Dissertation
A Critical Study of Micropolitics: Spatialization toward a Dialectic for Social Change
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
01/2017
Handle:
https://hdl.handle.net/2376/117646
Abstract
This dissertation challenges a popular conviction across American Studies, Ethnic Studies, Cultural Studies, Postcolonial Studies, Queer Studies, Sociology, Political Science and other fields of interdisciplinary studies: micropolitics helps—it helps the ‘weak’ to survive, to evade and combat oppressions within capitalism, imperialism, racism, sexism, and homonationalism. Rejecting any essentialist notion of the ‘weak,’ this dissertation critiques fetishization and promotion of micropolitics and proposes a move toward a dialectical relation between the micropolitics and the macropolitics.
I explain how micropolitics is driven by two interconnected discourses: the politics of difference promoted by the poststructuralist thinkers and the discourses of power theorized by Deleuze and Foucault—which, in turn, are made popular thorough a constant stigmatization of any totalizing theory as foundational and regressive. What this stigmatization routinely conceals is the totality of the neoliberal global capitalism itself. Given the poststructuralist credence in the non-foundational and anti-totalitarian theories, the increasing institutionalization of the latter totalitarianism and the stigmatization of the former totalitarianism—especially in imagining resistance against manipulative forces—appear to me symptomatic of an impasse in academic research. In this context, moving from identity politics to a new kind of politics—which I would call the politics of equality—should be conceptualized which would stand upon the dialectic between the micropolitics promoted by Certeau, Scott, Foucault, Deleuze and macropolitics suggested by Harvey, Lefebvre and Badiou. Macropolitics does not mean only social class based struggles. It means all integrational and collective forms of activism that moves toward ‘historical riot’.
Within the above conceptual framework of my project, I use theories of space developed by Lefebvre, Harvey, Soja, Massey, and others to identify the inadequacy of the micropolitics and its complicity with the structures of manipulation. This critique would lead us to an understanding in which an urge to conceptualize the much-required dialectic between the micropolitics and the macropolitics will emerge. I also sketch out one way of imagining this dialectic.
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Details
- Title
- A Critical Study of Micropolitics: Spatialization toward a Dialectic for Social Change
- Creators
- Mohammad Raihan Sharif
- Contributors
- John Streamas (Advisor)David Leonard (Committee Member)Rory J Ong (Committee Member)ATM Azfar Hussain (Committee Member)
- Awarding Institution
- Washington State University
- Academic Unit
- School of Languages, Cultures, and Race
- Theses and Dissertations
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Washington State University
- Number of pages
- 286
- Identifiers
- 99900581720101842
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Dissertation