Article Number: 482
Soft Cover, English, Thread Stitching, 160 Pages, 2008, Jan van Eyck Academie
Benda Hofmeyr

The Wal-Mart Phenomenon.

Resisting Neo-Liberal Power through Art, Design and Theory
€ 21.00

With the global pervasiveness of social deracination, cultural decimation, environmental destruction and the impoverishment of ever greater segments of the population, neo-liberal market liberalization has left an indelible mark on our social, political and economic world.

With the global pervasiveness of social deracination, cultural decimation, environmental destruction and the impoverishment of ever greater segments of the population, neo-liberal market liberalization has left an indelible mark on our social, political and economic world. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, however, the removal of barriers to free trade and the closer integration of national economies are still hailed by many as a force for the good, capable of enriching everyone in the world, particularly the poor. Ignorance and naivety of this kind make the critical exploration of the nature of power and the possibility of resistance more relevant than ever.

Against the backdrop of Robert Greenwald’s documentary, Wal-Mart. The High Cost of Low Price this multi-disciplinary yet cohesive volume calls upon intellectual, artistic and cultural producers themselves to oppose the progressive disappearance of the autonomous worlds of cultural production, cinema, publishing, etc., and therefore, ultimately, of cultural products themselves. It seeks to excavate the present-day workings of neo-liberal power and possible strategies of resistance. The contributors focus both on the documentary and artistic media used to reflect upon these phenomena as well as the actual socio-political and economic processes underlying them and following in their wake from the perspectives of art, design and theory (philosophy and social geography).

Source: www.pro-qm.de/wal-mart-phenomenon-resisting-neo-liberal-power-th