Finding
By bringing Castoriadis’s understanding of modernity as the double imaginary signification of mastery and autonomy into the centre of his analysis, the author tries to show that each of the terms has been interpreted in highly different ways in Latin America.
Paper
Reviews: Looking At the Global: Nathalie Karagiannis and Peter Wagner, eds, Varieties of World-Making: Beyond Globalization. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press distributed by University of Chicago Press, 2007, 304 pp., ISBN 9781846310201, US$35.00
Abstract
Varieties of World-Making is an attempt to theorize the ways of going beyond neoliberal globalization. The editors, Peter Wagner and Nathalie Karagiannis, argue in the introduction that ‘the approach we aim to elaborate in this volume, “world—making”, is directed against the dominant idea of neo-liberal and masscultural globalization’ (p. 8). Thus, this book suggests that globalization should not be read as an anonymous process, but rather as the actuality of plural ways of making the common world. The book consists of three main parts. The first part concentrates on ‘The Coexistence of Several Worlds’. The main argument in this part is that there is the possibility and the actuality of coexistence of different worlds. Hennigsen compares American and European politics by asking whether this comparison would mean a comparison of republic with empire. For Hennigsen, at the beginning of the modern era the US aimed at founding a federative system, while in Europe, nations-states were founded on the basis of competition and clashes. However, today, the US is developing despotic and imperial relations with other parts of the world, whereas Europe is trying to create a federation of nations that have good relations with one another. In the second chapter, Larrain writes about the varieties of Latin American modernity. By bringing Castoriadis’s understanding of modernity as the double imaginary signification of mastery and autonomy into the centre of his analysis, the author tries to show that each of the terms has been interpreted in highly different ways in Latin America. Larrain interprets the historical development of democratic polity and economic modernity as foundations of the projects of autonomy and control in Latin America.
Authors
Ibrahim Kaya
Journal
International Sociology