Search results for ""Author Japhy Wilson""
Yale University Press Reality of Dreams: Post-Neoliberal Utopias in the Ecuadorian Amazon
An exploration of radical megaprojects in the Ecuadorian Amazon, considering the fate of utopian fantasies under conditions of global capitalism From 2007 to 2017, the “Citizens’ Revolution” launched an ambitious series of post-neoliberal megaprojects in the remote Amazonian region of Ecuador, including an interoceanic transport corridor, a world-leading biotechnology university, and a planned network of two hundred “Millennium Cities.” The aim was to liberate the nation from its ecologically catastrophic dependence on Amazonian oil reserves, while transforming its jungle region from a wild neoliberal frontier into a brave new world of “twenty-first-century socialism.” This book documents the heroic scale of this endeavor, the surreal extent of its failure, and the paradoxical process through which it ended up reinforcing the economic model that it had been designed to overcome. It explores the phantasmatic and absurd dimensions of the transformation of social reality under conditions of global capitalism, deconstructing the utopian fantasies of the state, and drawing attention to the eruption of insurgent utopias staged by those with nothing left to lose.
£37.50
Edinburgh University Press The Post-Political and Its Discontents: Spaces of Depoliticisation, Spectres of Radical Politics
This is a theoretical and practical interrogation of how the post political has come to dominate governance. We are told that we live in a 'post ideological' era; that we have moved 'beyond Left and Right'; and that we are 'all in it together'. Democracy has been reduced to the consensual administration of economic necessity. How can we make sense of this form of depoliticisation? How does it manifest itself in different spheres of social life? And in what ways is it being challenged or subverted? Contributors to this volume respond to these questions through a wide ranging critical engagement with the concept of the post political developed by Chantal Mouffe, Jacques Ranciere, Slavoj Zizek, Alain Badiou and others. It interrogates the theoretical literature on the post political - its value and limits, its internal tensions, and the possibility of creative syntheses with other approaches. It critically engages with multiple cases of contemporary depoliticisation, such as multiculturalism, philanthropy, participatory development, sustainability planning and the regulation of biotechnology. It assesses the emancipatory potential of anti austerity protests, the Occupy movement and other political struggles in the context of continuing processes of post politicisation.
£22.99