Intellectual Hegemony (intellectual + hegemony)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Global Intellectual Hegemony and the International Development Agenda

INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 166 2000
Branislav Gosovic
The worldwide homogenisation of thinking, analysis, and prescription, coupled with the de-legitimisation of social critique, dissent, and alternative thinking in the 1990s, are characteristic of globalisation and of the current international system. The homogenisation is the outcome of global geopolitical changes and the end of the Cold War, with the ascendance of a victorious paradigm. The resulting global intellectual hegemony (GIH) is of special concernto developing countries and to the United Nations. It has undermined the goals and aspirations of the former and contributed to their intellectual disarmament and disempowerment; it has undermined the mandate and role of the latter. This essay discusses GIH in the context of international development cooperation, showing how it is nurtured in many different ways. It is argued that the mechanisms at work are well-known in national politics, in particular inundemocratic societies, and are now projected by new technologies and through the global domination by those with power, a task made easier by the lack of organised and credible opposition. It suggests the need for further study and policy debate of this global phenomenon which seems to have largely passed unnoticed in academic, policy, and public opinion circles. [source]


American foundations and the development of international knowledge networks

GLOBAL NETWORKS, Issue 1 2002
Inderjeet Parmar
This article examines the role and influence of three American foundations , Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford , in developing international knowledge networks that significantly impacted upon the Third World, helping to consolidate US hegemony after 1945, fostering pro-US values, methods and research institutions. The international networks were modelled on prior domestic initiatives resulting in the effective intellectual hegemony of ,liberal internationalism', of empirical scientific research methods, and of policy-oriented studies. Such domestic hegemony constructed a key basis of America's rise to globalism, which after 1945 required a continuing and enhanced foundation role, especially with the onset of the Cold War. The article, which examines the role of the US foundations in relation to intellectual hegemony construction in Latin America, Indonesia, and Africa, concludes that the evidence is best explained by Gramscian theory, and calls for further empirical research in this vital area. [source]


Front and Back Covers, Volume 24, Number 6.

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 6 2008
December 200
Front cover caption, volume 24 issue 6 Front cover A television newscaster reports from a prayer meeting organized in support of Barack Obama on the eve of the US election in Kogelo, Western Kenya. Foreign and local journalists descended on this small village which is home to Mama Sarah, Obama's paternal step-grandmother. As this picture was taken, religious and cultural leaders, schoolchildren and local politicians were praying for the success of their ,son', although they were also careful to offer up prayers for John McCain. The newscaster stands in front of a painting by local artist Joachim Onyango Ndalo, famous for his colourful portrayals of historical events, African presidents and other world leaders. The painting shows Obama surrounded by political figures, including Colin Powell, Bill Clinton and the British queen. In January of this year Ndalo was forced to flee from his home in Western Kenya to Uganda during the violence that followed Kenya's contested elections between the Party of National Unity (PNU), led by President Kibaki, and the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM), the opposition party led by Raila Odinga. Although pro-Odinga, the artist was branded a traitor by some members of his community for accepting a commission to paint Stanley Livondo, a Kibaki supporter and opponent of Odinga for the Langata parliamentary seat. Ndalo's workshop and paintings were destroyed. He has since returned home and plans to send his painting to America as a gift to Obama for his inauguration. Back cover caption, volume 24 issue 6 FINANCIAL CRISIS: The financial crisis unfolding since September this year has wiped out savings and threatens livelihoods across the world. Future generations will have to pay for the nationalization of gigantic debts that we never thought we had. This crisis, the worst of its kind since the Great Depression, demands an overhaul of the world's financial system. What might anthropologists contribute, beyond our insight into the world's informal economies and peasant markets? In this issue, Keith Hart and Horacio Ortiz argue that the breakdown of the economists' intellectual hegemony demands a new approach to money more sensitive to its social dimensions and to redistributive justice. A fresh reading of Mauss and Polanyi would be one good place to start. Stephen Gudeman, in his diary of witnessing the financial markets in October, argues for the relevance of anthropological concepts such as ,spheres of exchange', a realm of people, relationships and materials that cuts across market processes and lies beyond the economic vision of Wall Street and Washington, but should be represented in policy-making. Anthropologists have produced many detailed examples of how communities make use of markets within economies. Now, as the world searches for a new system of governance, is the time for anthropologists to make their voices heard. Perhaps a President's Council of Anthropological Advisors might complement the existing Council of Economic Advisors. What better time for such a proposal than the election of a new US president with roots in Hawaii, Kansas, Indonesia and Kenya, whose mother was herself an anthropologist? [source]


Anthropology in the financial crisis

ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY, Issue 6 2008
Keith Hart
This editorial considers the opportunities opened up for anthropologists by the financial crisis of 2008. The chief of these is the exposure of cracks in the intellectual hegemony of free-market economics which contributed to an unnecessarily defensive posture on the part of most anthropologists during the period of neoliberal globalization. The authors claim that anthropology can bridge the gap between everyday life and the world at large by combining the study of ideas and social actions. We draw on Ortiz's research among financial professionals to show how working practices informed by economic liberalism can have extremely unequal consequences for the global distribution of resources. The perspectives of Mauss and Polanyi on political economy can help us to make sense of the current situation and to recommend a path forward beyond market fundamentalism. Their general ideas lend power to the concrete findings of field research. The mask of neoliberal ideology has been ripped from the politics of world economy. Anthropology's highest mission is to start from where people are and go with them wherever they take you. What better time to follow this imperative than when the model the world has been compelled to live by for three decades is in such disarray? [source]