Religious Resistance to Neoliberalism

Womanist and Black Feminist Perspectives

verfasst von: Keri Day

Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US

Buchreihe : Black Religion / Womanist Thought / Social Justice

Enthalten in: Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" , Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

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Über dieses Buch

This text argues that engaging black feminist and womanist religious perspectives with Jewish and Christian discourses offers more robust religious critiques of alienating modes generated and exacerbated by a neoliberal economy.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Frontmatter

Introduction

Neoliberalism and the Religious Imagination

Abstract

The Kenyan Afro-futuristic film Pumzi provides a vivid, compelling account of how unregulated global markets might devastate all forms of life on Earth. Written and directed by Wanuri Kahiu, this film opens on an apocalyptic note, specifying a new era known as “post-Earth” in which there are no visible signs of life. It is 35 years after World War III, what countries once referred to as “The Water War.” Various old newspaper clippings move across the screen, which give us some indication that most life forms are now extinct. One newspaper clipping reads, “People Journeying a Whole Day in Search of Water.” Newspaper images show devastation created by nuclear radioactive waste as well as the Greenhouse Effect. There is no living human, animal, or plant left within the natural environment of the Earth. One can infer in this film that World War III was caused by the increased scarcity of water (among other things that depend upon water, such as food crops) due to humanity’s competitive, destructive environmental and economic practices, destroying most of the world’s population. At this point, the viewer encounters the only known small community surviving within a technological bubble in East Africa. They are known as the Maitu community (“Maitu” means mother in Kikuyu language).

Keri Day

1. The Myth of Progress

Abstract

Free-market ideology is lauded around the world, as it is equated with the linear movement toward progress. However, some economists such as Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz offer stinging indictments of how global financial institutions hinder economic and human development through unregulated or under-regulated “free” market models. Similarly, feminist political philosophers, such as Martha Nussbaum, also expose the exacerbation of inequities, especially among poor women and children, due to unfettered market forces. There has been minimal literature on religious critiques of neoliberal economy, and particularly, its “myth of progress.” There needs to be an intervention here.

Keri Day

2. Resisting the Acquiring Mode

Abstract

In the previous chapter, I deconstructed the neoliberal myth of progress that undergirds global capitalism by framing my religious critique around notions of crisis, redemption, and hope. This narrative of progress asserts a false hope, which is grounded in the promise of material abundance and well-being for all. However, this promise has fallen short. Critical theorists and womanists such as Benjamin, Zizek, and Baker-Fletcher remind one that if voices desire to disrupt structural inequities sponsored by global economy, such voices must unsettle what legitimates contemporary capitalist rationality: the myth of progress and the promise of material abundance in the future.

Keri Day

3. Loss of the Erotic

Abstract

The previous chapter affirms that neoliberalism numbs our ability to feel deeply, passionately, and compassionately about life. We are unable to resist the acquiring mode or be a “witness to truth” because neoliberal forces breed a sense of apathy and inefficacy in us that we can transform broader society. The alienated individualism that neoliberal ideology presumes as “given” frames our ways of relating to each other. Neoliberalism anesthetizes an individual’s longings, yearnings, and desires for connection and community in favor of acquiring things and material objects. As a result, the self needs to undergo radical transformation, from an acquiring mode to a giving and sharing mode of being.

Keri Day

4. Love as a Concrete Revolutionary Practice

Abstract

In this neoliberal moment, love is seen as apolitical and unrealistic. Love is often used in confusing and sloppy ways, which leads to a disbelief in love itself. Some simply interpret love as fantasy. As discussed in chapter 2, because love is seen as a commodity that benefits one’s bottom line (one’s own interests, social status, financial agenda, etc.), love remains suspect and undesired within personal and social dimensions of life. Some simply “write off love,” arguing that it does not exist. Love is seen as impossible within personal relationships and broader political life. This cynicism of love within social and political communities is a tragedy. In part, love is often relegated to the idealistic because it is understood in abstract terms rather than as a practice. Love is a concrete revolutionary practice that integrates the ways in which eros enables an “enfleshment” of agape and even philia.

Keri Day

5. Hope as Social Practice

Abstract

Within much of classical Jewish and Christian discourses, hope is often articulated as a belief in super-ordinary interventions into the present order (i.e., supersessionist logic seen within much of Jewish and Christian religious thought). I argued in chapter 1 that Benjamin and Zizek (to some extent) tend to employ apocalyptic language in order to envision social transformation. They use supersessionist logic. I do not want to interpret hope through employing supersessionist logic, as it may not enable one to theorize the conditions under which hope is possible within the worlds we already inhabit. For certain, supersessionist logic such as apocalyptic language can be defiant and subversive to hegemonic structures. However, such logic does not attend to the complex, social practices that shape and inform what is possible in our neoliberal moment.

Keri Day

Conclusion

Radicalizing Hope: Toward Beloved Communities

Abstract

We can be different individuals by rejecting the subjectivities that neoliberal market cultures offer us. The Madres movement’s social practices demonstrate that the transformation of neoliberal subjectivity is necessary and possible. Their social practices demonstrate that justice, love, and care are not merely regulative ideals but concrete actions that foster redemption and renewal of this world toward a more just, compassionate society. They “radicalize” hope. The possibility of loving and trusting communities not only is a future horizon but also needs to be prefigured in the here and now. They demonstrate that the cynicism and apathy associated with neoliberal capitalism do not have the last words. The present and future can change, as we are not trapped in the “sameness” of the present. Radical hope offers the conditions that give rise to alternative social worlds out of which beloved communities can emerge and flourish.

Keri Day

Backmatter

Titel: Religious Resistance to Neoliberalism
verfasst von: Keri Day
Verlag: Palgrave Macmillan US
Electronic ISBN: 978-1-137-56943-1
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-57110-9
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-56943-1