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Thesis

On becoming (un)acceptable: Displacement and the politics of the frame

Date

2006

Authors

J. Colson

Abstract

Displacement is phenomenological. It is embodied, gendered, often transnational, and always tests the limits of sovereignty. Displacement is not the absence of politics; it is replete with political potentialities. The forces of displacement create the paradox of becoming (un)acceptable, which can be both dangerous and enabling. Displacement is both a condition of political life and a category of political thinking. Contemporary neo-Kantian cosmopolitanism evokes universalist and proceduralist strategies founded on discourse ethics. I develop a detailed critique of normative cosmopolitanism, which privileges the sovereignty of liberal democratic states and regards displacement as a problem to be solved. I support my critique by highlighting the phenomenology and taking-subjectivity of the displacement of Filipino women live-in domestic caregivers in Canada. I argue for a more radical cosmopolitics of displacement that challenges the politics of belonging in temporal, spatial, and material terms while it engages politically with the generative potentialities residing in the paradox of becoming (un)acceptable. Keywords. displacement, cosmopolitanism, sovereignty, phenomenology, gender citizenship, Canada, global restructuring, political economy, political subjectivity, marginalization, subsumption, Filipino women domestic workers, Arendt, Arat-Koc, Bakan, Benhabib, Connolly, Honig, Markell, Stasiulis.

University

Trent University (Canada)

Degree

M.A.

Place published

Canada

Links

Economic sectors

Occupations in services - Domestic work

Content types

Policy analysis

Geographical focuses

Canada, Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, British Columbia, Other provinces, Federal, Philippines, Nova Scotia, and National relevance

Spheres of activity

Philosophy and Political science

Languages

English