The wageless life of the subaltern

ABSTRACT

One of the most striking legacies of the Subaltern Studies project has been the innovative methodologies and archives that it has mobilized to articulate the singular position of the subaltern outside the hegemonic terms of representation. Yet in its sweeping classification of non-hegemonic social groups and classes, Subaltern Studies has often tended to elide the precise economic determinants that define the subaltern as a class, and thereby foreclose the forms of agency that are available to people who occupy such singular positions of radical alterity that cannot be identified in hegemonic terms. Spivak’s deconstructive rethinking of the labour theory of value enables us to consider how the body of the gendered subaltern performs an important economic function in the contemporary global economy. But to what extent can such a theory account for the economic conditions of people dwelling in the slums and shantytowns of postcolonial cities, or what Michael Denning has aptly called the wageless life of the global poor? And how might we begin to address the gendered dynamics of wageless life? Through a reading of Abderrahmane Sissako’s film Bamako (2006), this essay considers how the film’s juxtaposition of a fictional courtroom narrative in which the World Bank is put on trial and the everyday lives of characters who populate the courtyard in which the courtroom is situated raise questions about the limitations of the law and civil society to alter the socio-economic conditions of wageless life. With reference to Gayatri Spivak’s reflections on the relationship between the subaltern and the economic policies of global financial institutions the essay suggests that the narrative structure and mise-en-scène of Bamako offer a means of addressing the global economic conditions as well as the power relations that circumscribe the agency and voice of the subaltern.     

White settler death drives: settler statecraft,white possession,and multiple colonialisms under Treaty 6

ABSTRACT

This article analyzes histories of white settler colonial violence in Treaty 6 territory by arguing that the 1870 Hudson’s Bay Company charter and transfer of Rupert’s Land and the North-Western Territory to the Dominion of Canada helped to make past imperial violence an ongoing settler colonial terror structure into the present. It argues that this transition from imperial to settler colonial control of territory is best understood by using a multiple colonialisms framework, to examine the ways in which heteropatriarchal family structures transitioned from Indigenous-European to white settler kin networks that crystallized whiteness as a racialized means to control land as private property. Following Kanien’kehá:ka feminist scholar Audra Simpson’s work, I suggest that this territory’s multiple and overlapping colonial histories (French, English/British, and Canadian) are a crucial lens through which to understand the historical and ongoing formation of Canada as a white settler state, and that these histories still relationally drive anti-Indigenous violence and the settler killing of Indigenous peoples today. The essay concludes by arguing that the seeming daily placidity of white settler violence against Plains Indigenous peoples under Treaty 6 ultimately supports a relational violence that supports a killing state and its armed citizens in the name of protecting private property for white settlers.     

Solving the Problems of Iowa Food Deserts: Food Insecurity and Civic Structure*

Abstract Rural regions include places where food sources are not evenly distributed, leading to areas of concentration and food deserts—places where few or no grocery stores exist. Individuals are hypothesized to depend on personal connections and the civic structure of where they live to help them solve the problem of food insecurity. We find that residents living in poor rural counties with few grocery stores and perceptions of high civic structure are significantly less likely to be food insecure. A great deal of food giving and receiving is reported, but these personal connections do not decrease the odds of being food insecure. Lower incomes and being younger increase the odds of food insecurity. Our findings suggest that investments in strengthening the social structure of rural communities along with strategies that increase incomes can help households solve the problem of food insecurity.     

Learning the Language of a New Country: A Ten-year Study of English Acquisition by South-East Asian Refugees in Canada

L'ACQUISITION DE LA LANGUE D'UN PAYS D'ADOPTION: UNE ÉTUDE EN DIX ANS SUR L'ACQUISITION DE LA LANGUE ANGLAISE PAR LES RÉFUGIÉS DU SUD-EST ASIATIQUE AU CANADA
Le Projet de réinstallation de réfugiés de l'Université de Toronto a fait procéder, sur une période de dix ans, à une étude sur l'acquisition de la langue anglaise auprès d'un échantillon de 608 réfugiés d'Asie du Sud-Est au Canada. Deux ans après leur arrivée, 17 % d'entre eux s'exprimaient correctement en anglais, 67% en avaient acquis une connaissance très relative et 16% y étaient réfractaires. Dix ans plus tard, 32% avaient une connaissance de la langue pouvant être qualifiée de bonne, 60% s'en sortaient plus ou moins et 8% y étaient toujours réfractaires. L'amélioration la plus rapide s'est effectuée au cours des premières années de l'installation au Canada. Si les caractéristiques démographiques et le niveau linguistique des personnes concernées avant l'immigration ont pesé pour beaucoup dans l'acquisition de la langue anglaise par les intéressés au cours des premières années de leur installation dans ce pays, les opportunités et les mesures incitatives déployées à leur intention après leur arrivée se sont révélées de plus en plus importantes au fil du temps. Les résultats de l'étude mettent en lumière la responsabilité qu'ont les pays d'accueil d'offrir des opportunités et des mesures d'incitation aux nouveaux venus pour faciliter l'acquisition de la langue par ces derniers.     

Canadian Ethnic Fertility

Abstract

This study investigates the relationship among ethnicity, education, and fertility for selected Canadian ethnic groups, introducing several extensions of Johnson's recent elaboration of Goldscheider and Uhlenberg's minority group status hypothesis. The findings suggest that among Asiatics and Germans the prevailing reproductive pattern is an assimilative one relative to the British majority group. Native Indians and Dutch maintain high levels of reproduction, but at post-secondary school attainment their mean family sizes converge with the British. Ukrainian, Italian, and Jewish minorities experience below average fertility, and at high levels of education it is the British group which converges with the low fertility pattern of Jews and Italians. Ukrainians differ, as their fertility is consistently below the majority group, regardless of educational level.