Precarity and International Relations

341 Pages·2021·3.622 MB·English

by  Ritu Vij, Tahseen Kazi, Elisa Wynne-Hughes

Precarity and
International Relations
Edited by R itu Vij · Tahseen Kazi · Elisa Wynne-Hughes
International Political Economy Series
Series Editor
Timothy M. Shaw
University of Massachusetts Boston
Boston, USA
Emeritus Professor
University of London
UK
The global political economy is in flux as a series of cumulative crises
impacts its organization and governance. The IPE series has tracked its
development in both analysis and structure over the last three decades.
It has always had a concentration on the global South. Now the South
increasingly challenges the North as the centre of development, also
reflected in a growing number of submissions and publications on
indebted Eurozone economies in Southern Europe. An indispensable
resourceforscholarsandresearchers,theseriesexaminesavarietyofcapi-
talisms and connections by focusing on emerging economies, companies
andsectors,debatesandpolicies.Itinformsdiversepolicycommunitiesas
the established trans-Atlantic North declines and ‘the rest’, especially the
BRICS, rise.
More information about this series at
http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/13996
· ·
Ritu Vij Tahseen Kazi Elisa Wynne-Hughes
Editors
Precarity
and International
Relations
Editors
Ritu Vij Tahseen Kazi
Department of Politics and Department of Political Science and
International Relations International Studies
University of Aberdeen Georgia Southern University
Aberdeen, UK Statesboro, GA, USA
Elisa Wynne-Hughes
School of Law and Politics
Cardiff University
Cardiff, UK
ISSN 2662-2483 ISSN 2662-2491 (electronic)
International Political Economy Series
ISBN 978-3-030-51095-4 ISBN 978-3-030-51096-1 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-51096-1
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Acknowledgments
This volume is the result of multiple conversations at different forums,
includingpaneldiscussionsatmeetingsoftheInternationalStudiesAsso-
ciation (ISA),BritishInternational Studies Association(BISA),European
International Studies Association and workshops held at Cardiff Univer-
sity and Queen Mary University, London. We would especially like to
thank the Poststructural Politics Working Group of the British Interna-
tional Studies Association, the University of Aberdeen, the University of
Cardiff and Georgia Institute of Technology for funding support for the
two workshops. A huge thanks to Timothy Shaw, Anca Pusca, and the
teamatPalgravefortheirsteadysupportthroughouttheturbulentprocess
of delivering the final manuscript.
Ritu Vij: My interest in the problem of precarity began with a confer-
ence, ‘Reframing Development: Post-Development, Globalization, and
the Human Condition’, April 8–10, 2009 at Osaka University. Funding
support from the Carnegie Trust of Scotland for research in Japan and
India(2010–2014)laidthefoundationforabroaderprojectonPrecarity,
AffectandtheProblemofSovereignty,earlyiterationsofwhichappeared
between 2013 and 2015; I thank the Trust for its support. I would
also like to thank Anna Agathangelou, Paul Dumouchel, Reiko Gotoh,
Matt Davies, Vivienne Jabri, Joao Nogueira, Mustapha Kamal Pasha,
Simon Philpott, Kimi Sakurai, Michael Shapiro, Takahara Takao, Wanda
Vrasti, R.B.J. Walker, and Heloise and Martin Weber for feedback and
discussion of my precarity-related work at meetings of BISA, EISA, and
v
vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ISA, and presentations at Auro University in Surat, India; Hitotsubashi,
Meiji Gakuin, and Rikkyo Universities, Japan; and the University of Paris
Nanterre, France; Brett Neilson, Sam Opondo and Sami Suliman for
collaborating on a special section on ‘Precarity and the International’
(along with Anna, Heloise and Michael); Philip Armstrong for a very
helpful exchange; and Nancy Ettlinger for her constructive engagement
with this project and for her patience.
Even as this volume goes to press, the growing pandemic around the
acceleration of the spread of the Coronavirus, the affective and bodily
precariousness that constellates our everyday lives and working condi-
tionsremindsusthattheconceptsthatdetainusareneverjustintellectual
hobbies,buturgentpoliticaldemandsthatcompelustorespond.Ithank
the communities of friends, family and colleagues whose unconditional
supportsustainsmeinthebestoftimes,butmoresonowastheeveryday
precarity induced by the pandemic envelops us all.
Tahseen Kazi: This volume began for Elisa and I in 2016 as a
BISA Poststructural Politics Working Group-sponsored workshop held
at Cardiff University that we co-organized, entitled ‘Agency, Precarity,
