"Schizophrenia and Capitalism"? What gives? There are three answers to this question.
The shorter answer is that it's a play on Capitalism and Schizophrenia, the two-book series published by Deleuze and Guattari that included Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus. Their aim was to develop their notion of "schizoanalysis", which attempted to develop and complexify the relationship between libidos and what goes on in the economic and political spheres. An expansion of Freud into the more technical and the more public.
The medium answer is that it is the title of the collection of essays that I threw together in the first year of my PhD on the topic of "Society and Infrastructure in the Global South" (the PDF is available for free in unedited "assemblage" form), because I felt that what I had achieved in this collection of essays was not only in the spirit of "assemblage", but also developed some of the narratives of capitalism that are seen as easily defensible on a small scale from a technical point of view, but become increasingly muddled and contradictory when looked at across geography and across history. I suppose, then, it was only a matter of time before I would be marginalized, and I was eventually expelled when I attended a forum of urban geography "experts" (including my supervisor) that had submitted thirty papers (including ours) to a book that was supposed to be the be-all-end-all in the discipline. The problem was that all of the "experts" were merely experts on literature and hegemonic dehumanizing and infantilizing of the very real human beings in poor countries.
As described in Mudimbe's excellent The Invention of Africa, the historical legacy of anthropology is little more than treating the colonized as monkeys in a zoo with the idea that studying poor people gives us insights into the origins of "civilization". However, unlike these armchair professors pushing papers for a salary, I had not only spent time in plenty of these countries and had a personal investment in them, but I also read beyond the urban geography clique that rarely seemed to go past postmodernist obsessions with assemblage theory and the actor network theory of Bruno Latour (whom I see as merely adding to the word-smithing mumbo-jumbo of neocolonialist obscurantism). Little knowledge of history. Little desire to engage in critical theory. While I put forward my criticisms, they were happy with defining "discussion" as arguing over the exact definition of "intersectionality". So when I couldn't keep my mouth closed any longer because all I could think about was poor people (some of which I knew and cared about) scrounging around like dogs in African slums while these individuals laughed in their faces. One even went so far as to say (in a Zoom text exchange) that the French were justified in their continued neocolonial pillage and slavery because "it's not just us, it's also the British". If only I could've got a screenshot. Anyway, at the wrap-up session I said "What are you doing with these papers? I have friends in these countries who lead really difficult lives. Aren't you ashamed of yourselves just pushing papers that do nothing about countries where people are suffering?"
Admittedly, it went well beyond simply making civilized critiques and asking critical questions, as my euphoric mind was reaching into some pretty weird places about destiny and the need to put the boot in hard ("It is not enough to tell people the truth. You must also be prepared to morally embarrass them."), and my onslaught on the side included sending emails to the head of this University of Paris conference about, for example, "fucking the dog on the neocolonial time for your entire career". The end justifies the means I suppose. It was fitting that at the end of this escapade in postmodernist charlatanism and neocolonial self-promotion and my expulsion from the club, this same head ran for the presidency of the €3.3B euro budget CNRS since, as we all know, "science and research"in colonial countries is all about "how do we continue to justify massive profits off of theft and slavery from our former colonies?"
He didn't win.... Unfortunately?
Commentaires