Mahmood Reading

The author claims that state formation is characterized by two identities, by the market and by the culture, both which are mistaken for the same thing. Mahmood states that the cultural aspect is much more important. Culture involves ethnic traditions, customs of tribal groups, language, religions etc. When colonies were formed, colonizers ignored existing ethnic boundaries. Ethnic problems arose within the political boundaries created by the state. Also he concludes that the greatest crime of colonization was not exploiting the indigenous, but to politicizing indigeneity.

He says the politics of colonialism are not "historicized" meaning "we failed to understand the extent to which colonial institutions shaped the agency of the colonized." This is a difficult and wordy concept to grasp, so in my own words: Europe's current perception and influence on post-colonial countries is still shaped by the legacy of colonialsim.

Africa needed "native authority" to enter history. Europe didn't see Africa as having any types of government so Africa was excluded from history. Africa's history only started when Europeans could recognized a legitimate form of government, which started at the tribal "chief." Europe only recognized government in terms of authoritarianism. However Africa's history of government is much longer and vibrant and its portrayed including religious ruling, kingdoms, women ruler heads and clans.

European powers created an ethnic divide between natives and nonnatives. Natives were not under the law so they had no rights. Nonnatives were bound to the law and had rights. Africa has ethnicities--> defined by different tribes.

3 Post-colonial Dilemmas:

*Rights- civil rights for all citizens, "bonus" customary rights for the indigenous

*Entitlements- only applies to "natives"

*Customs- word closely tied with "native"

"Colonialism is not just about the identity of governors, that they were white or European; it was even more so about the institutions they created to enable a minority to rule over a majority." (Mahmood p.14)

I agree. It doesn't matter what the race of the colonizers were. Colonialism is about a small few ruling and exploiting many.

"Let us reconsider the colonial legacy that each of us is either a native or a settler. It is with that compass in hand that we must fashion our political world" (Mahmood p. 15).

I agree. We should take culture into account and detach our minds from a native vs. settler mentality so we can better picture the effects of colonialism.

Ch. 12 Journal

'Colonial States'

The 7 features of colonial rule

*International Political Dimension

*Bureaucratic elitism and authoritarianism

*Use of 'customary' authority figures in colonial society

*Use of force

*Technological advantage

*Statism

*Hegemonic ideology

Colonial states had little or no say in their laws or economy. Colonial states depended on traditional authority figures to carry out their laws. These people were village chiefs or upperclassmen. Hegemonic power ingrained helplessness into the people's minds. They thought they were supposed to follow the rules. Hegemonic power prevents rebellions and uprisings because people inherently believe that their rulers are beneficial. One challenger of colonial rule was Gandhi.

"The idea that British rule was invincible was challenged by the law-breaking mass movements led by Gandhi and others- movements whose basic objective was to show that British rule could be challenged and to build up confidence and courage among the people so that they could develop the capacity to struggle successfully against that rule." (p. 284)

I like this quote because it is so true. The masses were subject to unfair exploitation however Gandhi became the voice of the people- and he had many followers that believed in independence. What's more incredible was that he led people in peaceful protest. This way has more impact because it brings out the injustices of colonial rule. When people protest peacefully, they open up the tables for negotiation and represent readiness for reconciliation. Gandhi was the pioneer for mass protest and civil disobedience during the Indian Independence movement. He led protests by rounding up peasants, farmers, urban laborers and led nation-wide campaigns to ease poverty, expand women's rights, rid "untouchability" and build religious and ethnic amity (wikipedia.org).

The British raj was the name of British colonial rule in India. India gained its independence in 1947.

Statism means the state has massive control over the economy. An example is Britian's East India Company, who controlled much of present-day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh & Sri Lanka. In 1858, the Crown gained power of India from the East India Company. Railways, roads, canals and bridges, telegraph stations were built in India for easy communication and transportation and were thus ruled by the state. However, while this benefited Britain, it harmed India because it did not create jobs for Indians, left India with high unemployment and crippled India's economy for the local businesses. Also, there were a series of famines in India, resulted from poor colonial administration and the economic constraints in India.

Britain controlled by force, exercising control through zamindars (landlords in India) and the military. Zamindars were Indian landlords who collected taxes from the peasants, then handed the money to Britain and keeping a portion for themselves. The majority of rules were enforced by the military. The text notes multiple rebellions in the Madras Province of India. In Africa, troops would devastate areas with violence.

Britain's power started to fade by the end of the 1930s with the establishment of the Indian National Congress (1937) which gave people local power. A highlighting event was the revolt of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay, also known as the "Bombay Mutiny." The mutiny spread to many ships and 20,000 sailors. It was a strike against conditions and lack of food.

We can see the devastating effects of colonials and the changes after independence. The masses were quick to support the rebellions. The beginning of self-independence for India was the start of a new era.

