RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in such a mess?

"I think we still have a poor grasp as to _how_ structural factors shape or
influence human action."

I cut my teeth in grad school on Foucault; this is his central issue, and
what I found appealing about his work: how the individual is constituted by
relations of forces, how institutions and structures constitute regimes of
discipline and normalization etc. Although theories more optimistic about
politics and human agency have challenged, and are aiming to displace, him
but I think that his mode of analysis is still quite important today.

Bode

-----Original Message-----
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
[mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of kwame zulu shabazz
Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2010 9:43 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Why is Africa in such a mess?

Peace All,

Kenneth, that is great sketch of economic domination by remote
control. I am African American. My African comrades and I go back and
forth on this frequently. Whereas I tend to favor structural
explanations, many of my African comrades tend to point to what is, in
their view, corrupt African leadership. As you rightly note, all
factors must be placed on the table. That said, brother Moses didn't
dismiss structure outright. He acknowledges that its a "culprit," but
a "more distant" culprit.

That brings up a related issue that I wanted to toss out. I think we
still have a poor grasp as to _how_ structural factors shape or
influence human action. Which is not exactly the same as understanding
how a given structure works or functions (your sketch, for example).
And because we don't fully understand how structure constricts and
induces action, we tend to conceptualize structure, spatially, as
"distant." Last, I wanted to note that structural arguments push
against our commonsensical ideas of self-actualizing autonomous human
beings--that are actions are fully voluntary and self-actuated. So-
called "free will" or what liberal academics call "agency." kzs

On Dec 15, 6:10 pm, kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu> wrote:
> moses
> while i agree largely with your careful reasoning, there is one point
> where i stopped. see it below.
> ok, you are a farmer: you are growing a crop that was introduced to your
> region during the colonial period. call it, oh, cotton. why not.
> the u.s. subsidizes cotton, thus enabling it to undersell mali. even in
> the poorest and most dispossessed region, cotton is affected since the
> malians cannot put up protective tariffs thanks to the stupid neoliberal
> rules that govern the imf.  and just in case we forgot, european
> subsidies exceed, in percentage, u.s. subsidies, and both the eu and usa
> are excempt from imf rules against erecting tariffs.
> you live, let us say, in e congo where tin is mined. tin goes out, guns
> go in, militias, uganda elites, rwandan generals, all get rich
>   you live, where? in senegal where those trawlers have harvested all
> the damn fish in the ocean, driving thousands to take piroques north,
> endangering themselves and drowning, only to get to a xenophobic europe
> ready to lynch them en mass, especially in italy which is ruled by a
> rightwing maniac.
> should i go on? where is that corner, moses, where this economic order
> does not matter??
> please. i know the leadership works hand in glove with the corporations
> that buy the diamonds, with the gun runners that sell the armaments. i
> know the chinese stepped into s sudan oil fields when the westerners
> moved out. please, where is this remote untouched corner?
> i know, it is in the sahara. wait, what is africom surveilling? why are
> they expending millions to expend rule over mauretania, why did the
> chinese build a superhighway in mauretania. oh, oil. need i go on.
> the order that is decimating africa reaches from elite to elite, and the
> rest of us, trawled up by those inhumane monsters, are left to cheer on
> bono.
> we have to recognize ALL these forces if we are to establish a coherent
> policy for change. i would very very willingly start with the bottom up
> that you evoke, the subalterns that reach in peculiar ways across
> countries. all countries, integrated now more than ever into mechanisms
> of exploitation of resources and labor.
> ken
>
> On 12/15/10 11:53 AM, Moses Ebe Ochonu wrote:
>
> > it is my view that for most peoples of the South and the North who are
> > poor and dispossessed, the global neoliberal order is a more distant
> > culprit in their predicament than are their proximate leaders and
> > political actors.
>
> --
> kenneth w. harrow
> distinguished professor of english
> michigan state university
> ph. 517 803 8839
> har...@msu.edu

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