The Ethics of Disconnection in a Neolibe

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SPECIAL COLLECTION:

THE ETHICS OF DISCONNECTION IN A NEOLIBERAL AGE

IntroductionIlana Gershon

Indiana University

&

Allison Alexy

The University of Virginia

Scholars with Foucault in their arsenal have long understood how neo-liberalism is more than simply political and economic policies that ad-vocate universalizing market principles partially through deregulation andprivatization. They realize that neoliberal policies also presuppose neo-liberal selvesselves that consciously and reflexively see themselves asbalancing alliances, responsibility, and risk through a mean-ends calcu-lus (see Brown 2006, Cruikshank 1999, Harvey 2005, Rose 1990). DavidHarvey (2005:42), among others, argues that shifts from liberal economic

policies to neoliberal policies are necessarily accompanied by relativelysuccessful efforts to promote new conceptions of what it means to be anindividual and an agent. This literature has largely focused on how selvesare now expected to discipline themselves according to neoliberal logics

and, in particular, how people should take themselves to be a bundle ofskill sets which navigate responsibility and risk in a world that putatively

operates always by market principles (Cruikshank 1999; Freeman 2007;Maurer 1999; OMalley 1996; Rankin 2001; Rose 1990, 1996; Urciuoli2008). The self is not only a bundle of skills from this perspective, theneoliberal self is also a bundle of alliances with an underlying goal of mul-tiplying skills and alliances as much as possible. Yet the current momenthas revealed precisely how unrealistic this vision of the self isout of

necessity, alliances must be cut as well as nurtured. The global economiccrisis has required new interest not just in how neoliberal rhetorics are

Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 84, No. 4, p. 799808, ISSN 0003-5491. 2011 by the Institute forEthnographic Research (IFER) a part of the George Washington University. All rights reserved.


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used to discipline selves, corporations, and nation-states, but also theways in which neoliberalism shapes disconnection. In this special issue,

we focus on this less explored area in which neoliberal perspectives arere-imagining the selfhow the neoliberal self is expected to manage al-liances as they end.

Rather than taking neoliberalism as a known or hegemonic condition,the authors of this volume use moments of disconnection to explorethe ways in which neoliberal beliefs are constructed, embodied, and

challenged. We analyze instances in which networks are cut or alliancesare terminated, taking these moments to be ethnographically fruitful

sites for illuminating the weaknesses or insufficiencies in neoliberal ap-proaches to the social. We address the following question ethnographi-cally: how does the labor of disconnection become a moral concern inneoliberal contexts?

When analyzing the neoliberal self and its alliances, the authors presup-pose that the neoliberal self re-figures core attributes of previous incar-nations of capitalist selves, and in particular, the classic liberal capitalistself. We argue that the possessive individualism that Macpherson (1962)suggests is at the heart of the liberal capitalist self has changed its coremetaphors. If the liberal capitalist self owns itself as though the self wasproperty, the neoliberal self owns itself as though the self was a business.

Under the liberal capitalist perspective, to say that the self owns itselfas property means that a person controls his or her body and capacitiesas objects that can be brought to the marketplace. As a corollary, socialrelationships can be understood through the lens of property as well

peoples relationships are based on how peoples capacities are tradedor given to others. Under liberal capitalism, the idealized social contract

ensures that individuals give up some of their autonomy in exchange forsome security, economic or otherwise.

By contrast, to say that the neoliberal self owns itself as a businessmeans that the neoliberal self is a conglomeration of skills and traits thatcan be brought into alliance with other conglomerations, but is not rentedor leased. These alliances are relationships between two or more neoliberal

collectives which unite, constantly aware that they must distribute respon-sibility and risk in such a manner that each participant can maintain theirown autonomy as market actors. In addition, a neoliberal perspective de-mands that all relations be constructed as though composed of similar en-tities operating according to similar principles, ignoring levels of scale and


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differences in social organization. Each relationship is an alliance modeledafter idealized notions of business partnerships. Some of these alliances

emerge out of supposedly shared collective traits and others are based ongoals perceived as mutually satisfying. The dominant concern in manag-ing such relationships is whether risk and responsibility are appropriatelydistributed among all of the parties involved (OMalley 1996, Maurer 1999).Neoliberal agents must take care to minimize the risk and misallocatedresponsibility that these partnerships can potentially create.

