Becoming war-machines: neoliberalism, critical politics, and singularities of struggle

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Title Becoming war-machines: neoliberalism, critical politics, and singularities of struggle
Publication Type dissertation
School or College College of Humanities
Department Communication
Author Middleton, Michael K.
Date 2011-08
Description The consequences of half a century of intensified processes of neoliberal globalization announce themselves in growing inequalities in affluent centers of global trade and in impoverished sites populated by exploited communities and resources. Political upheavals, social marginalizations, and economic insecurities introduced by these failures in both the Global South and the Global North constitute a tenuous common ground between diverse collectivities of struggle. This dissertation takes this potential common ground between disparate communities marginalized by neoliberalism as a terrain on which to explore possible solidarities between these ‘singularities of struggle.' It asks how local struggles waged by communities in the Global North and Global South contest and evade the conditions of neoliberalism, and what forms of political identity, collective identifications, and micropolitical power are invented in these struggles. To answer these questions, Deleuze and Guattari's "State-form" and "war-machine" are mobilized as critical tools for conceptualizing how neoliberalism universalist assumptions are manifested in singular situations. Particular attention is given to the universally-singular expressions of material poverty, differential inclusion, and subordination wrought by neoliberal globalization, and the challenges these conditions create for theorizing common topoi of oppositional discourse, including identity, collectivity, and power.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Critical politics; Cultural studies; Homelessness; Neoliberalism; Rhetoric; Social movements; Eje?rcito Zapatista de Liberacio?n Nacional (Mexico)
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Doctor of Philosophy
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Michael K. Middleton 2011
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 1,253,539 bytes
Identifier us-etd3,42397
Source original in Marriott Library Special Collections; HN5.5 2011 .M53
ARK ark:/87278/s6fn1n0b
Setname ir_etd
ID 194724
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6fn1n0b
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