Retrospective Oral Presentation Session

Reviewed by: American Ethnological Society

Of interest to: Practicing and Applied Anthropologists, Teachers of Anthropology in Community Colleges, Students, Those Involved in Mentoring Activities

Primary Theme: Inequality

Secondary Theme: Class

(3-0935) Revisioning American Capitalism through a Cosmopolitan Lens: Engaging the Legacy of Sherry Ortner

Anthropologists have challenged the dominant critiques of American capitalism in several ways: by putting them in a cosmopolitan framework that encompasses the dynamics of capitalism as a global system; by pointing to the heterogeneous and fragmented nature of capitalism, its non-unitary nature; and, its imbrication in racial, sexual, gendered, and ethnic hierarchies. In recent years, anthropologists have also focused on the circulation of representations (and critiques) of neoliberalism, underlining the importance of processes of legitimation and the role of media in shaping the “common-sense” of the population. Over the past two decades, in a series of important books and articles (New Jersey Dreaming, Not Hollywood), Sherry Ortner has done a great deal to advance our understanding of neoliberalism in the U.S. The participants in this panel, who work in many different global settings such as Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, India, and the U.S., are all engaged in advancing our understanding of neoliberalism. In thinking through the diverse problems with which they are dealing, the papers on this panel engage in a productive dialogue with the legacy of the work of Ortner.

Organizer(s)

• Jessica Cattelino

  Associate Professor
  University of California, Los Angeles

Chair(s)

• Jessica Cattelino

  Associate Professor
  University of California, Los Angeles

Presenter(s)

• Bayo Holsey

  Associate Professor of Anthropology
  Emory University

• Hannah Appel

  Assistant Professor
  University of California, Los Angeles

• Ulf Hannerz

  Stockholm University

Organizer(s)

• Akhil Gupta

  Professor
  University of California, Los Angeles/Melbourne Uni.

Presenter(s)

• Akhil Gupta

  Professor
  University of California, Los Angeles/Melbourne Uni.

Discussant(s)

• John Jackson, Jr.

  University of Pennsylvania

Presentations:

• 2:00 PM - 2:15 PM

  Tyrannies of Freedom: Ghanaian Public Culture under Late Capitalism
  Bayo Holsey – Emory University
• 2:15 PM - 2:30 PM

  Debtors Prisons and Debtors Unions: Direct Action in Finance Capitalism
  Hannah Appel – University of California, Los Angeles
• 2:30 PM - 2:45 PM

  America Observed, By Afropolitans
  Ulf Hannerz – Stockholm University
• 2:45 PM - 3:00 PM

  Under the Sign of the Future: Call Centers and Capitalism
  Akhil Gupta – University of California, Los Angeles/Melbourne Uni.
• 3:00 PM - 3:15 PM

  Discussion
  John L. Jackson, Jr. – University of Pennsylvania