Working the Spaces of Neoliberalism – Activism, Professionalisation and Incorporation

This collection offers a new way of looking at neoliberalisation and new understandings of contemporary processes of professionalisation. This collection offers a new way of looking at neoliberalisation. Presents new understandings of contemporary processes of professionalisation. Draws on new, original research. Features studies from the Global North and the Global South.

Table of Contents:
Introduction Liz Bondi and Nina Laurie 1 1 After Neoliberalism? Community Activism and Local Partnerships in Aotearoa New Zealand Wendy Larner and David Craig 9 2 Authority and Expertise: The Professionalisation of International Development and the Ordering of Dissent Uma Kothari 32 3 Dropping Out or Signing Up? The Professionalisation of Youth Travel Kate Simpson 54 4 Ethnodevelopment: Social Movements, Creating Experts and Professionalising Indigenous Knowledge in Ecuador Nina Laurie, Robert Andolina and Sarah Radcliffe 77 5 Working the Spaces of Neoliberal Subjectivity: Psychotherapeutic Technologies, Professionalisation and Counselling Liz Bondi 104 6 Desiring Sameness? The Rise of a Neoliberal Politics ofNormalisation Diane Richardson 122 7 Making Space for Neo-communitarianism ? The Third Sector, State and Civil Society in the UK Nicholas R Fyfe 143 8 Caught in the Middle: The State, NGOs, and the Limits to Grassroots Organizing Along the US Mexico Border Rebecca Dolhinow 164 9 The Experts Taught Us All We Know : Professionalisation and Knowledge in Nepalese Community Forestry Andrea J Nightingale 186 Commentaries 10 Working the Spaces of Neoliberalism Marcus Power 209 11 No Way Out? Incorporating and Restructuring the Voluntary Sector within Spaces of Neoliberalism Katy Jenkins 216 12 Professional Geographies Nicholas Blomley 222 13 Partners in Crime? Neoliberalism and the Production of New Political Subjectivities Cindi Katz 227 Index 236

About the Author :
Nina Laurie is Senior Lecturer in the School of Geography, Politics and Sociology at the University of Newcastle, UK. She works collaboratively with colleagues at CESU, San Simon University, Bolivia. Together with Robert Andolina and Sarah Radcliffe she is author of Multi-ethnic Transnationalism: Indigenous Development in the Andes (forthcoming). She is also co-author of Geographies of New Femininities? (1999). Liz Bondi is Professor of Social Geography at the University of Edinburgh. She is founding editor of the journal Gender, Place and Culture, the co-author of Subjectivities, Knowledges and Feminist Geographies (2002) and co-editor of Emotional Geographies (2005).

Review :
"This is a compelling, timely and thought-provoking collection. It brings into contact a range of phenomena often considered in isolation, and subjects them to sustained critical-geographical exploration. The materials covered here cross worlds and scales - the Global South and the Global North; from the psychotherapist's couch to ethnodevelopment in Ecuador - and thereby reveal the entangled spaces, roles and subjectivities of professionals and activists under neoliberalism. It is essential reading for any critical scholar concerned about the extending and mutating reach of neoliberalism." Chris Philo, Professor of Geography, University of Glasgow "If there is any lingering doubt that geographers need to think about how the local, the state, and the global are interconnected, it should be dispelled in this provocative and compelling collection, a fresh approach to the everywhere but elusive concept of neoliberalism. Challenging us to think about the broad ramifications for professionalism and local activism, these authors are determined to make a difference to the real lives of people engaged in working the spaces of neoliberalism as they re-write subjectivity, local knowlege, sexuality, democracy and political agency. We can definitely add another notch to our understanding of the world." Audrey Kobayashi, Professor of Geography, Queen's University, Ontario