"No government lasts long on the basis of force alone. The British had to have 'traditional' authority figures in Indian society on whom they could rely for political support and who could bring to the new state the cloak of legitimacy. Where they could not find authority figures, they created them." (p. 278)

My reaction to this quote is that the colonizers were quite clever in maintaining power abroad. For as long as they can convince people that their loyalty rested in Britain, they could control whole nations. They placed people they could trust, and that the locals could trust to re-enforce power. In Africa, Europeans ruled indirectly through tribes. They thought: "Every African belonged to a tribe, like every European belonged to a nation." Therefore each tribe must be under a chief. They took advantage of this by supervising chiefs and making sure these 'patrimonial rulers" represented European administration.

Ch. 11 Journal

'Colonialism'

Summary: The first stage of expansion happened in the 16th century, driven by explorers, mercenaries and merchant adventurers. The quest for treasure spurred exploration in the West, including the Indies.

In the 17th century, the British were interested in North America, which provided tobacco and cotton. The British colonized North America and the Caribbean, which lead to manufacturing because of the scale of raw materials and slave labor. Also, the Triangular Trade brought slaves to America from Africa. Cotton, sugar, tobacco and large profits to Europe from America, and cloth and guns to Africa from Europe.

The 18th century intensified slave trade in the Atlantic. People were taking over the coasts of Africa and territory within Asia. The Dutch East Indies Company profited from the spice islands of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. The 19th & 20th century was defined by industrial capitalism and imperialism. This included the Scramble for Africa, where the continent was carved between Britain, France, Belgium, Germany and Portugal. By 1900, Europe controlled 90% of the continent. The scrambled occurred during the great depression.

Vocab:

imperialism - general system of domination by a state over other states

monopoly capitalism - capitalism characterized by giant corporations that control much of the local and/or world markets, increased competition

indentured service - people contracting themselves to work for a certain number of years

semi-proletarianization - providing labor for others because they cannot pay back what they owe, called of debt bondage

Proletarianization: process of generalized employment of wage labor, employment of commoditized labor

petty commodity production - producing commodities for sale based on economic necessity, small scale and often includes household labor

-popular with rural populations who preferred petty commodity production than work hard labor in plantations and mines

The decline of slavery was marked by industrialization and new technology in North America and Britain, which rendered slave labor less competitive.

Colonial Labor Regimes: (p. 262)

A. Forced Labor (slavery)

B. Semi-proletarian Labor (debt bondage)

C. Petty Commodity Production

D. Proletarianization

Labor was an important part of colonialism, as was land. The demand for labor and land shaped the way of life. Society was also impacted by ethnic division of labor, of which Europeans were superior. Their strategy was 'divide and rule' (language and religion). In a way however this also united the anti-colonialists. Some people say that development was created in order to provide agency and establish order, to provide 'trusteeship' of someone's future. People also say the development was invented by Western Europe to control and manage the social effects, to "engineer progress within a framework of order, intention and design to anticipate and contain the social and above all class contradictions of capitalist development experienced in Europe" (p. 267).

My thoughts: I do believe development took place order to provide agency, but it was an effect of the social and structural devastation from colonialism. I don't think it was purposefully "invented" because of colonialism rather a way for developed nations to make amends and "improve" the poorer countries that they exploited.

Ch. 10 Journal

'Diversity in Pre-Capitalist Societies'

European demands, then, were on one side of the equation, but the other side depended on what the colonized regions had to offer in the first place, and how their inhabitants could be persuaded to part with with what was theirs. p. 220

My thoughts: In order to understand capitalism, we must see it from both sides of the equation. If one side is unwilling to budge, capitalism won't work. While capitalism can imply one nation dominating another, it doesn't necessarily mean that one nation is superior in regards to arts and culture, as illustrated by Europe's admiration of Mogul India. Europeans admired their fine arts, grand cities. To me, it's a matter of who got there first, who came up with the idea of saying how to run things, and exerting those ideas forcefully onto others which brought about imperialism, increased exchange in resources, products and the birth of capitalism.

Summary: Subsistence producers were swallowed up by powerful, capitalist states. For example the Spanish in Latin America. One people group called the Mundurucu were divided in the 1950s into those who chose to preserve their subsistence lifestyle in the Amazon and those who chose to branch out to other jobs such as collect rubber for traders. For the Mundurucu, there was no division between private "family" life and "work" life. Family relations would be present while they exchanged goods and their sexual division of labor was unique. Women did the majority of the work, the hard field labor, household labor and childcare while men were the hunters or cleared ground for cultivation.

Based on the Mundurucu, pre-capitalist societies they had no political organization like how we perceive ourselves today, associated with a specific race or political stance. They had no bureaucratic structure. Every village had a chief, but their purpose was for influence instead of authority. They also believed in supernatural powers and symbols. Economically, pre-capitalist societies were not organized to produce a surplus and were mostly egalitarian, kinship was very important. There were other kingdoms however, with an implicit caste system, like the Hutu, Tutsi and Twa of pre-colonial Rwanda (p. 229).

