Ah, I see.
>By 'material and discursive effect' I didn't mean to imply that
>globalisation doesn't exist. Rather, I meant that to talk about
>globalisation as if it is an a priori cause is analytically misleading.
>For instance, environmental degedation isn't caused by globalisation; it's
>caused by, amongst many other things, 1) the appropriate people in
>coroporations deciding not to adopt environmentally friendly practcies, 2)
>policies and buying decisions taken by all those individuals who are
>members of corporations who constitute that mysterious entity 'the market'
>(which didn't exist in popular speech until the 19th century) which force
>or coerce individuals in the 'third world' to adopt environmentally
>unfriendly farming. The same sort of linkages constitute what we label
>'underdevelopment' (and underdeveloped in relation to _what_? I might add).
Not so much as underdevelopment 'in relation to something' Graham,
but underdevelopment as the repression of development, i.e. as in
Frank, AG. (1966) _the underdevelopment of development_ Monthly
Review, 18, (4) and furthered by the likes of Rodney, W. (1972) _How
Europe underdeveloped Africa_. London: Bogle-L'Ouverture Publications.
>
>'Things' like globalisation are constituted out of a whole series of
>translations of ideas and practices by conscious individuals and (I would
>argue) non-conscious non-human actors across space(s)and time(s). In this
>sense, Capitalism is an effect, the discipline of human geography is an
>effect,
Hmm, capitalism as an effect - I'd need some convincing - I'd have
said it was more a prescribed action - a purposeful act based on a
system of belief more than an effect...
>I - and you - are effects; nodes of practice enmenshed in multiple
>sets of social relations that are (re)produced by the actions of ourselves
>and others. I'm overegging the pudding, because I don't believe in
>classical cause-effect relations anyway, but I hope I make my point.
Cheers, Paul 'I am not an effect, I am a free man'.
>
>Cheers :-)
>
>Graham
>
>At 01:27 PM 2/20/01 +0000, you wrote:
>>>At the risk of sounding pedantic, and being accused of methodological
>>>individualism, globalisation isn't a cause of anything; it's a material and
> >>discursive effect
>>
--
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"The Macintosh isn't a computer...
it's a way of life." Don Rittner.
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Paul Broome
Centre for Developing Areas Research
Department of Geography
Royal Holloway and Bedford New College
University of London
Egham, Surrey, TW20 OEX, UK
Tel: +44 (0)178 444 3574
Fax: +44 (0)178 447 2386
Voice Mail:+44 (0)207 681 2867
http://www.geo-know.net/pab
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