Precarious Life’. Together, Elisa and I took the plunge into precarity’s
entanglements with things international. I am deeply moved by the part-
nership, trust, and friendship we have built together over the years. The
subject of precarity has since turned into a considerably larger personal
project that centres on my manuscript in progress entitled Politics of
Precarity. In 2017, Ritu and I co-organized a workshop at QMUL on
‘Precarity and the problem of sovereignty’ and this was followed by a
2019 ISA panel of the same name. I would like to thank the partici-
pants—many of whom are named above and below—of all three of these
meetings for stimulating conversations. I would lastly like to shout out
my love for James and the life we have shared for two decades now, and
for Julian who busts out radical joy every day for all to witness.
Elisa Wynne-Hughes: I would like to thank the participants in the
BISAPoststructuralPoliticsWorkingGroupWorkshop‘Agency,Precarity,
Precarious Life’, in particular those who organized panels or acted
as discussants/convenors, including Leonie Ansems de Vries, Christine
Hentschel, Louiza Odysseos, Nicola Pratt, Amit Rai, Philip Armstrong,
Birgit Schippers, Bal Sokhi-Bulley, Ritu Vij, and Andreja Zevnik. I also
thank all of the contributors for their hard work and patience in bringing
thisvolumetolife.TahseenKazihasbeenasourceofintellectualinspira-
tion,support,andfriendshipthroughoutthisprocess.Finally,Iwouldlike
tothankMatthewO’Donnell,AnnikaandHeidiO’Dwynforthewarmth,
support, and joy they bring to my life.
Praise for PrecarityandInternational
Relations
“This book is an outstanding contribution to much needed innovative
conceptual work in IR. It engages the debates on precarity to problema-
tize the sovereign imagination that informs, and limits, critical investi-
gations of contemporary world politics. It moves beyond the common-
place denunciations of precarity/precariousness as a concept restricted to
the experiences of capitalist social formations of the ‘North’ turning its
focus on the multiple and transversal connections that make the frac-
tured space of the international today. Without giving in to universal-
istic readings of a common global precariousness, the authors in this
volumeexploreparadoxes,complexities,andpotentialsofdifferentinstan-
tiationsofprecarityintheproductionofpoliticsofcontestation,resistance
and solidarity. An indispensable collection for researchers and students
invested in reimagining critical IR.”
—João Nogueira, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
“This volume provokes and courageously crafts new ways of thinking
about precarity and precariousness and international relations. It chal-
lenges the epistemological moves that collapse suffering and the gener-
atingofequivalenciesbetweentheprecariousliberalandtheThirdWorld
subject, the migrant and the abandoned, the able/disabled, precarity and
thesubjectofaesthetics.RituVij,TahseenKaziandElisaWynne-Hughes
bringtogetherauthorsandinterlocutorsthatprovideusamodeofwriting
vii
viii PRAISE FOR PRECARITY AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
thatengageswiththeforcesofprecarity—instantiationsofhowtoimagine
new forms of life within and against a precarious world.”
—Anna M. Agathangelou, Department of Politics, York University
“Intervening in ‘precarity talk’ across a variety of fields, this impor-
tant volume brings together critical transnational analyses of the key IR
concepts of Sovereignty, Solidarities, and Work. Highlighting precarious
workingconditions,livedexperience,andcontractsaspoliticallyproduced
effects the chapters carefully draw out the heterogeneous and ongoing
implications of the withdrawal of the welfare state, the gradual erosion
of social protection in the era of financialized neoliberal capitalism, the
(re)emergence and recognition of the fragile and precarious condition
of workers in capitalist social relations. Scholars and students of Critical
ManagementStudiesandintersectionaldecolonisationwillequallybenefit
from close consideration of these fine chapters.”
—Amit S. Rai, Queen Mary, University of London
Contents
1 Introduction 1
Ritu Vij, Elisa Wynne-Hughes, and Tahseen Kazi
Part I Precarity and Sovereignty
2 Notes on Abandonment 37
Philip Armstrong
3 The Global Subject of Precarity 63
Ritu Vij
4 Precarity at the Nexus of Governmentality
and Sovereignty: Entangled Fields of Power
and Political Subjectivities 93
Nancy Ettlinger
Part II Precarity and Solidarities
5 Irregular Labour and the ‘Life of the State’: Precarity,
Citizenship, and Sovereignty in Decolonizing Africa 129
Nick Bernards
ix