The Kingdom of Bakongo was an empire In Africa (present-day Angola) with smiths making weapons, knives and were exchanged throughout the country. They exchanged with colonists, merchants and missionaries. Europeans easily dominated established kingdoms such as the Incas of Peru, with the invasion of Spanish conquistadores. The Incas had an unwritten language. The Moguls 1526-1761 in north-west India, whose influence spread because of their monetized economy and organized state. The ruling elite were Muslims and the masses were Hindu. Castes existed in the division of labor.

The rise of Islam had a powerful effect in European cultures and was a unifying factor from West Africa to Indonesia. Its spread took off after the death of Muhammad in 632.

2 ending points:

-Wealth went to the transformation of productive processes in Europe, the Industrial Revolution

-European imperialism brought the new world economic order (p. 240).

Reaction to 'Darwin's Nightmare'

The culture and lifestyles of the fishing population is tragic. Fishing villages are infected with poverty, prostitution and filth. The trade itself is a downward spiral because the poor need a job so they become fisherman. However their job is dangerous on the lake (they go out in little pirogues) and they do not get paid a lot. It is hard to support a family on a fisherman's income. The local people do not benefit from this market whatsoever. The fish that is caught is processed at a factory that cuts them into filets. This process drives up the price of fish so that the locals cannot afford to buy it. While the factories provide jobs, this industry is not sustainable because it does not contribute to the health and longevity of the local population. All the fish is shipped out and the profit goes into the hands of the companies that privatized the fish market. (Something I noticed was that there were lots of businessmen in TZ who came from India, and I wonder about the socio-cultural ties with India and Tanzania.)

Many Russians fly to Tanzania in Post-Soviet planes to take fresh cargo back to European nations daily. They try to stuff planes with so much cargo in order to save money but the planes often end up crashing from the weight of the fish. It is common to see bits of plane debris at the airport from planes crashes that failed to lift off. Because there are many foreigners (especially Russians) that fly into Tanzania, prostitution is very common. They interviewed some "pilot's girlfriends" and the women said that they receive a good meal and maybe some beers when clients come. Prostitutes don't enjoy their job, they do it out of necessity. They interviewed Eliza (I believe was her name) and she said that she had dreams to become a teacher. Tragically, later into the film they found out Eliza was killed by a client.

There is a high level of HIV/AIDS but there is no clinic around for treatment, or medications readily available. There was a Christian minister in one fishing village however he does not advocate the use of condoms. This can be a problem because he believes pre-marital sex is a sin. However HIV/AIDS is spread through the culture of extra-martial sex. There needs to be re-alignment of sex education and HIV/AIDS prevention because NOT telling people to use condoms causes more harm than good.

The biodiversity in Lake Victoria is deteriorating. Levels of oxygen are depleted, the native species are disappearing because the alien species that was introduced is predatory to all other species and taking over the lake. Some hungry villagers, the poorest of the poor, will eat whatever the planes and factories leave behind. They will scrounge the dumps for fish carcasses that still have meat and roast them, but these fish dumps are crawling with rotting soil and maggots. Plus these carcasses are probably moldy and barely edible. One villager said this fish tasted more bitter than normal.

The youth make glue to inhale to help them sleep. It's made from fish parts. When they sniff it, they can sleep anywhere and according to a young boy, "it gets rid of fear." The documentary shows lots of street children left on their own, many to get in fights and fend for themselves. They sleep in groups. There was one girl who had to stay with the younger boys for fear that the older boys would take advantage of her.

The predatory species in Lake Victoria has spawned endless problems. While the Lake provides a supply of fish, fisherman and their families are suffering. There is disease, poverty, HIV/AIDS, hunger, homelessness and prostitution that are magnified by the lake's vicinity. Messing with nature and privatization of the fish market has caused so much more harm than good. The stories of these fishing villages are often unheard of. I am glad that this documentary brings those problems to light and forces us to think about the implications and consequences of 'capitalism' and global markets.

Cox Reading 'Political Geography'

Cox states that capitalism means "the production of commodities with commodities." That means in a market, everything becomes a commodity, something that is bought, sold or rented. Capitalism cannot exist without labor markets. After the Cold War, the world moved towards capitalism and free markets, but this comes with problems too. Capitalism produces competition, the cheapening of the product and developing it, and wage competition.

Three preconditions exist for capitalism:

1) the separation of the immediate producers from the means of production.

This can often be forcible and violent.

