Henry Giroux and counternarratives

Henry Giroux has been writing about, and engaging in, critical pedagogy for over 30 years, and his work - with Paulo Friere and Peter McLaren - has profoundly influenced my own teaching and research. In particular, I have been affected by his exhortation to create space for counternarratives, in the classroom and elsewhere. In a similar vein, bell hooks talks about teaching to transgress.

Today I came across an article written by Giroux for the online journal Dissident Voice (3/11/08). The article is entitled "Slouching Towards Bethlehem: the New Gilded Age and Neoliberalism's Theatre of Cruelty" and I am excerpting some of it here:

What is often ignored by many theorists who analyze the rise of
neoliberalism in the United States is that it is not only a system of economic power relations, but also a political project of governing and persuasion intent on producing new forms of subjectivity and particular modes of conduct....

I want to begin with a theoretical insight provided by the British media theorist, Nick Couldry, who insists that “every system of cruelty requires its own theatre,” one that draws upon the rituals of everyday life in order to legitimate its norms, values, institutions, and social practices.(Nick Couldry, “Realty TV, or the Secret Theatre of Neoliberalism,” The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies (forthcoming), p. 1).

Neoliberalism represents one such a system of cruelty, one that is reproduced daily through a regime of commonsense and a narrow notion of political rationality that “reaches from the soul of the citizen-subject to educational policy to practices of empire.” (Wendy Brown, Edgework: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press,2005), p. 40)

What is new about neoliberalism in a post-9/11 world is that it has become normalized, serving as a powerful pedagogical force that shapes our lives, memories, and daily experiences, while attempting to erase everything critical and emancipatory about history, justice, solidarity, freedom, and the meaning of democracy.

Wedded to the belief that the market should be the organizing principle for all political, social, and economic decisions, neoliberalism wages an incessant attack on democracy, public institutions, public goods, and non-commodified values. Under neoliberalism everything either is for sale or is plundered for profit....

Citizenship has increasingly become a function of market values and politics has been restructured as “corporations have been increasingly freed from social control through deregulation, privatization, and other neoliberal measures.” (William K. Tabb, “Race to the Bottom?” in Stanley Aronowitz and Heather Gautney, eds. Implicating Empire: Globalization & Resistance in the 21 Century World Order (New York: Basic Books, 2003), p. 153)

Bleak, indeed. As a new section, I suggest that we consider a panel on counternarratives for ASPA 2009, especially since so many of us feel outnumbered in our schools and universities, having to clamor in louder and louder voices against the growing Leviathan of neoliberal ideology. Read, for example, the exchange on empiricism in Administration & Society's Disputatio Sine Fine section, beginning with Larry Luton's article on "Deconstructing PA Empiricism" in July 2007.

Echoing Cam Stivers' lament in the January 2008 issue, I too feel as if I'm experiencing some strange reversion: haven't we heard all this already, and isn't it SO last century? Sadly, it appears, there is a large contingent of neoliberals and empiricists who are determined to drag the debate forward. Perhaps it's part of the ontology: a worldview anchored in competition and social darwinism means someone has to win; anything less is failure. All this indicates, to me, that the need for strong counternarratives will continue, and we should prepare ourselves for a long bout of resistance.

--posted by Lisa Zanetti

Human Trafficking

This weekend various groups here at Mizzou sponsored a conference called "Stop Traffic," which focuses attention and motivates activism around the issue of global human trafficking. Some statistics to think about:

• International governmental entities estimate conservatively that 600,000-800,000 persons are trafficked across international borders each year. Of these, 70 percent are female and 50 percent are children (http://www.usdoj.gov/).


• Trafficking is estimated to be a $7 billion/year industry.


• Victims of trafficking are subject to gross human rights violations including, rape, torture, forced abortions, starvation, and threats of torturing or murdering family members.


• Nearly every country is involved in the web of trafficking activities, either as a country of origin, destination or transit. Countries of destination include Australia, Brazil, Cambodia, France, India, Israel, Japan, The Netherlands, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates, and the United States.


• 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the United States from no less than 49 countries every year. As many as 750,000 women and children have been trafficked into the United States over the last decade.


• Women and children as young as 14 have been trafficked from Mexico to Florida and forced to have sex with as many as 130 clients per week in a trailer park. These women were kept hostage through threats and physical abuse, and were beaten and forced to have abortions. One woman was locked in a closet for 15 days after trying to escape.


• Cases of trafficking into the United States include women and children who are trafficked from Honduras to Dallas and Ft. Worth, Texas; Latvia to Chicago; Mexico to Florida; Korea to Michigan; Japan to Hawaii; Cameroon to Maryland; Taiwan to Seattle; India to California; Vietnam to Atlanta.


• In Fresno, California Hmong gang members have kidnapped girls between the ages of 11 and 14 and forced into prostitution. The gang members would beat and rape them into submission. These girls were trafficked within the United States and traded between other Hmong communities.


• The Cadena smuggling ring trafficked women, some as young as 14, from Mexico to Florida. The victims were forced to prostitute themselves with as many as 130 men per week in a trailer park. Of the $25 charged the "Johns" the women received only $3. The Cadena members kept the women hostage through threats and physical abuse. One woman was kept in a closet for 15 days for trying to escape. Some were beaten and forced to have abortions (the cost of which was added to their debt). The women worked until they paid off their debts of $2,000 to $3,000 (see website at world revolution ).

What can public administration scholars and practitioners do about this form of modern-day slavery? As far as I can tell, the topic has received little attention in the scholarly journals, possibly because it's precisely the kind of messy and indelicate problem that's so difficult to capture and analyze.

Does anyone reading this blog have experience teaching or working with this issue? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. In the meantime, these are just a few of the websites that address the issue (this list is far from comprehensive):

Anti-Slavery International (the oldest international human rights organization)

Human Trafficking

Coalition Against Trafficking in Women

-- posted by Lisa Zanetti

ASPA Section for Democracy and Social Justice

Welcome to the blogspot for ASPA's newest section!

As far as I know, DSJ is the first ASPA section with a blog. We should be sure we get recognition for this in PA Times and have it known as part of the regular information distributed (note I did not use the word "disseminated") about DSJ.

An important item of note: Richard Box and I are primary authors and administrators for this blog. But anyone who's interested is able to write a post for this blog. To do that, I need to give you permission - but this is easy to do. If you want to write a piece, just email me at zanettil@missouri.edu and I'll take care of the necessary setup.

Remember, though, that this is a public site, so it's necessary to be somewhat circumspect.

Also, please remember that this site is under development - if you have ideas, suggested links, or see interesting components on other sites/blogs, please let me know.

--posted by Lisa Zanetti