Toward+a+Feminist+Analytics+of+the+Global+Economy

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Sonja Kelly ||
 * =Title= || Toward a Feminist Analytics of the Global Economy ||
 * =Author= || Saskia Sassen ||
 * =Date= || 1999 ||
 * =Summary By= || Caroline Chumo
 * =Summary= || Sassen writes at the end of the 1990s after and during a period of intense globalization of economies. In this context the concept of national sovereignty has changed as individuals, civil society and institutions connect to each other in transnational relationships. In this excerpt Sassen “re-reads” the global economy using a feminist analytic lens.

What does this mean?

As a sociologist Sassen is interested in power dynamics. High power big business depends on the work of low-paid, low-power workers, frequently immigrant women. Although part of the global economy their work is not valued as much (in fact is “devalorized”) as work by highly visible labor sector such as engineering, which is “overvalorized.” The devalorization of unskilled (female) labor has the effect of restricting the political power of the labor sector. However, women’s higher incomes as compared to generations past and access to higher echelon jobs gives women domestic and public power and acts as a counterweight to the devalorization at lower levels in the economy.

Sassen sees the “unbundling of sovereignty” as an opportunity for greater participation of women in decision making forums. (An unspoken assumption in this text seems to be the unfairness of a history of state-sanction discrimination against women that compromised female livelihoods.). These forums include international law and civil society.

The way that women engage in the new forums will determine their political power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..

Sassen also explores the decline in territoriality, which previously stood as exclusive to the nation state. As a result, what happens within borders is perhaps not as crucial as understanding what happens across borders (and in different territorial configurations).

In the context of such a discussion on territoriality (or its decline rather), the unique position of the migrant worker comes into focus, which come under the label "ethnic" and "informal." The under lying causes of the language we use when discussing this phenomenon in the global economy are increasing globalization (of labor, of identity, of economics), and racialization (not recognizing such ethnic, informal work as part of the functioning of the global economy). The devalorization is a way to describe such a process.

On the other hand, the very fact that in this context a women gains economic power has an effect on her personal relationships, even if it goes unnoticed. The decline in territoriality means that people can choose to participate in power centers whose locus are cities, rather than territorial boundaries.

Two elements emerge that are key to the reality of the unbundling of sovereignty: first, there are new sites of normativity. Second, there are new and supra- justice regimes that have emerged. It creates openings for women to participate in the power foci.

Indeed, the human rights regime is one such opportunity for women, who can organize across borders and form groups that leverage their membership and constitute new borders. She closes with a normative statement: "For women, this [loss of sovereignty and territoriality in the nation-state] means at least partly working outside the state, through nonstate groups and networks. The needs and agendas of women are not necessarily defined exclusively by state borders" (629). || . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..
 * =Discussion points= || In reading this week’s papers, I wanted to answer for myself how it is that feminist and race/ethnic perspectives succeed sequentially from other, older social theory perspectives. As we discussed in class at the beginning of the semester, part of the issue is that these writers were writing later than the Durkheims and the Webers. Another issue that I can see is that certain social events, such as women entering the workforce changed social relations and opened up new problematics for study. In the case of Sassen’s feminist analytics of global economy, the 1990s occurred after wave of immigration to the US from Latin America and Asia, //and// it was normal for women to work. The US economy was booming and needed low-wage labor. Given this context, the timing was right for Sassen’s analysis.

There are, in my mind, a few remaining quesitons:
 * Sassen does not necessarily define what she means to be power. She does connect powerlessness and power (625) in such a way that we can perhaps surmise that power tends to center in places or in roles. She also describes the shifting of power away from the state and into civil society. But what is she assuming to be power, and how does that affect her argument?
 * In one sense, she exhibits a call to action, pointing to the possible places of entry for women in gaining more power. In another sense, however, her discussion stands as a call to political economists to begin to see and study these economic and political centers where women are concentrating and organizing. Are these two in conflict?
 * If gender becomes the central unit of analysis, then is it asserting a truth claim over other features of identity? Is this problematic? Why or why not? ||

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