Ethical Capitalism: Global Citizens, Corporate Bodies, and the Cosmopolitics of Self-Regulation.

摘要

My research is an ethnographic investigation of what it means to be ethical in the context of late capitalism. In this analysis, I bring together variously positioned actors--knowledge workers in Singapore, bureaucrats at the United Nations Global Compact, corporate executives, and elite expatriates—each of whom contribute to what it means to be a "global citizen." Examining capitalist practice through this lens of global citizenship, I argue for an emergent shift in which ethical practice becomes a form of productive labor reshaping value, signaling the emergence of an ethical cosmopolitanism in which ethics are incorporated within economics. While my ethnographic data are specific to Singapore and the United Nations Global Compact, these emergent trends in how we think about "ethics" as a capitalist practice is showing up globally, and has impact far beyond the specific sites of my fieldwork. I examine global citizenship at three scalar levels—the individual, the corporation, and the state—to show how at each of these levels ethical cosmopolitanism is inscribed as a kind of self-regulatory practice.;In Chapter One I lay out the theoretical and methodological framework for my analysis. Each chapter that follows focuses on a different aspect of ethical cosmopolitan practice and global citizenship. In Chapter Two, I examine Singapore as it has utilized corporate strategies for development from its beginnings as a shipping colony to its present state as an influential knowledge economy. My research in Chapter Three shows how multinational corporations, as non-state actors with daunting capital resources, are creating models of self-regulation that incorporate responsible and sustainable business practices at the strategic level with an eye towards both profitability and ethical virtue. I articulate an emergent transnational subjectivity in Chapter Four that is rooted not only in the governmentality of state action and the global economy, but also in experiential knowledge. Finally, in Chapter Five, I examine the role of experiential knowledge as an informal mode of "global expertise." This research contributes to a range of scholarly debates, including international development, responsible business strategy, the anthropology of neoliberalism, and studies of expertise and knowledge production.