Sharing and neoliberal discourse: The economic function of sharing in the digital on-demand economy

In this paper I offer a critical analysis of ‘sharing’ as a discursive formation in the emerging on-demand economy or, as its more commonly known, ‘sharing’ economy. The set of firms and digital platforms that constitute the on-demand economy evade precise definition, though in popular commentary include Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Taskrabbit, Couchsurfing, and Yelp, among others. I argue that sharing is a discursive formation that is produced through neoliberal economic practices and contributes to their constitution and performance, connoting the embeddedness and inter-determination of the economic with the social. I analyze interview material with software developers and others working for on-demand economy firms in San Francisco to underscore how the sharing discourse is produced, and to examine the possible relationship between the sharing discourse and working practices in the on-demand economy. I explore how sharing, though a fragile and contested discourse, has been used by some proponents of the on-demand economy in an attempt to justify and normalize flexible and precarious work through an ambiguous association between capitalist exchange and altruistic social values. This ambiguity is productive insofar as sharing has become associated variously with transactional platforms, digital peer review via surveillant and punitive ratings systems, and algorithmically mediated, precarious, and ‘entrepreneurial’ contract work, while retaining affective associations with community, inclusion, and participation.     

Government and urban management in the 20th century: policies,contradictions, and weaknesses of the New Right

Throughout the 20th century, government in the U.S. has gone through significant changes; initially responding to the disorder of early capitalism, and later, to the economic crisis of the 1970s. This article will explore the changes in the U.S. political landscape over the last century, as well as the recent rise of neo-liberalism. In addition, with the analysis of the model laissez-faire municipal government, the City of Houston, the article will illustrate how the basic weaknesses of neoliberalism at the national level are also evident at the local scale of government.

Campaigning culinary documentaries and the responsibilization of food crises

This paper explores the campaigning culinary documentary (CCD) as an emerging format within food television. CCDs bring together elements of the lifestyle genre with an explicit focus on a food ‘crisis’ – such as obesity or animal welfare – and explore how this crisis is to be resolved, usually through the intervention of a food celebrity. Focussing largely on shows made by the UK’s Channel 4 network, we explore the ways in which CCDs narrate issues of responsibilization, whether these target consumers/viewers, the food industry, or the state. Through a reading of selected CCDs from Channel 4’s roster, we consider how the shows attempt to fuse elements of lifestyle/reality TV with a social or political agenda, but one which deploys the governmental strategy of responsibilization and so could be read as an enactment of neoliberal logic. While there is some truth to this claim, our analysis and discussion seeks to complicate this reading, showing how CCDs open up other narrative and political possibilities while also consolidating the brand image of the cookery TV stars who front them.     

Power and privilege in alternative civic practices: Examining imaginaries of change and embedded rationalities in community economies

Community economies can be considered as examples of the diverse economies growing outside common capitalist logics of private accumulation and profit, seeking to bypass or reconfigure dominant global trends of societal and economic organization. Yet, these communities seem to fit quite well under a neoliberal program in which responsibilities are shifting downwards, favoring multi-level governance over State intervention and accountability. This binary character makes imperative an open and critical discussion on the development of community initiatives, including on the motivations and visions of citizens practicing alternative ethical consumption. This article explores the neoliberal rationalities embraced by community members within the imaginaries of change they frame and examines how these rationalities contribute to (re)producing neoliberal conditions and forms of governance. Our analysis builds on semi-structured interviews conducted among the members of 11 initiatives in 5 EU countries and on participant observation. We argue here that communities articulate an “alternative imaginary” of change that appears imprinted by core neoliberal rationalities around questions of individual responsibility, the role of the State, and civic participation and equity. It is an imaginary related to the construction of CBEs to by-pass existing socio-political and economic configurations. This imaginary more often than not responds to neoliberal promises of individual freedom and autonomy and seems to undermine CBEs' more radical possibilities at the same time obscuring more diverse voices of transformation.     

Hegemony and resistance: Disturbing patterns and hopeful signs in the impact of neoliberal policies on small-scale fisheries around the world

This paper reviews the major themes and contributions of this Special Issue in light of a broader social science literature on how to conceptualize small-scale fisheries, the role of the state in facilitating or limiting neoliberalism, and the failure of neoliberal policies to improve conservation. It concludes with a look at ways in which neoliberalism is being undermined by emerging alternatives.     

