Files

Abstract

Based on the ethnographic study of the phosphate-mining industry, the dissertation explores the effects of neoliberalism in shaping collective life in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. In Jordan, like in other countries, the adoption of neoliberal reforms did not result in the triumph of free-market as the key organising principle of society. Yet, the implementation of neoliberal policies did affect collective life in meaningful ways. Neoliberal effects concern both material and ideal aspects of collective life. These effects include the exclusion of the working class from the opportunity of wage labour, the reshaping of distributive politics, and the emergence of a new normative order among other things. The dissertation explores in detail how ideas, practices and social relations assemble around phosphate flows in Jordan, and how these have been (re)defined and (re)negotiated in the context of neoliberal policies. Theoretically, it combines insights from different disciplines including social anthropology, historical political sociology, and the socio-technical approach. The first part of the dissertation situates the moment of the privatisation in the broader historical trajectory of the Jordanian phosphate industry. It shows how flows of phosphate have historically set the possibilities (and limits) of collective life around phosphate flows, and discusses whether the privatisation marked a rupture or continuity with previous assemblage. The second part explores the construction of representations about the privatisation. It discusses how the employees of the Jordan Phosphate Mine Company and the populations living in the mining area experience and construe ongoing transformations. The last part analyses the claims emerging from the new configuration through the study of two protest movements directed at JPMC.

Details