GPP Week 3 - The Anti-Politics Machine.pptx Flashcards
‘Real’ and ‘Pseudo-’ Nation-states (Ferguson)
“Independence” can be a sort of sham in the post-independence period.
-when you get independence you are everything that is wrong with society in economic lens. from economic view, you are poor. why is Uganda poor? - lets look at leaders, and everything there. everything that happens outside of uganda is ignored. you are responsible for failures by blaming leaders and government and mismanagement by officials and all external factors are rooted out. dibiliating component that — people often say that it was better when we were colonized and controlled by the british.
Countries get flags and anthems, but their economic (and thereby political, diplomatic, and military) affairs are often still controlled by forces outside the territory.
However, now they are blamed for their “domestic” failures.
This “blaming of the victim” may even come to be believed by the people themselves over time.
‘Real’ and ‘Pseudo-’ Nation-states
What matters is the nature of the connection to the larger world economy and relative power relations
Case Study: Lesotho
Lesotho (a “pseudo” nation-state”) preserved/ negotiated its independence during the colonization of South Africa
-history is white settlers kept going further north dn east and starts making deals and lesotho people get indepence. but pretty clearly everyone thinking rationally would clearly say that lesotho is not indecent but in fact neo colony
However, effectively, their economic and political existence was as a neo-colony of South Africa (52)
Most people employed in South Africa (migrant labor) and the country relies heavily on remittances (53)
-peopel go outside of lesotho to make money and send it back home
South African firms dominated banking, manufacture and commerce. The everyday currency was even the South African Rand. (52)
-independent country but don’t have own money
Sotho people wishing they lived in apartheid Bantustans in South Africa (lower taxes and better services 52-3)
-reservations that south africa created by pushing africans off of land — similar to america and native americans and in palestine. these people are oppressed. people are outraged and upset by it. lesotho would wish that they were there because they would have lower taxes and services and they prefer that they were in south africa than being independent.
Active South African interference in political and economic affairs (55) & large numbers of white South Africans in key government positions (55)
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Consequently, this “sovereignty” hasn’t helped as Lesotho has been blamed for its poverty (seen as a result of its national economy) (60)
“Lesotho’s poverty…Lesotho’s problem” (60, 64-65)
notion that Lesotho was “a ‘real’ (i.e. sovereign and independent) nation—ironically depoliticized its powerlessness…” (64)
-makes all of this problems your problems
Case Study: Transkei
Transkei (created as a reservation/ “homeland”/ “Bantustan”) in 1913
Desire to pretend that the Bantustans were “independent” because domination on the basis of racial discrimination was losing legitimacy (56)
Put (i.e. forcible relocation of) blacks on 7% (eventually 13%) of the land and made them “foreign citizens” in the rest of South Africa (needed a “pass” to travel, etc.)
-push you on these lands and say ur independent. go ahead and make your own leaders and you get to vote and have a flag. independent within this space but doing so they created a fiction and south africa withdraws any responsibility for doing anything for these folks
Produced powerful “anti-independence” movements to this sham independence (59)
-this is laughable. stolen land and kicked off, created fiction and said that we can be our country but people hated the political stance that south africa had no responsibility. the political question gets resolved by recognizing that it’s political. lesotho doesnt and they say that its a anti political machine and depoliticizing. notion of state is depooloizicng. powerful example. example of mexico and how its a labor reserve for US and any problem is Mexicos problem. take all sorts of spaces around planet earth where it’s sort of lesothos. in other colonialization they would have built roads and access to education. but now they can withdraw. .. point of this is this is the way we look at development and underdevelopment. all dimensions of development looks at what they’re doing wrong in other countries and what they’re doing wrong in their economy.
Notion that Transkei was responsible for the plight of Transkei was laughable (63)
“politics” remained in Transkei
Conclusion: The Lesotho problem may exist in various guises everywhere (e.g. US/ Mexico 64)
S.A. no longer had any obligations to provide blacks with “rights” because they effectively weren’t citizens (56)
“Development” in Lesotho
Massive development assistance produces almost no success.
Lesotho also does not appear to be very important economically or strategically. What is all this assistance about?
-tiny little nation that gets ridiculous amounts of aid and no development occurs. sadly this happens all over the space. but speaks about lesotho and how they’re getting a lot of assistance and aid - his argument is that development expands state power ..
Ferguson’s argument is that development expands state power and influence over its people (i.e. “governmentality”) and creates an “anti-politics” machine (180), but little else coherent.
Constructing a “Developer’s” Lesotho
Lesotho was defined in such a way as to make developer interventions more palatable.
These ways were (very obviously) very far from correct.
A nation of farmers relying on a “subsistence economy” (but hasn’t been true since the mid1800s) (176)
World Bank said 85% derived their livelihood from agriculture, when in actuality 70% derived their livelihood from wage labour in South Africa. (177)
-gets world bank report on lesotho and page after page, he shows how its all made up. every stat is made up. begs question of why? - one thing that they planned is that its a nation of farmers but that’s not true for past 150 years. it has been a migrant labor system. whole country is dedicated to going to south africa and working in mines - which was the whole point but world bank says that 80% of people derive life for labor which is an error of epic proportions. why does ferguson suggest that they did this - bc world bank don’t know how to fix political problems so they just say that they’re all farmers and make their intervention and construct people in ways that they are not because want to have agricultural extension program.