Privatization,financialization and ocean grabbing in New Brunswick herring fisheries and salmon aquaculture

The growing literature on individual transferable quotas (ITQs) and on intensive salmon aquaculture and its negative impacts on the environment and other users of related marine space has been little connected to the developing literature on financialization and to the literature on ocean grabbing within fisheries. This paper seeks to address this gap through a case study of the recent history of herring fisheries and intensive aquaculture in New Brunswick, Canada, exploring how specific neoliberal processes – including privatization and marketization (in herring fleet ITQs and aquaculture lease systems), (re)regulation, financialization and globalization – have interacted to support the reshaping of regional fisheries from mixed small-scale, family-based, petty commodity fisheries towards vertically-integrated, corporate, financialized fisheries characterized by ocean grabbing.     

Institutional individualism and the pricing metric: Epistemological arguments against neoliberal policies

This paper aims to support arguments that Parr and Knox-Hayes developed in two recent articles published in Geoforum against neoliberal market-oriented policies in the environmental realm. We advocate for distinguishing between epistemological, ethical and political arguments in order to tackle the political economy, which the neoliberal pricing metric relies on. We suggest that North’s institutional individualism and Sen’s capabilities approach offer consistent and relevant theoretical frameworks for overcoming the failures of mainstream economics.     

Recasting diaspora strategies through feminist care ethics

The diaspora-centred development agenda holds that migrants lead transnational lives and contribute to the material well being of their homelands both from afar and via circular migration. Concomitant with the ascendance of this agenda there has arisen a new field of public policy bearing the title ‘diaspora strategies’. Diaspora strategies refer to proactive efforts by migrant-sending states to incubate, fortify, and harness transfers of resources from diaspora populations to homelands. This paper argues that diaspora strategies are problematic where they construe the diaspora–homeland relationship as an essentially pragmatic, instrumental, and utilitarian one. We suggest that a new generation of more progressive diaspora strategies might be built if these strategies are recast through feminist care ethics and calibrated so that they fortify and nurture caring relationships that serve the public good. Our call is for an approach towards state–diaspora relationships that sees diaspora-centred development as an important but corollary outcome that arises from prioritising caring relationships. To this end we introduce the term ‘diaspora economies of care’ to capture the derivative flow of resources between diasporas and homelands that happens when their relationship is premised on feminist care ethics. We introduce three types of diaspora economies of care, focusing on the emotional, moral, and service aspects of the diaspora–homeland relationship, and reflect upon the characteristics of each and how they might be strengthened later by foregrounding care now.     

Walking the line: Participatory mapping, indigenous rights, and neoliberalism

Recent critiques of participatory mapping point out the degree to which, as a practice, it has become disciplined by legal prospects for recognition often adopted as part of neoliberal reforms. Yet while neoliberalism certainly disciplines the practice of mapping, they are not reducible to expressions of its dominance. Through a discussion of a participatory mapping project in the Mosquitia region of Honduras, I show how the practice of producing and using maps involves negotiating a spatially complex terrain shaped by multiple and overlapping forms of territory and authority. Insofar as mapping involves movement through this terrain, it engages multiple spatialities that inform assessments of the potential for legal recognition and critically awareness of its constraints. Questions of what to map and how to go about doing it are thus never merely technical concerns. Instead they are diagnostic of broader relations of power that position participants in mapping projects. Rather than producing an authoritative account of that process, my argument here is aimed at learning from it, developing the prospects for a critically-informed, collaborative approach to mapping.     

The neoliberal elephant: Exploring the impacts of the trade ban in ivory on the commodification and neoliberalisation of elephants

This paper uses a case study that explores the impacts of the ivory trade ban on elephant management in Namibia to illuminate the processes and complexities associated with the commodification and neoliberalisation of nature. The paper demonstrates that the ivory trade ban neither prevents the commodification of elephants, nor hampers the neoliberalisation of nature. By tracing Namibia’s experience associated with applying market based approaches to elephant conservation, this paper highlights that the ivory trade ban is only one obstacle among many which prevent the commodification of the ‘living’ elephant. Analysing Namibia’s experiences alongside the wider debates informing elephant conservation reveals that actors of preservation and sustainable utilisation produce elephants. In particular, during the events leading up to the 1989 ivory trade ban, advocates of preservation produced a very lucrative representation of the elephant that relies on market mechanisms. This image has become a powerful commodity that competes with parts of the biophysical elephant (particularly its ivory) and therefore creates new and contesting ways in which elephants can be commodified.