Carla Freeman - Böcker

High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy is an ethnography of globalization positioned at the intersection between political economy and cultural studies. Carla Freeman’s fieldwork in Barbados grounds the processes of transnational capitalism-production, consumption, and the crafting of modern identities-in the lives of Afro-Caribbean women working in a new high-tech industry called “informatics.” It places gender at the center of transnational analysis, and local Caribbean culture and history at the center of global studies. Freeman examines the expansion of the global assembly line into the realm of computer-based work, and focuses specifically on the incorporation of young Barbadian women into these high-tech informatics jobs. As such, Caribbean women are seen as integral not simply to the workings of globalization but as helping to shape its very form. Through the enactment of “professionalism” in both appearances and labor practices, and by insisting that motherhood and work go hand in hand, they re-define the companies’ profile of “ideal” workers and create their own “pink-collar” identities. Through new modes of dress and imagemaking, the informatics workers seek to distinguish themselves from factory workers, and to achieve these new modes of consumption, they engage in a wide array of extra income earning activities. Freeman argues that for the new Barbadian pink-collar workers, the globalization of production cannot be viewed apart from the globalization of consumption. In doing so, she shows the connections between formal and informal economies, and challenges long-standing oppositions between first world consumers and third world producers, as well as white-collar and blue-collar labor. Written in a style that allows the voices of the pink-collar workers to demonstrate the simultaneous burdens and pleasures of their work, High Tech and High Heels in the Global Economy will appeal to scholars and students in a wide range of disciplines, including anthropology, cultural studies, sociology, women’s studies, political economy, and Caribbean studies, as well as labor and postcolonial studies.

Entrepreneurial Selves is an ethnography of neoliberalism. Bridging political economy and affect studies, Carla Freeman turns a spotlight on the entrepreneur, a figure saluted across the globe as the very embodiment of neoliberalism. Steeped in more than a decade of ethnography on the emergent entrepreneurial middle class of Barbados, she finds dramatic reworkings of selfhood, intimacy, labor, and life amid the rumbling effects of political-economic restructuring. She shows us that the dÉjÀ vu of neoliberalism, the global hailing of entrepreneurial flexibility and its concomitant project of self-making, can only be grasped through the thickness of cultural specificity where its costs and pleasures are unevenly felt. Freeman theorizes postcolonial neoliberalism by reimagining the Caribbean cultural model of 'reputation-respectability.' This remarkable book will allow readers to see how the material social practices formerly associated with resistance to capitalism (reputation) are being mobilized in ways that sustain neoliberal precepts and, in so doing, re-map class, race, and gender through a new emotional economy.

Entrepreneurial Selves is an ethnography of neoliberalism. Bridging political economy and affect studies, Carla Freeman turns a spotlight on the entrepreneur, a figure saluted across the globe as the very embodiment of neoliberalism. Steeped in more than a decade of ethnography on the emergent entrepreneurial middle class of Barbados, she finds dramatic reworkings of selfhood, intimacy, labor, and life amid the rumbling effects of political-economic restructuring. She shows us that the dÉjÀ vu of neoliberalism, the global hailing of entrepreneurial flexibility and its concomitant project of self-making, can only be grasped through the thickness of cultural specificity where its costs and pleasures are unevenly felt. Freeman theorizes postcolonial neoliberalism by reimagining the Caribbean cultural model of 'reputation-respectability.' This remarkable book will allow readers to see how the material social practices formerly associated with resistance to capitalism (reputation) are being mobilized in ways that sustain neoliberal precepts and, in so doing, re-map class, race, and gender through a new emotional economy.

This book gathers the work of leading scholars from several disciplines on fragile regions, especially those regions seeking to preserve, strengthen or create processes to restore or reestablish security and effective social and economic management. It tackles the multifarious issues that shape and affect fragile regions, drawing upon a wide range of intellectual and methodological approaches, including such fields as area studies, natural resource science, biology, environmental and resource economics and management, and political economy. The volume brings together the perspectives of a diverse group of contributors from Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.Managing Fragile Regions: Method and Application addresses a variety of factors – natural, political, administrative, legislative, economic, social, and cultural – and examines how they exert influences on the operational mechanisms of fragile regions, especially in the contexts of peace and security, economic development, and environmental management. The volume’s nine chapters cover a wide range of examples of fragile regions and their challenges. It will be of interest and utility to practitioners and policy-makers engaged in disaster management and post-disaster reconstruction. Students, researchers, and other professionals involved in resource management, regional science, and environmental science will also find it valuable reading.

This book gathers the work of leading scholars from several disciplines on fragile regions, especially those regions seeking to preserve, strengthen or create processes to restore or reestablish security and effective social and economic management. It tackles the multifarious issues that shape and affect fragile regions, drawing upon a wide range of intellectual and methodological approaches, including such fields as area studies, natural resource science, biology, environmental and resource economics and management, and political economy. The volume brings together the perspectives of a diverse group of contributors from Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.Managing Fragile Regions: Method and Application addresses a variety of factors – natural, political, administrative, legislative, economic, social, and cultural – and examines how they exert influences on the operational mechanisms of fragile regions, especially in the contexts of peace and security, economic development, and environmental management. The volume’s nine chapters cover a wide range of examples of fragile regions and their challenges. It will be of interest and utility to practitioners and policy-makers engaged in disaster management and post-disaster reconstruction. Students, researchers, and other professionals involved in resource management, regional science, and environmental science will also find it valuable reading.