Obfuscation of History
Their impoverishment was recent and a result of wars and colonialism
-wars crowded on mountains and v difficult to grow things out.
Dutch Afrikaaners took most of the best land (177)
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Not engaged in migrant labor because of “population pressures,” but rather a long history of practices by Europeans which forced it. (e.g. taxes) (177)
-population is apparently so big which forces people of lesotho to leave farms to work in mines which isn’t true. things like taxes have to be paid in cash and can’t be grown from ground.
Rearranging Reality
Lesotho must be described as pre-modern and agricultural, so that it can be “made” modern by developers. (177)
-europeans before they had interaction w people of east and mediterranean would just imagine them as a certain way and wrote about them in a certain way to see thmeslevs as diff. same thing here. those developers want to see tmemlevs as solving particular problems so they construct people as those problems
ferguson - page 178 from ecologist - people tend to - appear… —- this is typical of developmental interventions. statistics seem real and scientific thatiyts hard to question and ferguson argues that all of the numbers are fake. hickel speaks about numbers being manipulated but it feels real just because a report is published about reduction of hunger and working when its not real. this is what escobar speaks about how ethicacy is questionable and as well as expertise.
The ahistorical approach and falsehoods of the World Bank (and others) turn Lesotho (an apartheid era labour reserve for South African mining and industry) into an independent, autonomous nation of poor peasant farmers who need Western assistance
-the problem here is not political nor does it have to do w power. they need more seeds and fertilization and electrical grids and highways and railroads - this is what they’re trying to convince. and discussions of poverty and wealth become depoliticized and become technological applications of technology and science and if we get right experts in room, its apparently fixed but we should be surprised of it solving problems when the past 60-70 years everything has been failing. which amplifies that we shouldn’t be surprised if we introduce politics and wealth. there’s no shift in wealth and colonials but if we look to expertise during constant intervention - we should’ve seen that it works and ferguson are centralizing the point that politics if rigged
E.g. if miners get a raise in South Africa it will immediately improve the economy of Lesotho. (178)
-tells us that its embedded in larger structure
Saving Livestock
As a result of the migrant labor system, and exploitative commodity trading, the Basotho have come to invest any savings in livestock.
-can’t be easily taken from them. it is also a communal form of sharing in which they can loan out livestock and builds cultural prestige. for lesotho people when they have livestock they are happy but in world bank it is a problem they want to get beef companies going in efforts of supposedly building up lesotho but because we bring our biases onto these countries and want to get livestock to market and telling them they have problems but for lesotho work to earn cattle and keep growing their livestock as a form of a saving stock so in their eyes selling it off it giving away their fotune
They also can be loaned out to help community members, etc.
Can build cultural prestige of the owners
Is a sort of “retirement”
This “tradition” is actually fairly recent and a result of colonial apartheid relations.
Development discourse misses the fact that when less livestock are exported, the economy is not depressed, it is thriving! (179) - this means that they’re starving but developmental pov is great but in fact the people are recognizing that this is bad times and getting worse
On the other hand, the mass export of livestock represents an economic disaster (i.e. the last resort) for the Basotho that the development community reads as economic growth.
What is to be Done? By Whom?
refer to slide!
goldmans piece: simplistic argument that the world bank is really good at returning profit to its investors. not so good at development. but we imagine that the world bank is out there to end hunger and world’s best development agency and people believe that they’re going to save the planet and we ignore 70 years of failure by not seeing the profits that have been generated. for ferguson politics power are essential components to the extent that we miss power.
video: didn’t work.
summary given by prof: question of expertise and central readings
if you are expert in econ, you understand certain set of questions but also have blind spots. same w engineering. to the extent that we imagine western experts that understand the complexity of other countries and lands were idiotic.
ex of actual case in egypt - 1942-45, has massive explosion of malaria deaths. a lot of people died in chiro - why? - building of damp, alters ecosystem down river so certain plants start to grow in river so mosquito eggs can plant their eggs and end up in egypt through river. causing malaria. ppl that build the dam to use power of increasing electricity but instead ended up killing lots of people so certain expertise state that they can fix electricity problem dont see that they will cause other problems. argument is that they were suggested to make 5 smaller dams but huge developmental interventions ordered a huge dam instead. so to fix malaria problem, ddt kills mosquito so they start spreading and spraying ddt which is carcinogen which causes even more problems.
idea that developmental countries think that they can solve “underdevleoped” problems but often create problems.
modern agricultural techniques - soil require lots of chemicals that then turn into dead zones of oceans. so polluting oceans all in the name of making it more productive and higher yields but in reality local traditional people growing food in traditional ways actually produce way more food without the need for fertilizer and other chemicals and produce enough crops for an entire year. the developmental industry has bias that big experts and projects bringing smartness to less smart and apparently uncivilized. but if we think about it, it is idiotic that someone trainied in agriculture in davis would understand climate, weather and what grows well and doesnt grow well etc better than jamaican. but the development industry states that we have knowledge and they have no knowledge. going to impose technical solutions on people that apparently haven’t figured it out yet.
