by felixburgos
1. I’m still trying to “digest” Mezzadra and Neilson’s proposal of the theory of multiplication of labor. I would dare to say that it is not only a reevaluation of Marxist theory (it there’s such a think like that) but also a new direction towards the study of identity, migration, and transnationalism. Anyways, a common trend in the readings for this week is he idea of an “imagined empire” and the divisions that it creates in the world. For economists and social scientists teminologies such as the “global north and south” “center and periphery” are ways to divide the world into hierarchies. But Mezzadra and Neilson present an image of the international division of labor that would lead to a redefinition of these geographies. Does this mean that “globalization” is the main construct of the “imagined empire”? Although the authors just mention globalization a couple of times, but I feel that their proposal is related to a world that has inevitably fallen into that process.
2. From my own perspective, it was really comforting reading Phillips et al.’s article on postcolonial computing. For me, as an international student in the U.S., it is very important to see that there is an academic interest in disrupting the notion of ‘othering’ (us / them – western world / the rest – civilization / savagery) etc. For example, when we get discuss in our class about mobile technologies, computer access, embodiment, etc. I always try to make sense of that using the “translation” that Phillips et al. mention in the article. Nonetheless, there is something that still bothers me about the authors’ perspective (and it is connected to my first question): what is the way in which postcolonial computing represents a real challenge to the processes of globalization?
3. Along the same lines, there was a section in Hardt and Negri’s chapter on the Biopolitical production that makes me think that postcolonial theories are well intentioned, but might walk through a difficult path: “The imperial machine lives by producing a context of equilibria and/or reducing complexities, pretending to put forward project of universal citizenship and toward a project of universal citizenship […] (t)he imperial machine, far from eliminating master narratives, actually produces and reproduces them […] in order to validate and celebrate its own power” (p. 34). Of course, the objective of postcolonial theories is to radically change the master narrative (and its by-products), but perhaps the elements of the discourse (and the origin of such postcolonial perspective) might be still intertwined with the discourses of the empire. Am I quite off? Perhaps…