[Sugarman] Capitalism from the South: Call for abstracts and readings

Howard Stein howstein at umich.edu
Tue Jun 10 16:34:00 SAST 2014


Dear All:
Just a little reminder that Sharad and I are very much looking forward to
receiving your brief abstracts on topics related to "capitalism from the
south" along with five recommended readings. Topics discussed at the
meeting in Bakubung and related details are below. Please try to get this
to us by June 15. (sharad.chari at wits.ac.za; howstein at umich.edu).
With all best wishes,
Howard and Sharad


On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 6:14 AM, Sharad Chari <Sharad.Chari at wits.ac.za>
wrote:

>  Dear All,
>
>  A group of us met over 'capitalist lunch' at Bakubung to discuss various
> themes with respect to 'capitalism from the south' or 'southern critiques
> of capital' and related themes.  Some of the things that came up:
>
>  - Southern critiques of capital/ capitalism
> - Critiques of 'mono economics' from a development economics perspective
> - Jane Guyer's Marginal Gains and lived economies
> - Margins, traffic jams as sites of blockage and productivity (marginal or
> informal activity)
> - Biometric cash transfers as a way of dealing with identity in the
> absence of a biopolitical state
> - Property relations and indirect rule in Africa, minerals and special
> rights in property
> - Art markets and the commodification of 'African art'
> - Lawyers from Brazil and China, and the place of SA corporate law firms
> - Peter Braithwaite's Regulatory Capitalism
> - James Hodge (sp?) and critical institutionalism
> - Financial literacy/ numeracy
> - Non-capitalist economic activity, Gibson-Graham's alternative economies,
> the real economy of fishing in Lake Victoria
> - Environmental thought, Marxism and Capitalism - Jason Moore, Fernando
> Coronil
> - Dow Chemical's acquisition of Union Carbide
> - The Corporation as an organisational form
> - Dispossession, extraction and climate change
> - Crises of futurity, capital accumulation and the accumulation of carbon
> - Pentacostalism and the prosperity gospel, 'winner's chapel', Pentacostal ccupation
> of old industrial buildings, middle class aspiration
> - Informal economy, consumption, housing
>
>  As you see, it is quite an array of themes (and forgive me if they are
> incomplete, but you will appreciate that they are difficult to summarise!)
>  Yet, there was a sense that it might be worth trying to formalize what
> it might mean to interrogate Capitalism from the South from different
> perspectives and across the human sciences.  We expressed an interest in
> sharing readings on these topics, and of reconvening with papers for
> journal special issues (to be determined by the sets of papers that might
> logically group together).
>
>  The idea was to have a workshop on 'Capitalism from the South' sometime
> in the future, an additional day tacked onto one of the other
> WiSER/Wits-Michigan exchanges, which would also include a few others whose
> work is germane to the topic (Jane Guyer, Keith Hart, and various others
> come to mind, including several former Michigan Anthrohistorians including
> of course Coronil but also David Pedersen, Marina Welker and others, and
> Ravinder Kaur - this decision should of course be a product of conversation
> amongst the working group that emerges from this.)  We talked about aiming
> for papers next year, and a workshop either next year or the following.
>
>  If you are interested, please send a short paragraph abstract and 5 key
> readings that from your perspective attend to the topic of 'capitalism
> from the South' by June 15 to me (sharad.chari at wits.ac.za) copied to
> Howard (howstein at umich.edu).  Please note that whether or not you were at
> Bakubung, if you are part of the broader Michigan-Wits community interested
> in this theme, we welcome your abstracts and 5 key readings.
>
>  All Best,
> Sharad
>
>  ------------------------------
> *From:* Gabrielle Hecht [hechtg at umich.edu]
> *Sent:* Thursday, May 15, 2014 10:17 AM
> *To:* sugarman at lists.wits.ac.za
> *Subject:* [Sugarman] Toxicity, Waste, Detritus: Abstract solicitation
> and upload Instructions
>
>  Dear all,
>
>   The "Toxicity, Detritus and Waste" group (managed by Pamila Gupta and
> me) met this week to discuss ways of moving forward with this theme. In the
> long term, we hope to produce a collection of short, experimental verbal or
> visual essays (~2000 words), aimed at venues such as Africa is a Country
> <http://africasacountry.com/>  Somatosphere
> <http://somatosphere.net/commonplaces>  Chimurenga
> <http://www.chimurenga.co.za/>  and others (suggestions welcome). Steps
> toward that goal include articulating preliminary ideas, reading works in
> common, holding a workshop, and others to be determined.
>
>  *Step 1: sharing preliminary abstracts*
>
>    We agreed to share preliminary abstracts: low-stakes paragraphs merely
> intended to sketch out initial ideas about what we each want to explore.
> Capitalizing on the momentum we've built, we agreed to do these by *TOMORROW,
> Friday 16 May. *We'd initially thought we'd upload these into Dropbox,
> but Natasha heroically seized the day and built a WordPress site.  So,
> please follow the instructions below to upload your abstract directly onto
> our Wordpress site! It's very simple, we promise.
>
>    NOTE: We welcome your participation even if you couldn't attend the
> retreat (and thus the discussion). Please just let me and Pamila (
> Pamila.Gupta at wits.ac.za) know that you'd like to join us. We will ask
> that you too upload an abstract, but we'll give you an extra week to do it
> (i.e., until Friday 23 May).  *Please do pipe up soon: we will create a
> separate email list for this theme, so as not to burden the whole Sugarman
> site. If we don't know about your interest, we can't include you!*
>
>  These abstracts will enable us to identify and clarify common interests
> and sharpen our focus and intentions. We can consider them as provisional,
> so you need not feel that you're locking yourself in!
>
>
>  *Step 2: sharing bibliographic material*
>
>    In order to have a common base, we ask everyone to submit up to 5
> bibliographic items pertaining to our theme by *15 June*. These can be
> texts, video, artistic material, etc. We will send more detailed guidelines
> later -- for now this is just a heads up.
>
>
>  *Step 3: setting a workshop date*
>
>    By the end of August, we aim to have set a date for a workshop
> sometime in the 2nd half of 2015. Keep an eye out for emails on this point.
>
>
>  Looking forward to interesting collaborations!
>
>  *WORDPRESS UPLOAD INSTRUCTIONS*
>
>
> *A. Overview *
>
>
>  As mentioned above, Natasha Vally went ahead with setting up our site,
> and with writing instructions for all of us. THANK YOU Natasha! The
> intention is to have a very simple website that we can use for
> collaboration and sharing of text, video, audio and pictures. We will also
> use it for our longer term scheduling. View this as an experimental space
> -- we can update and shape it as needed.
>
>
>  *B. Wordpress Instructions*
>
>  These are really very simple and, if you have email, should not be a
> challenge at all. In order to keep this fun and collaborative, we need
> everyone to "buy in" by doing your bit!
>
>    To add your abstract to the site http://toxicityandwaste.wordpress.com/
>
>      1. Go to the Wordpress login page at
>     https://en.wordpress.com/wp-login.php
>
>     2. As your
>    *username*: toxicitywastedetritus
>    *password*: toxicityandwastepassword
>
>     *(Note: if you already have a Wordpress account, you'll need to log
> out of that and log back in with the above username)*
>
>
>    3.You will be taken to the Toxicity and Waste Wordpress site
>
>     4. On the left you'll see a tab that says "pages", *click* on "all
> pages"
>
>     5. If you scroll down you will see a page called "preliminary
> abstracts" and when you hover your mouse under it you will see "edit"
> *click* that
>
>     6. Now you just need to insert your paragraph into the block, below
> the ones already there. Please format your text following the ones that are
> already there: title in bold, your name and affiliation in italics, then
> your abstract in regular font.
>
>    7.Once you are done, *click* "update" on the right hand side of the
> page (it is is a blue button)
>
>    8. Done! You can view all the abstracts and all other information at
> http://toxicityandwaste.wordpress.com/
>
>    If you are having serious issues, you can email natasha.vally at gmail.com for
> assistance. But *please* don't just ask her to do it for you -- give it
> your best effort first!
>
>    Closer to June, we will resend instructions on how to add your
> bibliographic suggestions. They are very similar to the instructions above.
>
>
>
>     *Gabrielle Hecht* <http://gabriellehecht.org>
>  *Professor of History, **University of Michigan*
>  *Director, *Program in Science, Technology, and Society
> <http://www.lsa.umich.edu/sts>
>  *Associate Director, *African Studies Center
> <http://www.ii.umich.edu/asc/>
>
>
>
>
>     This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sugarman mailing list
> Sugarman at lists.wits.ac.za
> http://lists.wits.ac.za/mailman/listinfo/sugarman
>
>


