens when the narrator was declined for an interview when asked to spend a couple of minutes to ask basic health related questions. Although it is important to attend to lectures and read academic journals, real time issues that are published through film making or through news articles are also tools that we can take a time to educate ourselves. Green has provided an important turning point of realisation that instead of criticising the problem and emphasising who caused it, accepting and embracing the problem can be an alternative solution for the better good. Green further argues that if we failure to take the article’s line of reasoning seriously, the implications would be that we are going to be in a loop of arguing and discussing on poverty. For example, that poverty is derived from commodification and capitalism- the rich countries poor representation of Africa.

Documentaries like “What the Health” are which that provides a change in perspective of the things that we take for granted.

Citations 

<Journal Articles>

Green, Maia. “Representing poverty and attacking representations: Perspectives on poverty from social anthropology.” Journal of Development Studies, vol. 42, no. 7, 2006, pp. 1108–1129.

Joe-Laidler, Karen, and Geoffrey P. Hunt. “Moving beyond the gang–drug–violence connection.” Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy, vol. 19, no. 6, 2012, pp. 442–452.

Monroe, Jacquelyn. “Women in Street Prostitution: The Result of Poverty and the Brunt of Inequity.” Journal of Poverty, vol. 9, no. 3, 2005, pp. 69–88.

<Images>

“Foxconn suicide net .” Http://I.dailymail.co.uk/i/Pix/2011/05/01/Article-1382396-0BDB924200000578-814_468x286.Jpg.

“Foxconn rural female workers.” Http://I.telegraph.co.uk/Multimedia/Archive/01645/foxconn6_1645133c.Jpg.

“Naomi Klein Shock Doctrine.” Http://Img.moviepostershop.com/the-Shock-Doctrine-Movie-Poster-2009-1020541912.Jpg.

“Nigeria local businesswomen.” Https://farm6.Staticflickr.com/5540/11907280443_37c93841c6.Jpg.

“What the Health .” Https://Www.riseofthevegan.com/img3/d091f05455a3.Jpg.

<Video>