Anthropology Commons^™

The Embodied Rhetoric Of Cognitive Labour, Shubhayan Chakrabarti

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation traces the roots of neoliberal selfhood to the rationalist ontology of modernity in the 1600s. The historical tension between materialism and immaterialism is expressed in the historicisation of work into Fordism and post-Fordism where embodied factory toil is apparently replaced by immaterial work, recalling Descartes’ mind-body split. If post-Fordist work addresses the Marxist critique of alienation in its emphasis on entrepreneurial inner selves, it does not explain the post-Fordist preoccupation to efficiently “Taylorise” the body through obsessive productivity. I argue that the factory prevails in the entrepreneur’s adoption of factory efficiency as a learnt behaviour from the Fordist …

The Politics Of Honduran Schoolteachers: State Agents Challenge The State, Jordan D. Levy

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation examines the everyday work of schoolteachers in post-coup Honduras from the theoretical perspective that they are individuals with a vested interest in the state, who reflect upon their own experiences when carrying out the vital state service of national public education, and while acting as leaders of the anti-coup National Front of Popular Resistance. This movement emerged in response to the violent overthrow of the country’s democratically-elected president in June 2009 and has since broadened its agenda, calling for the ‘re-foundation’ of the Honduran state by rewriting the constitution.

Yet state formation occurs not only through such formal …

The Money Of Qaroon And The Patience Of Ayoub: Women And Land In Egypt's Mubarak Resettlement Scheme, Dina Najjar

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This dissertation addresses the challenge of achieving increased empowerment and equality for Egyptian women. The dissertation tests the assumption that land access (through both joint and full titles) increases empowerment and equality for women in two desert resettlements of Sa’yda and Intilaq, part of the massive Mubarak Resettlement Scheme (MRS). In particular, the dissertation identifies: 1) how land access could empower Egyptian women and 2) women’s experiences with land access in the MRS. Findings reveal that land access is indeed the most promising route for women’s advancement in life, but the desert land required patience and financial assets. Land access, …

Tu Envidia Es Mi Progreso: An Ethnographic Account Of The Development Of Squatter Settlements In San Juan De Miraflores, Lima, Peru., Brandon E. Rouleau

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The following dissertation explores the past 60 years of self-help housing in Lima. Specifically, it looks at the uneven development that has occurred in parts of a municipality called San Juan de Miraflores. I argue that self-help housing is part of a larger modernization project that aims to encourage the emergence of a self-regulating individual. Pro-development literature creates a selective history of marginal neighbourhoods, effectively silencing the histories of working class Miraflorinos. The aim of this ethnographic study is to destabilize official histories and representations about development in marginal communities. The bulk of the dissertation looks at the history of …