Global Governmentality and graduated sovereignty: National belonging among poor migrants in ecuador

Abstract

Questions about the transformation of governance and national identity are being re‐examined in the context of contemporary economic globalisation. Scholars are debating the ways in which globalisation is reworking national identities through the shifting of economic governance away from ‘... the territorially defined boundaries of the nation‐state ... [and into] “unbundled” space for which there is not yet a name’ (Gupta, 1998: 321). Much of the work that has examined these questions of national identity and belonging under globalisation have emphasised questions of mobility, memory and identity in diasporic communities. In this paper, by contrast, I work with economic migrants within Ecuador to emphasise how contemporary globalisation processes reach inside national territories and work to reconstitute and reinvigorate pre‐existing social hierarchies and spatial identities. I develop these arguments in the context of Ecuador's economic crisis of the last two decades, drawing on in‐depth interviews with migrants to Quito.

Key words:

• Ecuador
• migrants
• governmentality
• globalisation
• marginalisation

Notes

This fieldwork for this paper was conducted under grant SBR‐9511129 from the National Science Foundation. That support is greatly appreciated. This research was also carried out in collaboration with Centro de Investigaciones CIUDAD in Quito with invaluable research support from Ana Maria Albuja, Lastenia Rumbo and Kim Van Eyck. Without these collaborations, this research would not have been possible. I have also benefited enormously from commentaries and suggestions by Lucy Jarosz, Michael Brown and Ian Feinhandler.