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Semester | fall semester 2018 |
Course frequency | Once only |
Lecturers | Remo Reginold (remo.reginold@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
Content | Following the ideals of free markets and democracy, global capitalism exploits land, people and natural resources. Thereby it infringes the principles of human security, political sovereignty and environmental rights. Industrialised countries and institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World Bank are reproducing the colonial logic of the possessor and the possessed under different circumstances. Hence, it is about an imperial order that turns social spaces into spaces of commodification. This seminar analyses the premises of economics and its supremacy of markets as a medium of resource allocation. Via the rhetoric of mainstream or orthodox economics, we will point to the hidden effects of global capitalism. These effects create racist attitudes by producing and pointing to the primitive, the under-developed and the savage. The paradigms of postcolonial critique and heterodox economics offer us instruments to analyse the asymmetric power relations between countries of the South and the North and lay bare the conditions of theoretical violence economics can create. Based on the oil politics in the Gulf of Guinea, the seminar’s mission is to explore how the supremacy of free markets impacts bare life (Agamben) and changes fundamentally social and ecological settings. The countries around the Gulf of Guinea are rich of petroleum and yet poor. This paradox exemplifies how foreign interests, the survival of ruling cliques but also corporate social responsibility and good governance initiatives are the multi-layered mixture of what we relate to as rentier capitalism. The political economy of oil creates postcolonial realities in which the peoples of the Gulf of Guinea are still exposed to systematic violence. |
Learning objectives | The students will be acquainted with (I) the central premises of political economy and (II) analyse how the logic of resource accumulation, land grapping and human exploitation can be exposed to ideological criticism. In addition, the students will learn to (III) apply postcolonial and heterodox reasoning to case studies (IV) reason on how resource dilemmas impact urban environments and (V) question how political activism counterbalances and/or complements theory production. |
Language of instruction | English |
Use of digital media | No specific media used |
Course auditors welcome |
Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
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No dates available. Please contact the lecturer.
Modules |
Modul Ethik des Christentums - materiale Ethik, Ethik der Lebensführung (ST/E 2) (Master's Studies: Theology (Start of studies before 01.08.2018)) Modul Ethik des Christentums - materiale Ethik, Ethik der Lebensführung (ST/E 2) (Master's degree subject: Theology) Modul: Erweiterung Gesellschaftswissenschaften M.A. (Master's degree subject: Political Science) Modul: Ethik des Christentums – materiale Ethik, Ethik der Lebensführung (ST/E 2) (Master's Studies: Theology) Modul: Europäisierung und Globalisierung (Master's Studies: European Global Studies) Modul: Fields: Knowledge Production and Transfer (Master's degree program: African Studies) Modul: Fields: Media and Imagination (Master's degree program: African Studies) Module: Projects and Processes of Urbanization (Master's degree program: Critical Urbanisms) Vertiefungsmodul Global Europe: Handel und Unternehmen in der Globalisierung (Master's Studies: European Global Studies) |
Assessment format | continuous assessment |
Assessment registration/deregistration | Reg.: course registration; dereg.: not required |
Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
Scale | Pass / Fail |
Repeated registration | no repetition |
Responsible faculty | Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, studadmin-philhist@unibas.ch |
Offered by | Fachbereich Urban Studies |