When all social relationships are defined in terms of market alliances,neoliberal actors are faced with a practical quandary: how best to regu-

late these alliances effectively. Neoliberal actors cannot necessarily beexpected to regulate themselves well in this context. They cannot be ex-pected to act on their own self-interest as well as on the best interest ofthe alliance, especially since these often do not coincide. Thus from a

neoliberal perspective, alliances require external forms of regulation suchas law or moral norms. After all, self-interested actors are not necessarilygoing to make decisions that contribute to a larger social good withoutsome kind of intervention. This is one of the consequences of competi-tionfunctioning markets will only emerge when law or government con-tinually regulate this competition (Burchell 1996, Lemke 2001). Jean andJohn Comaroff (2001, 2010) have pointed out that this neoliberal reliance

on law as the preferred technology of regulation has led to the astonish-ingly rapid proliferation of this field.

Yet not all social interactions are appropriate moments for law to in-tervene. Indeed, all of the ethnographic moments of disconnection dis-

cussed in these articles are moments when law might intervene, but isnot called upon. In these instances, law is certainly not the first form of

regulation people turn towards. Yet market rationality on its own does notoffer enough moral sanctions to adequately guide peoples social rela-tions. One cannot live by neoliberal principles alone.

Wendy Brown (2006) has pointed out that neoliberalisms moral inad-equacies have contributed to making possible political alliances betweenneoliberals and neoconservatives. These alliances might seem unlikely

on the surface1since, as Brown explains, it is between a market politi-cal rationality and a moral-political rationality, with a business model ofthe state in one case and a theological model of the state in the other(2006:698). Yet it is precisely the contours of neoliberalisms moral pauci-ty that has allowed people wielding these apparently antithetical political


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rationalities to come together to share power. However, neoliberalism andneoconversativism have not become happy partners in every context,

leading to the ethnographic question underpinning this special issue:how do people respond to neoliberalisms moral paucity, particularly insituations when ethics are precisely what is at stake, such as moments ofcutting an alliance?

The authors of this special section understand moments of disconnec-tion to be challenging the limits of neoliberal ethics (see Kingfisher and

Maskovsky 2008). Describing disconnection as a condition that peoplelabor to achieve, not an entropic and inevitable end, contributors analyze

moments of disconnection to complicate ethnographic representations ofneoliberalism. We argue that efforts to achieve disconnection often takeplace simultaneously with efforts to connect, that these are mutually con-stitutive activities. Such dynamics are never innocent of power. Thus, a

central concern shared by these authors is how the concept of disconnec-tion is put to use in social life in ways that serve to re-inscribe inequalities.

In this discussion, we are building on prior anthropological attentionto disconnection, endings, and ruptures as vital topics for ethnographicanalysis (Simpson 1998, Carsten 2000, Kelsky 2001, Shohat 2003, Kaneff2002, Wardle 2002, Tsing 2004). We are mindful of Marilyn Stratherns(1996) cautions in Cutting the Network, in which she describes the vari-

ety of pitfalls scholars face when turning to disconnection as a theoreticalconcernpitfalls, she points out, that social analysts on the ground oftenmanage to sidestep. She discusses how scholars have often turned tothe concept of boundaries to address disconnections as symptoms of

divisions that they view as existing prior to their own analysis, such asrace or gender. Boundaries in these analyses can be scale-less, a form

of division which can move rapidly between self-other relations to estab-lished divisions between groups without changing substantively what itmeans to be a boundary. This is but one of many reasons that Strathernwrites: the concept of boundary is one of the least subtle in the socialscience repertoire (1996:520). Partially in response to the clumsiness ofboundaries as an analytical tool, some scholars have turned to hybrids

and networks. Yet, as Strathern argues, hybrids and networks as theo-retical categories do not always require that ethnographers foregroundwhat people who think of themselves as part of a network (or relational)know, namely that all networks or hybrids bring with them the pragmaticdilemmas of how to disconnect. For scholars, it is possible to think of


