Skip to main content

(re)Appropriation , Neo Liberalism and Critical Modernism

By Anonymous


After reading Harvey’s, Vivian’s and Dutta & Pal’s readings, I cant help feeling awestruck at the capacity of Neo-liberalism to mould its facades to appropriate events/ entities that in their essence are antithetical to it. I am referring to a recurrent phenomenon where neoliberal projects re-brand events/ entities which in some way engender themes that are contrary to the hegemonic universalism of neoliberalism. The phenomenon is fittingly outlined in Vivian’s analysis of the 9/11/2002 epideictic. Contemporary popular culture is also replete with such rebranding of icons. For instance the popular versions (and thereby versions that belong to the civic memory) of the story of Indian freedom struggle rebrand one of the key figures Bhagat Singh to render futile his politics. Singh in being revered as shaheed-e-azam (the most glorious of martyrs) by the state apparatus is divorced, as an icon, from the fact that he was one of the first Marxists in India and his visions of revolution, politics and freedom were those of the Left. In using the trope of shaheed-e-azam and singing paeans to the glory of Singh, popular versions carefully excite responses of reverence and inspiration and at the same time sever from his iconic status, the radical nature of his politics. In being called a shaheed(martyr) Singh is put in the ilk of venerated founding figures of Indian Independence and by extension shown to be a part of the non-left homogeneous pantheon. Most interestingly, Singh is credited for coining the single slogan that characterizes Indian independence: “Inqelab Zindabad” (Long live revolution!), however the next clause of the slogan is mysteriously excluded—no surprises that this clause is to be translated as: “Down with Imperialism!” As I read it, Critical Modernism can provide us a useful lens to look at phenomena like this.

When “power and structure are located within the constitutive spaces of discourse” (Pal and Dutta, p.174) one can profitably capture the dynamics of neoliberal (re)appropriation by recognizing the constitutive nature of the discursive space while at the same time subjecting its particular constellations to interrogations of power, control and hegemony. In so doing Critical Modernism potentially stands as a mode of inquiry that can be applied to areas in addition to Public Relations practice.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Purdue's Professional Revolutionary

By RK
In light of the discussion we had during our advisee meeting on Friday about being strategic in our means as critical scholars I was struck by the words of Lenin who emphasizes the role of the intellectual. He says, "The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness, i.e., it may itself realize the necessity for combining in unions, for fighting against the employers and for striving to compel the government to pass necessary labor legislation, etc. The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals." (pg. 74) This idea of the bourgeois socialist intelligentsia as an instrument of raising consciousness and fomenting dissent is an ideal one I am sure but in contemporary times we, the academics, forming a substantial part of the "intellectual elite", occupy a unique position which forces us into ...
6 comments
Read more

Whose means justifies their end?

By
I spend a lot of my time teaching and disciplining children now-a-days and through these experiences, I have found many similarities in the ways that Marx and Engel construct their arguments for communism and against capitalism, most of which are shaped around the concept of deflection. First, let me provide an example from which my conclusions are built, all of which are inducted from daily experiences. I know that my experience is nothing novel or new, especially if anyone reading this has had the pleasure of working with large groups of kids. In a classroom there is supposed to be only one goal, one guider, and one “law maker” and that lovely job title has been bestowed upon me, the teacher. In trying to achieve my one goal to teach multiplication, I tell every student to be quiet and do their work. While not paying attention, I hear several of the students talking. When I look up, I single out the first one that I see talking (lets call him Crandon). I tell Crandon, “If you continu...
7 comments
Read more

Is participation just a rhetoric?

By
Participation and participatory strategies are used in different spaces globally to involve communities and ensure their voices in the discursive space. The culture centered approach foregrounds active participation of community members in the construction of shared meanings and experience (Dutta, 2008). Basu and Dutta (2009) underline the importance of participation of community members in the enunciation of health problems as a step toward achieving meaningful change. My experience with participatory projects involving children and community members also bears testimony to the importance of participation in impacting society; effecting a sustainable social change. But at the same time, this question looms large in my reflexive spaces that "Is it all just a co-optive process as the structural issues have remain untouched?" Basu and Dutta (2009) discuss different approaches of participation, critique the top down participatory campaigns and provide an alternative theorizing o...
2 comments
Read more