2) (abolition of slavery) immediate producers must be free to work for a wage

3) there must be people with large sums of money

Forces of production:

1) skill of the worker

2) instrument of labor

3) object of labor

Socialization of production include interdependence between firms and specialization. Firms need each other to stay afloat. It includes skill development like literacy and technical know-how. Sources of tension include the inequality of power, insufficiency (wages, benefits) and insecurity (unemployment), insignificance (people replaced by machinery), the degradation of the environment, politics (monopolies, left-wing and right-wing, property rights).

Environmental degradation includes the depletion of non-renewable resources. Examples of this include over-fishing and oil. If oil is used at a rate faster than we can replace it, we will run out of resources. There are external costs involved as well which are not caused purposefully but have an equally important impact on future generations, like pollution caused by a power plant. This impacts both humans and the environment. Another factor of environmental degradation is population growth as well as growth in consumption. Not only are there more numbers of people on this earth, but each person tends to consume more.

"Moving in the direction of lower wages and less militant, more pliable labor is often a strategy for business as it attempts to elude the challenge of the labor movement" (pp. 52-53).

Businesses will always be up against labor unions. Businesses will find loopholes to cheapen the mode of production or try to replace labor with machinery, and labor unions will try to uphold their rights and improve working conditions. Cox says that the worker's movement is very geographically uneven, and I agree. The quote above illustrates that businesses will move to a place that is favorable to them, where they don't have to follow the rules. It's like a chase... the businesses will go where labor unions don't exist. That geography will then try to "cope."

Cox states that with the change of capitalism, there is a change of the home and the cityscape. Centered around the construction of a factory may be the construction of houses, schools and churches. Capitalism changes the infrastructure of an area. It can affect transportation, communication, the price of housing etc. Space has become commodified, and "conflicts between firms and employees is reflected geographically" (p. 61).

What I got from this: capitalism and politics are determined by geographical location.

Ch. 6 Journal

'Is the World Overpopulated?'

Overview: The traditional Malthusian view is that the growth of population will eventually overtake the production of food because the Earth has limited resources. The production of food grows arithmetically (1,2,3,4...) while the human race reproduces geometrically (2,4,8....). This leads to important questions: Is the world being overpopulated? Does the world have enough resources to support people?

The Neo-Malthusian view is similar to the traditional Malthusian but is less pessimistic, stating that human intervention can put a check on population growth. However their theory stems from the view that the poor have the most children due to ignorance and "lack of foresight" and make it an imperative that people have less children (p. 133).

Population is rising because mortality is decreasing. The trend is that population increases are stemming from low-income countries. In fact, many higher-income nations have a declining population. One explanation may be that people in low-income countries tend to have more children in order to compensate for possible losses. Also there is improved public health and sanitation, allowing safer deliveries, higher fertility and longer lifespans. The United Nations Population Fund projects that the world population may stop growing at 10 billion people (p. 127). Currently the world's population is nearly 6 billion people. The three components of population are mortality, fertility and distribution.

The Demographic Transition Theory (p. 128) ties together industrialization and fertility and is based on the modernization theory. Since the Industrial Revolution, high mortality and fertility rates have turned to low mortality and low fertility rates in developed nations. The more industrialized, the more likely a nation will have low deaths and low fertility.

Migration: "The level and the nature of development determine migration patterns. Migration decisions have emotional and practical repercussions of great significance, affecting the equality of people's life." p. 129

My thoughts: The migrant population is often overlooked. I think it is an important part of the population equation so I am glad they talk extensively about the plight of migrant workers. They are often faced with unequal treatment, work long hours with low pay, work in dangerous environments and are prone to mistreatment and vulnerable to disease, especially if they are illegal migrants since they shy away from going to hospitals. The book gives examples of historical migrations such as migrants from the India subcontinent going to oil-producing Middle Eastern countries, European migrants to North & South America in the 1900s, the migration caused by famine in Indo-China and sub-Saharan Africa and refugees from the Cambodian Pol Pot regime.

"Development is the best contraceptive." - Bucharest slogan 1974 (p. 134)

My thoughts: Was this really a slogan? It made me laugh out loud but also think twice about the impact of development. I don't think it is the only way to slow population growth. While it is a catchy phrase, development incorporated with education are the best contraceptives. Also, the book talks about the many social factors that contribute to population size. This connects with the International Conference on Population and Development's (ICPD) Programme of Action which advocate for women and health. Their focus is on: 1) reproduction, women and the family 2) the inter-relation between population dynamics and development 3) mortality, migration and the elderly.

Population vs. birth control: birth control refers to the rights of couples or individuals to control childbearing on the basis of choice. Population control refers to the controlling of childbearing through policies.

Vocab:

Replacement level- level of fertility at which women have enough daughters to replace themselves

Infant Mortality Rate- number of deaths to infants under one year of age in a given year per 1,000 live births

fertility rate- number of live births per 1,000 women aged 15-44 years in a given year

crude birth rate- number of births per 1,000 population in a given year