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networks as growing and extending infinitely; yet, this becomes impos-sible for those on the ground who are constantly faced with foreground-

ing certain relationships, while ensuring that others remain in the back-ground. Strathern (1996) points out that when one practices networks,one is constantly faced with disconnecting both as a process and aslabordisconnecting never just happens. Actor-network theorists serveas Stratherns concrete example, since they are able to overlook this la-bor in part because, for them, networks become the way one can link or

enumerate disparate entities without making any assumptions about lev-el or hierarchy (1996:522). Strathern proceeds to illustrate through vari-

ous ethnographic examples that people on the ground cannot proceed toact without making assertions about level or hierarchy. In short, Strathernargues that paying careful ethnographic attention to how people labor todisconnect can render analytical concepts such as boundaries, hybrids,

and networks far more rigorous.This special section aims to bring together conversations which have

up until now been largely occurring separately with different anthropologi-cal foci, such as the anthropology of work, economic anthropology, theanthropology of death, the anthropology of kinship, the anthropology ofdisaster, and the anthropology of media. Scholars with these foci have allpaid attention to how people in the various domains under study engage

with endings and ruptures. Bringing these dialogues together, we hope toshed light on how neoliberalism has altered the labor of disconnection, aparticularly salient question at this historical moment.

Summaries of Articles

Re/Membering the Nation: Gaps and Reckoning within BiographicalAccounts of Salvadoran migrs by Susan Bibler Coutin juxtaposesstate and migr narratives of recovery after El Salvadors 12-year civ-il war. During the years of war, people were disconnected by violence,forced relocations, and international emigration. Since the wars end, theSalvadoran government has used biographical accounts of Salvadorans

living abroad to re-brand the nation as a producer of flexible and suc-cessful subjects, and the migrs as good sons and daughters of thenation. These state narratives attempt to create nostalgia and longingfor El Salvador without reflecting upon the war or the continuing divisionscaused by it. In contrast to such state efforts, Coutin argues, Central


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American youth narrate their biographies to reconnect their memorieswith historical events, and their former selves with their current selves.

Student groups and NGOs would publicize these narratives and testimo-nials in the hopes that they might spark redress. Both the state and youthused biographies as political statements but for opposite endsthe stateto glorify and erase, the youth to understand and transform.

In On Devils and the Dissolution of Sociality: Andean Catholics VoicingAmbivalence in Neoliberal Bolivia, Krista Van Vleet explores the devil nar-

ratives that Catholics in Bolivia tell about family members or neighborswho have converted to evangelical Protestantism. She argues that these

devil narratives allow native Andeans to discuss the intimate anxieties oflivelihood and social relationships, power hierarchies, and political andeconomic exploitation. As Van Vleet observes, people often convert toevangelical Protestantism in search of moral guidelines that might al-

low them to navigate effectively the neoliberal transformations of LatinAmerica. Yet in converting, people are also faced with the tasks of discon-necting from previous religious practices and communities, which ofteninclude their families. The devil narratives that Catholics tell about thosewho have converted are commentaries on this labor of disconnection. Inthis article, Van Vleet turns to the native Andeans left behind by their kinand neighbors search for a religion more compatible with neoliberal de-

mands, exploring how they understand the consequences of conversion.Ilana Gershons article, Un-Friend My Heart: Facebook, Promiscuity,

and Heartbreak in a Neoliberal Age describes how Facebook can func-tion as a neoliberal technology, inasmuch as it is a technology that re-

quires individuals to manage their alliances by publicly performing howthey balance risk and responsibility. The neoliberal performances of self

that Facebook fosters, but does not compel, are public performances ofunweighted alliances expressed through the circulation of partial informa-tion, presenting a promiscuity that some of Gershons US undergradu-ate interviewees feared should be read literally. They have trouble main-taining romantic relationships while staying on Facebook, and argue thatFacebook transforms them into selves they do not wish to besuspicious

and distrustful selves. In particular, people find it difficult to evaluate thesignificance of the other alliances portrayed on their lovers Facebook pro-filefor instance, what does it mean that ones boyfriend has so manywomen writing on his wall? Gershon discusses how knowledge circulateson Facebook, arguing that Facebook provides potato chips of information,


