Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order

268 Pages·2006·2.81 MB·English

by  James Ferguson

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GLOBAL SHADOWS

Global Shadows
AFRICA IN THE NEOLIBERAL WORLD ORDER
James Ferguson
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS DurhamandLondon 2006
3rdprinting,2007
©2006DukeUniversityPress
Allrightsreserved
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ofAmericaonacid-freepaper(cid:7)
DesignedbyC.H.Westmoreland
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byTsengInformationSystems,Inc.
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printedpageofthisbook.
Contents
acknowledgments vii
Introduction:GlobalShadows:AfricaandtheWorld 1
1 GlobalizingAfrica?ObservationsfromanInconvenient
Continent 25
2 ParadoxesofSovereigntyandIndependence:‘‘Real’’and
‘‘Pseudo-’’Nation-StatesandtheDepoliticizationof
Poverty 50
3 De-moralizingEconomies:AfricanSocialism,Scientific
Capitalism,andtheMoralPoliticsofStructural
Adjustment 69
4 TransnationalTopographiesofPower:Beyond‘‘theState’’
and‘‘CivilSociety’’intheStudyofAfricanPolitics 89
5 Chrysalis:TheLifeandDeathoftheAfricanRenaissance
inaZambianInternetMagazine 113
6 OfMimicryandMembership:Africansandthe‘‘New
WorldSociety’’ 155
7 DecomposingModernity:HistoryandHierarchyafter
Development 176
8 GoverningExtraction:NewSpatializationsofOrderand
DisorderinNeoliberalAfrica 194
notes 211
references 229
index 249