-- 

Dr. Howard Stein
Professor
Department of Afroamerican and African Studies
Adjunct Professor
Department of Epidemiology
University of Michigan,
4700 Haven Hall
505 S. State St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Phone 734 763-5519
Fax 734 763-0543
Office Haven Hall 5514

United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, Economic Report for Africa,
2014-"Dynamic Industrial Policy in Africa: Innovative Institutions,
Effective Processes and Flexible Mechanisms" (Principal Co-author)

http://repository.uneca.org/unecawebsite/?q=eroa#.UzmTQhDijv4

"Beyond the World Bank Agenda: An Institutional Approach to Development"
(University of Chicago Press, 2008)

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/presssite/metadata.epl?mode=synopsis&bookkey=269209

"Good Growth and Governance in Africa: Rethinking Development Strategies"
(Oxford University Press, January 2012) (edited with Joseph Stiglitz, Akbar
Noman and Kwesi Botchwey)

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Economics/Developmental/Regional/~~/dmlldz11c2EmY2k9OTc4MDE5OTY5ODU3OA
==

"Gendered Insecurities, Health and Development in Africa" (Routledge
Studies in Development Economics, July, 2012) (edited with Amal Fadlalla, )

http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/books/details/9780415597845/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wits.ac.za/pipermail/sugarman/attachments/20140610/495e08c1/attachment-0001.html>


More information about the Sugarman mailing list