Other Capital Flows

With the advent of globalization, critical scholars have found themselves grappling with the rise of multinational coporations, the crisis of the neo-liberal nation-state, and the cross-polintation of culture the epoch engenders. However, these analyses often do not take into account illicit forms of capital accumulation, although it has been noted that "parallel" or "illicit" forms of capital flourish as the liberal nation-state disintegrates. Our graduate seminar seeks to understand the role of "illegality" and "illicitness" in the circulation and accumulation of capital in Latin America and Asia. As such, we will explore issues such as the produiction and commercialization of counterfeit commodities in China, Muder for hire in Colombia, and sexual tourism in South East Asia and Brazil.

In this seminar, we begin with the thesis that "illegal" and "legal" modes of capital accumulation can only exist in a symbiotic relationship to each other. Our objective in this seminar is two-fold. First, we seek to understand the political and socio-cultural causes and consequences of the relationship between "illicit" and "lefal" formas of capital accumulation. Secondly, we wish to trace the relationship between "illegality" and the nation-state. We find that it is necessar to make the connection between the nation-state and these other flows of capital given the fact that these other flows often exist with the tacit participation of the nation-state precisely because these "illegal" flows often fuel national economies.

With these objectives in mind, we will examine criticism, fiction, and visual arts that engage this topic in order to grasp the manner in which various forms of analysis interpret the vicissitudes of "illicit" flows of capital. For instance, we will consider recent articles and books that deal with the political economy of trafficking, sexual tourism, and globalization such as "Trafficking and international law" by David Ould, "modern slavery and fair trade products: buy one and set someone free" by Ivan Manokha, "Peripheries of Globalization: Frederic Jameson's The Seeds of Time and Victor Gaviria's The Rose Seller (La vendora de rosas)" by Elia G. Kantaris and "Sex, money, and morality: prostitution and tourism in Southeast Asia" by Thanh-Dam Truong. We will also explore aesthetic responses and engagement with "illegal" structures of capital accumulation such as "Our Lady of the Assassins" by Fernando Vallejo, a novel that explores "el sicariato" or muder for hire in Colombia; Amos Gitai's films on human trafficking from North Africa and Asia to Europe; and the controversial artistic work of Teresa Margolles who uses the bodies of homeless and destitute people in Mexico to create her work.

An examination of texts proposed among other should allow us to excavate the political and economic register of "illicit" caputal flows, and will permit us to begin to formulate critical interpretations and interventions of a moment in globalization whose reality tends to remain inconspicuous.