Political Economy Commons^™

Theorizing #Girlboss Culture: Mediated Neoliberal Feminisms From Influencers To Multi-Level Marketing Schemes, Frankie Mastrangelo

Theses and Dissertations

I define girlboss feminism as emergent, mediated formations of neoliberal feminism that equate feminist empowerment with financial success, market competition, individualized work-life balance, and curated digital and physical presences driven by self-monetization. I look toward how the mediation of girlboss feminism utilizes branded and affective engagements with representational politics, discourses of authenticity and rebellion, as well as meritocratic aspiration to promote cultural interest in conceptualizing feminism in ways that are divorced from collective, intersectional struggle. I question the stakes involved in reducing feminist interrogations and commitments to discourses of representation, visibility, and meritocracy. I argue that while girlboss feminism may …

The Punishment Marketplace: Competing For Capitalized Power In Locally Controlled Immigration Enforcement, Daniel L. Stageman

Publications and Research

Neoliberal economics play a significant role in US social organization, imposing market logics on public services and driving the cultural valorization of free market ideology. The neoliberal ‘project of inequality’ is upheld by an authoritarian system of punishment built around the social control of the underclass—among them unauthorized immigrants. This work lays out the theory of the punishment marketplace: a conceptualization of how US systems of punishment both enable the neoliberal project of inequality, and are themselves subject to market colonization. The theory describes the rescaling of federal authority to local centers of political power. Criminal justice policy activism by …

Master's Tools And The Master's House: A Historical Analysis Exploring The Myth Of Educating For Democracy In The United States, Timothy Scott

Doctoral Dissertations

Over the past forty-years, neoliberal education reform policies in the U.S. have spurred significant resistance, often galvanized by claims that such policies undermine public education as a vital institution of U.S. democracy. Within this narrative, many activists call to “save our schools” and return them to a time when public schools served the common good. With these narratives in mind, I explore the foundational and persistent power structures that characterize the U.S. as a means to reveal the fundamental purpose of its public education system. The questions that guide my research include: (1) With an understanding that capitalism, white supremacy, …

Local Immigration Enforcement Entrepreneurship In The Punishment Marketplace, Daniel L. Stageman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The contemporary neoliberal economic order plays a significant role in American social organization and policy-making. Most importantly, neoliberal ideology drives the creation and imposition of markets in public goods and services and the valorization of free market ideology in cultural life. The neoliberal ‘project of inequality’ is in turn delimited and upheld by an authoritarian system of punishment built around mass incarceration, surveillance, and an unprecedented level of social control directed at the lowest strata of American society – a group that includes both the urban underclass, and unauthorized immigrants.

This study lays out the theory of the punishment marketplace …

Blood, Organs And Other Tissues For Sale: Diamela Eltit's Impuesto A La Carne And The Afterwards Of The Neoliberal Development In Latin America., Wanda I. Ocasio- Rivera

Hispanic Studies Publications

Abstract

Blood, organs and other tissues for sale: Diamela Eltit's Impuesto a la carne and the afterwards of the neoliberal development in Latin America.

As Marx elaborated in Capital: Volume I at the moment human labour is sold, the subject participates in an ominous plot where she/he becomes a commodity. In a capitalist mode of production, the subject’s alienation from his/her humanity occurs because the individuals can only express labor through a privately-owned system of production in which he/she is an instrument, an object. This dehumanization process submits the subject under the exchange transactions of the market, where labor value …

Diabolical Frivolity Of Neoliberal Fundamentalism, Sefik Tatlic

Sefik Tatlic

Today, we cannot talk just about plain control, but we must talk about the nature of the interaction of the one who is being controlled and the one who controls, an interaction where the one that is “controlled” is asking for more control over himself/herself while expecting to be compensated by a surplus of freedom to satisfy trivial needs and wishes. Such a liberty for the fulfillment of trivial needs is being declared as freedom. But this implies as well the freedom to choose not to be engaged in any kind of socially sensible or politically articulated struggle.