Category Archives: Political Economy

“Land laundering”: How Colombian Paramilitaries Hijack Grassroots Development

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

I wrote a guest blog post for Future Agricultures that gives a straight-forward preview of the talk I’m giving this week at the Global Land Grabs conference hosted by Cornell University. A teaser: With the start of peace negotiations this … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Development, Drugs, Forests, Illegality, Political Ecology, Political Economy, The State, Violence | Comments Off on “Land laundering”: How Colombian Paramilitaries Hijack Grassroots Development

Medicating Austerity and Biopower

Posted on October 9, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

I read the article “Attention Disorder or Not, Pills to Help in School” this morning in the NY Times and it freaked me out. Then, the article was sent around on my department’s listserve and I just can’t get over it. … Continue reading →

Posted in Drugs, Everyday Life, Political Economy, The Body | Comments Off on Medicating Austerity and Biopower

Interweb Motley # 2

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

RIP Carlos Fuentes, who in reference to Latin America’s colorful cast of dictators, wrote: “All of them pose a tremendous problem for Latin American novelists. How to compete with history? How to create characters richer, crazier, more imaginative?” The government … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Law, Political Economy | 1 Comment

David v. David: Graeber and Harvey in Conversation

Posted on May 14, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

[vimeo video_id=”41997338″ width=”600″ height=”337″ title=”Yes” byline=”Yes” portrait=”Yes” autoplay=”No” loop=”No” color=”00adef”] Sponsored by Verso Books and The CUNY Center for Place, Culture and Politics. (ᔥ David Harvey)

Posted in City, David Harvey, Political Economy, The State | Comments Off on David v. David: Graeber and Harvey in Conversation

Interweb Motley #1

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Inaugurating a new weekly installment of worthy links from around the Internet is this week’s “Interweb Motley.” Benjamin Kunkel reviews Paper Promises by Philip Coggan and Debt by David Graeber for the London Review of Books. (Kunkel, a rising Marxist “rapporteur” … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, City, David Harvey, Media, Networks, Political Economy, Race & Ethnicity, Science & Tech., Security, Violence | Comments Off on Interweb Motley #1

Beholden: David Graeber & Rebecca Solnit

Posted on May 3, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Guernica magazine published a great conversation between David Graeber and Rebecca Solnit, two people who I admire as genuinely original thinker-writers with ample street-cred to back it up. They talk mostly about debt, anarchism, and occupy. “Neoliberalism isn’t an economic … Continue reading →

Posted in #Occupy, David Harvey, Everyday Life, Hegemony, Political Economy, The State | Comments Off on Beholden: David Graeber & Rebecca Solnit

Jameson: Representing Capital

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Teo Ballvé

Canadian magazine Rabble has an interview with Frederic Jameson about his new book Representing Capital: A Reading of Volume One. Jameson explains what he means when he writes in the book, “Capital is not a book about politics, and not … Continue reading →

Posted in Critique, Dialectics, Karl Marx, Marxism, Political Economy | Comments Off on Jameson: Representing Capital

Against Spectacle? “Crises” and the Infographic

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

So there’s been a lot of interesting infographics published recently that help visually represent a host of contemporary issue and crises: from Euro Debt, U.S. income inequality, and the increasingly consolidated power of corporations and banks, to the Afghan quagmire … Continue reading →

Posted in #Occupy, Bandits, Critique, Elites, Everyday Life, Guy Debord, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Networks, Political Economy, Power, Spectacle, Violence | 2 Comments

Violence in Developing Countries

Posted on October 12, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

Cramer, Christopher. 2007. Violence in Developing Countries: War, Memory, Progress. Indiana University Press. Cramer’s book is a strident polemic and methodical critique against widely accepted explanations for contemporary violence. His critique is mainly geared at liberal interpretations of war in … Continue reading →

Posted in Frontiers, Historical Materialism, Insurgency/Counterinsurgency, Marxism, Political Economy, Violence | Comments Off on Violence in Developing Countries

Agrarian Political Economy & Ecology

Posted on September 19, 2011 by Teo Ballvé

  My path into agrarian political economy and ecology partly picks up where Marx left off. In culminating his magnum opus, Marx departs from his more dualistic model of the capitalist mode of production, which emphasizes the dialectic of labor-and-capital, … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Antonio Gramsci, David Harvey, Forests, Frontiers, Gender, Karl Marx, Land, Political Ecology, Political Economy, Primitive Accumulation, Race & Ethnicity, Spatiality, Territory, Violence | 1 Comment