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enough to tantalize the appetite but not enough to satisfy. She concludesby analyzing the aspects of Facebook that contribute to her interview-

ees belief that it is a technology whose structures structure them, thatFacebook transformed or enhanced undergraduates into people whohave difficulty managing the risks of romantic relationships. Facebook re-quires its users to manage themselves as a flexible collection of alliances,skills, and tastes that needs to be constantly nurtured and enhanced. Todistinguish one alliance from another on Facebook takes labor, and while

it is relatively easy to distinguish one alliance as The Lover, it is far moredifficult to express the strength of other alliances. Facebook offers insuf-

ficient information about alliances for people to live comfortably and ethi-cally only with the knowledge it circulates, leading people to disconnectfrom Facebook, and occasionally to break up with each other.

In Intimate Dependence and its Risks in Neoliberal Japan, Allison

Alexy considers the debates involved in creating the appropriate levelof connection or dependence between Japanese spouses. In the post-war era, popular talk and academic representations have regularly char-acterized Japanese marriages as disconnected in particular ways. Forinstance, in these normative descriptions of conjugal relationships, mar-riages work best when husbands and wives each have their own spheresof daily life, friends, and activities. As such, parenthood and relating to

one another as parents was commonly believed to be enough of a con-nection to create a lasting marriage, and many ideals suggested thatsome disconnection was good for marriages. In recent decades, divorcehas become a more socially viable option, partially as a result of legal

changes that construct family members and spouses as individual so-cial actors, rather than by their family membership alone. In this article,

which is based on ethnographic fieldwork with divorced and divorcingpeople, Alexy describes contemporary debates about naming practicesbetween spouses to trace how people question when disconnection canbe necessary or harmful to marriages, and the work involved in creatingthe perfect degree of disconnection.

Susan Lepselter examines increasingly popular US representations

of hoarding in light of neoliberal understandings of selves as rationalconsumers in This Disorder of Things: Hoarding Narratives in PopularMedia. In recent years, an onslaught of mediated narratives have por-trayed hoarders as disconnected from daily life, suffering from both patho-logical practices of overconsumption and from the inability to complete the


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normalized purchasing cycle of disposal and re-consumption. Lepselterexamines narratives in which hoarders are presented in all the spectacular

chaos of their isolation, and then are therapeutically renormalized as man-aged, disciplined agents of consumption who may rediscover the social.The house of the hoarder, filled up with junk, is often described as beinga space of horror. In most cases, the cause of the horror is the factthat the hoarder refuses to make rational choices as a consumer. Insteadof choosing selectively, she chooses everything. As such, her house be-

comes so full that she is disconnected from friends and family, who can-not move through the space. She is also cloaked in the shame of garbage

that, much like representations of fat and the over-consumption of food,is understood to metaphorically insulate the sufferer from normal socialrelations. It is specifically this failure to make a choice that is recognizedas signifying a deep pathology in the neoliberal self. After the conversion

to a more disciplined and rational disposition towards consumption, thehoarder is shown to reconnect with friends and family who are now ableto enter the tidy home, in which objects are properly stored and displayed.This article analyzes, first, the ways in which uncontrolled, irrational con-sumption is understood to disconnect a neoliberal self from her networkof social relations, and second, the ways in which experts attempt to re-socialize the hoarder by teaching her to rationalize her habits of consump-

tion and disposal. It is a spectacle with its own aesthetic and affectiveurgency, and what these hoarding narratives expose are the normally hid-den, naturalized neoliberal structures of selfhood and sociability as em-bodied in peoples relationships to objects that slip in and out of being

commodities.

A c k n o w l e d g m e n t s

This collection began as a panel titled, The Ethics of Disconnection at the 2008 Society for CulturalAnthropology conference. We would like to thank Karen Ho and Ernestine McHugh, who were also on thepanel and contributed lovely papers that continue to inspire how we think about ethics and neoliberalism.Our thanks as well to Richard Grinker for his critical encouragement throughout.

E N D N O T E S

1There is contemporary evidence of growing fissures between neoliberals and neoconservatives presentin the trouble that the McCain campaign had navigating the demands of various Republican constituen-cies and the subsequent tensions within the Republican party sparked by Tea Party politicians.


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The Ethics of Disconnection in a Neolibe

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