Oct. 9th

In "Disappearing Acts," Diana Taylor describes the processes by which citizens in Argentina internalize different conceptions of national identity as proscribed by the political and military authority in power (first the Perons, and then the military junta). This idea of internalization, and the focus on being seen performing these acts of identification, play out in Prof. Tadiar's description of a "deterritorialized Third World" as created by the global economy. As immigrants, specifically migrant workers, spread across the globe, there is the creation of "a new race of infantilized, feminized, commodified peoples...motoring globalized production. It is no longer, therefore, a matter of nations acting like people, but of people embodying their nations" (241). The roles of different nations in the global economy become internalized by citizens as a part of their national identity, which then must be performed in the public sphere in order to belong to the nation. Thus the use of the word "oriental" to distinguish Japanese superiority from other Asians in an international community becomes a necessary assertion of Japanese identity. The denigrating treatment of Filipina prostitutes by Japanese johns, and the general inferior treatment of migrant workers by citizens, is also part of this assertion of identity.  It follows that equality is only possible if there is an equal relationship between countries, which, given the state of the current global economy, seems impossible. How can we change national identities and imaginings of nations in the current global economy? Does it require a complete restructuring of economic relations?