Against the Romance of Community - Couverture souple

Joseph, Miranda

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 0816637962 ISBN 13 : 9780816637966

Editeur : University of Minnesota Press, 2002

Synopsis

An unexpected and valuable critique of community that points out its complicity with capitalism

Community is almost always invoked as an unequivocal good, an indicator of a high quality of life, caring, selflessness, belonging. Into this common portrayal, Against the Romance of Community introduces an uncommon note of caution, a penetrating, sorely needed sense of what, precisely, we are doing when we call upon this ideal.

Miranda Joseph explores sites where the ideal of community relentlessly recurs, from debates over art and culture in the popular media, to the discourses and practices of nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations, to contemporary narratives of economic transformation or "globalization." She shows how community legitimates the social hierarchies of gender, race, nation, and sexuality that capitalism implicitly requires.

Joseph argues that social formations, including community, are constituted through the performativity of production. This strategy makes it possible to understand connections between identities and communities that would otherwise seem disconnected: gay consumers in the United States and Mexican maquiladora workers; Christian right "family values" and Asian "crony capitalism." Exposing the complicity of social practices, identities, and communities with capitalism, this truly constructive critique opens the possibility of genuine alliances across such differences.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Miranda Joseph is associate professor of women's studies at the University of Arizona.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: University of Minnesota Press
• Date d'édition: 2002
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0816637962
• ISBN 13: 9780816637966
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 272
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible