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RT01


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Regulating the poor in the post-liberal state 
Convenors:
Amanda Gilbertson (University of Melbourne)
David Giles (Deakin University)
Eve Vincent (Macquarie University)
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Format:
Roundtable
Sessions:
Tuesday 30 November, -
Time zone: Australia/Sydney

Short Abstract:

Liberalism is in crisis. What is the nature of this crisis and what role can anthropologists play in naming it? We seek clues in expressions of "regulating the poor" emerging in this (post)liberal landscape, whereby states extend surveillance and support, discipline and dole, to vulnerable subjects.

Long Abstract:

Liberalism is in crisis. On many fronts, scholars and critics have warned of the ways in which liberal (and neoliberal) political and economic norms have been disrupted or eroded globally, often under their own contradictions. We believe anthropologists are well-situated to comment. In this roundtable we ask — what is the nature of this crisis, and what role can anthropologists play in naming it?

In particular, we seek clues in those twenty-first century expressions of "regulating the poor" (à la Piven and Cloward) that emerge in this (post)liberal landscape, whereby states extend surveillance and support, discipline and dole, to vulnerable subjects. On one hand, the neoliberal rollback of welfare states is challenged by the pre-pandemic expansion, in the Global South, of social programs targeting the poor, and the imperative, in the Global North, to fund social support during the pandemic. On the other, increasingly authoritarian states condition access to welfare support on submission to further state surveillance and control. As a result of neoliberalism's outsourcing of welfare to civil society, post-liberal authoritarian impulses are transmitted through a devolved constellation of quasi-state powers, while state-sanctioned forms of vigilante violence against, and surveillance of, the poor expand.

As non-state actors play key roles in regulating the poor, and frictions between liberal, illiberal, and post-liberal organs of the state grow increasingly evident, the state's coherence and role in reproducing or resisting social, political, and economic order is in question. What new forms of liberal, illiberal, or post-liberal order might emerge from these disjunctures?

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Tuesday 30 November, 2021, -
Panel Video visible to paid-up delegates