WGS: 281:01 Globalization and Policy-Making (Fall 2007)
Tuesdays 2:35-5.00 p.m. (Garland 220-H)
Dr. Shubhra Sharma
The Women’s and Gender Studies Program
Vanderbilt University
shubhra.sharmavanderbilt.edu

This course is designed to introduce students to the theoretical notions of the modern state and how these notions are being challenged by globalization since the mid-1980s and the early 1990s. In turn, through a critical examination of the concept of state and “stateness,” we attempt to grasp also the many meanings of globalization in relation to such concepts.

We read seminal texts in political science (Theda Skocpol and Atul Kohli) that recognize and define state as a universal category (universally present and functioning). We read Foucauldian and feminist texts (Catherine MacKinnon, Jana Everett, and Arjun Appadurai) that challenge not only the universality of the state (thereby situating it in its particular social and cultural contexts and histories) but also its western modeling.

The discipline of Anthropology, for example, has steered clear of the concept of the state, choosing instead to examine the state as specifically as bureaucracy in its micro-forms and local people’s experience of policies as mediated through and implemented by the bureaucracy. If state = policy-making/ implementation, then globalization confused this easy equation in the 1990s and peeked the interest of academics across interdisciplinary boundaries interested in criticality—how the notion of the state as a sovereign entity gets re-configured specially as policy making becomes located transnationally (in governments and non-government entities).

Our main objective, however, is to examine all theoretical constructs regarding the state from “our” standpoint—everyday people affected by stateness and by policy-making generally (and specially) in the context of globalization in the 21st century.

For their final projects, the students of WGS: 281 created “photo-commentaries.” They each selected a photograph or a set of photographs from different web sites and then wrote commentaries on them from the standpoint of their learning about state and globalization during the semester. These photo-commentaries are listed on the left. We appreciate any comments and suggestions. Enjoy!