- Between weeks 8 and 12, each student should provide a weekly reflection (500 words) on the data you have collected to date.
- What data did you collect?
- What is your initial impression of the data?
- How have the data you have collected this week changed/progressed your thinking about your research project?
- What challenges did you encounter while collecting the data?
- What are your next steps?
- Cooper, Melinda. Life as Surplus : Biotechnology and Capitalism in the Neoliberal Era, University of Washington Press, 2008. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.bowdoin.edu/lib/bowdoin-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3444266.
Cooper’s book, which we of course read for class last week, offered an entirely different angle from which we can see the connection between US militarization and neoliberalism. In her piece, Cooper explains that the threat of biological terrorism in the post 9/11 era, in relation as well to continued proliferation of neoliberalism, has prompted a massive shift in the allocation of state resources and funding under the general umbrella of healthcare. This includes the defunding of certain benefits and public health care offerings and instead, a further state investment in biotechnologies and preventative measures with regard to the mitigation of potential biowarfare threats. I particularly liked and will potentially use text from pages 87-88 which spoke towards the active blurring of real versus imagined threats, the role this plays in justifying budgetary reallocations, and the delicate role this sort of latent fear plays in reifying public support for military spending in the US that continues to dominate with respect to other countries. This right here is why this subject matter is so fascinating for me. I simply do not understand how far the public consciousness has largely drifted into a state of complete mindless acceptance of the ways in which the US funds its military on scale that far exceeds any other nation. Within higher education perhaps, this reality is more prevalent, but still, I feel that it is so terribly taken for granted. This abnormality continues to fascinate me as I find more and more academic literature on the interconnection of the military and the every day life of a US citizen. Another excerpt I enjoyed was that on page 97, and the specific definition of Bush’s orientation and rhetoric towards the need for investment in biotechnological defense in accordance with his neoconservative fundamentals and mobilization of interventionist rhetoric, a style that emphasized that there is no limit to potential danger faced by the US. This messaging is massively effective in swaying public opinion. In the larger picture of my paper, this entire piece from Cooper offers me a whole other aspect which I can incorporate.
- Siniša Malešević International Political Sociology, Volume 2, Issue 2, June 2008, Pages 97–112, 14 May 2008, https://doi-org.ezproxy.bowdoin.edu/10.1111/j.1749-5687.2008.00038.xI chose to explore and will potentially incorporate some Malešević’s piece per your suggestion, Professor, that I seek to better understand the changes of modern war in the contemporary neoliberal era. The piece does well to first define the ways we think and discuss wars and therefore the limitations and difficulties we have in defining what specifically has changed in the politics and causes of modern warfare, rather than the obvious changes in technology and routinization of advanced, modern technique and strategy. The paper continues and speaks to the intricate role that the forwarding of market based, neoliberal globalization has in reifying armed conflict against states or even more insurgent based groups. Male defines two types of modern war: 1) globalizing wars fought at a distance through technologically advanced weaponry, and 2) globalization-induced wars conducted in the void left by the collapse of the old state structures. Both are deeply interconnected with the largely economic system that shape them and therefore, will be potentially useful in developing the opening of my paper, as offering a clearly defined foundation for my paper will only strengthen the various sources that I have collected that demonstrate the neoliberal-shaped US militarization of the current age.
Reflection: I was obviously pleased that Cooper’s book happened to be apart of last week’s readings as it offered yet another unique angle from which I can offer evidence-backed positions regarding the many transformations and co-shaping effects of neoliberalism and militarization. I believe this week I can really start to develop an outline and maybe a rough thesis which I can of course edit as I continue, but now feel that I have enough material to define what I will set out to argue in my end paper. One area that I am currently lacking is accounting based evidence, as I will need to offer hard-statistics regarding US military spending changes to really drive home my argument in a widely accessible way.
Comments:
Thanks for this reflection, Devon. The changing notions of war is something that I always found very interesting. I look forward to reading how you will connect it to neoliberalism. I am glad to hear that Cooper’s piece was helpful. I think these two sources are well-connected to each other. As we discussed in class, Cooper links the emergence of anxiety about bioterrorism to the “collapse of the old state structures” (particularly the end of Cold War). This speaks to Malešević ‘s category of globalization-induced wars.