Operation cooperation. Discourses on joint ventures and development
(Interethnic relations and culture change. Anthropological contributions to sociocultural dynamics Band 28)
Hamburg: Lit Verlag 1997
217 pp., DM 34.80; ISBN 3-8258-3239-2
##Whether in the idioms of corporate profit or national development, joint ventures function as a ubiquitous operator in discourses on international economic cooperation. But unlike the "development" apparatus whose mechanisms of control and object constitution are now being deconstructed, these interorganizational partnerships are so far virtually overlooked in cultural analysis. A silent revolution has taken place. More and more spheres of life, anthropological imagination included, are being penetrated by the language of efficiency. Given the world economy's structural changes, development is no longer the only and perhaps not even the most significant operator of the extension of First World knowledge to the Third World. In this process of structural transition, corporate actors are playing a defining role, and joint venture cooperation has emerged as one of the most significant strategies in the establishment of global business networks. Extending the deconstruction of development to the realm of joint venture cooperation, the author integrates the two domains in a provocative analysis that inquires into the reorganization of the realities experienced by "knowing subjects" and "knowledgeable objects," as well as the normalization of their practices under different regimes of truth. Taking the joint venture as a point of entry, the book provides a critical review of the deconstruction of development, as well as a Foucauldian genealogy of business anthropology. Martin concludes his discussion of the relation between discursive frames and possibilities of agency with an inquiry into the limitations of Foucauldian analysis and the promises of practice theory.##
Keywords: business anthropology, development, Foucauldian genealogy, globalization, joint venture, North-South relations, practice theory, agency
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