THE POLITICAL THEORY WORKSHOP PRESENTS
Labor, Nature, and Empire: Alienation and the (Post)Colonial Political Rift
Inés Valdez, Political Science and Latina/o Studies, Ohio State University,
with commentary by Taylor Tate, Philosophy, UConn
September 13th from 12:15-1:30p.m. EST on Zoom
The chapter brings together Marx’s and Luxemburg’s accounts of capital’s voraciousness for natural resources and exploitable labor with an ecological reading of W. E. B. Du Bois’s writings on empire. Valdez argues that that racism maps onto a nature/technology divide which positions technologically advanced societies as uniquely able to rule and dictate the fates of non-white peoples. This stance devalues nature and separates these societies from it and from the racialized subjects who labor the earth’s surface and its insides, whose products are appropriated by western collectives, depleting non-western ecosystems. The viability of such a structure depends on coerced or coopted political regimes of poor countries who detach themselves from their own needs to cater to western interests, i.e., a political rift that maps into the ecological rift created by global capitalism.
With generous support from the UConn Humanities Institute.
Questions? Email jane.gordon@uconn.edu