Acknowledgments
The essays in this volumewerewritten at various times over the
courseofthelastdecade.Theytreatarangeofsubjects,andeach
canbereadonitsown,asanindependentessay.Buttheyconverge
oncertainbroadthemesandtogetheramounttoasinglebook-long
argumentforacertainperspectiveonanthropologyand‘‘Africa.’’I
have,forthemostpart,lefttheseveralpreviouslypublishedessays
in the form in which they originally appeared, in recognition of
thewayeachrespondedtoaparticularsetofcircumstancesinthe
worldandreflectedacertainwaypointinthedevelopmentofmy
ownideas.Ihave,however,triedtocorrectanyerrorsandtoup-
datereferences,whereappropriate.
Apartfromtheintroductionandchapter1,whichintroducethe
volume,thechaptersappearintheordertheywereoriginallywrit-
ten.Chapter2,‘‘ParadoxesofSovereigntyandIndependence,’’was
published in Siting Culture, edited by Karen Fog Olwig (Rout-
ledge, 1996). Chapter 3, ‘‘De-moralizing Economies,’’ was origi-
nally published (in a shorter form) in Moralizing States, edited
by Sally Falk Moore (aes Monograph Series, 1993). Chapter 4,
‘‘TransnationalTopographiesofPower,’’waspublishedinaslightly
differentversion(andwithaslightlydifferenttitle)inACompan-
iontotheAnthropologyofPolitics,editedbyDavidNugentandJoan
Vincent (Blackwell, 2004). Chapter 5, ‘‘Chrysalis,’’ appeared (in
anabridgedversion)inGlobalNetworks(3,no.3[2003]:271–98).
Chapter6,‘‘Of MimicryandMembership,’’appearedinCultural
Anthropology (17, no. 4 [2002]: 551–69).Chapters 7 and 8, along
withtheintroductionandchapter1,havenotappearedpreviously.
Unusuallyforananthropologist,Ihavenotwrittenthesechap-
tersaboutpeopleandplacesofwhichIhaveintimateknowledge
throughfieldwork.Instead,Ihavetriedtospeakaboutlargerissues
—concerning, broadly, ‘‘Africa’’ and its place in the world—that
can be addressed only by venturing beyond the kinds of knowl-
edge claims that can be firmly ‘‘grounded’’ in any specific ethno-
graphicallyknowncase.Ibelievethattherearecompellingreasons
forattemptingthis,asIexplainintheintroduction.Butgiventhe
strong disciplinary commitment of contemporary anthropology
to ethnographic specificity, it is perhaps appropriate to note to
theanthropologicalreaderthatmyexperimenthereismeantasa
waynotofdiscarding(stilllessofdisparaging)ethnographybut,
rather, of pointing out some directions in which it might turn.
Engaging with discussions and projects that are framed at levels
of scale and abstraction (‘‘Africa,’’ ‘‘the West,’’ ‘‘the globe,’’ ‘‘the
world’’) clearly not amenable to ethnographic study in the tradi-
tionalsenseundoubtedlyposesachallengeforethnographicprac-
tice.Butitseemstomethatthischallengeisbeingmetasanew
generationofresearchersisstartingsuccessfullytobringrecogniz-
ably ethnographic methods of social and cultural contextualiza-
tiontobearonprojectsandprocessesthatareevidently(andoften
self-consciously)non-local.Iamthinkingofsuchexamplesas(to
choosealargelyarbitraryhandfulfromamuchlargerfield)Erica
Bornstein’s study of ‘‘Christian development’’ agencies in Zim-
babwe (2003),Gillian Hart’s analysis of the movement of trans-
nationalcapital(intheformof Taiwanesefamilyfirms)toSouth
Africa(2002),AnneliseRiles’sethnographicexplorationofglobal
networks of women’s organizations (2001), or Anna Tsing’s ac-
count of speculative mining investment in Indonesia (2001)—all
studies that convincingly link ‘‘global’’ projects and processes to
specific, and ethnographically knowable, social and cultural con-
texts.Insucharichintellectualenvironment,therecanbenoques-
tionof‘‘turningaway’’fromethnography;rather,thepointofthe
free-ranging,speculativeessaysthatfollowistoposeachallengeto
establishedanthropologicalwaysofknowing‘‘Africa’’byidentify-
ingcertainconceptual(and,inthebroadestsense,political)issues
thatformsofscholarshiprootedinacommitmenttoparticularity
haveuptonowtoooftenignored,avoided,orsimplyfeltunequal
viii Acknowledgments
to.Given the current (and, it seems to me, extremely vital) state
ofthefieldofanthropologyatpresent,thereiseveryreasontobe
hopeful that such a provocation will be answered with new and
innovativeformsofethnographicpracticethatcanpushthesorts
of questions I have tried to raise in this book in productive and
intellectuallyrewardingdirections.
More than anything I have written before, this book has been
shapedbytheinstitutionalandprofessionalsettingswithinwhich
its chapters took form. Most of the chapters began as seminar
papers,presentedatconferences,workshops,andinvitedlectures
at dozens of different universities in the United States and else-
where. It is perhaps too easy to be cynical about the ‘‘circuit’’ of
seminarsandcolloquiathataresomuchapartofacademiclifein
theUnitedStates.Myownexperience,atleast,isof havingbeen
enormouslyenrichedbymyencounterswithhundredsofserious,
thoughtful faculty and student colleagues in such settings—col-
leagueswhosequestions,insights,andsuggestionsplayedatruly
germinal part in forming my ideas, shaping the contours of my
arguments,andpushingmetowardgreaterclarityinmywriting.
I cannot thank all of these colleagues individually, but I am pro-
foundlyintheirdebt.
Much of thework on this book was donewhile I was a mem-
beroftheDepartmentofAnthropologyattheUniversityofCali-
fornia,Irvine(uci).TheIrvineDepartmentprovidedawonder-
fully stimulating and supportive environment for my intellectual
development over the years, and I am deeply grateful to my an-
thropologycolleagues(especiallyVictoriaBernal,TomBoellstorff,
MikeBurton,TeresaCaldeira,FrankCancian,LeoChavez,Susan
Greenhalgh,KarenLeonard,BillMaurer,andMeiZhan),aswell
as to the members of uci’s Critical Theory Institute, and to the
manywonderfulstudentsIworkedwithovertheyearsatIrvine.
Since2003,Ihaveenjoyedanequallydelightfulacademichomein
theDepartmentofCulturalandSocialAnthropologyatStanford
University,whichprovidedanenvironmentamazinglyrichinboth
intellectual excitement and warm collegiality for the final round
ofworkonthebook.Portionsofthebookwerealsowrittendur-
ingafellowshipyear(2000–01)attheCenterforAdvancedStudy
in the Behavioral Sciences, whose support is gratefully acknowl-
Acknowledgments ix