Reterritorialising Reembedding Polanyi in Waitakere

1
Re-territorialising/ Re-embedding/ Polanyi in
Waitakere

• David Craig
• Sociology
• The University of Auckland

2
Polanyis double movement

• Embedding The market societies/ market economies
  tug of war
• Market disembedding, disruption social/
  enlightened reactionary re-embedding
• De-territorialisation, re-territorialisation
• Globalisation/ NIE markets for services vs
  population outcomes and strategy
• Are re-regulation, the Third Way,
  neo-conservatisms modes of re-embedding/
  re-territorialisation?
• A new hybrid liberal phase? Or just Roll out
  neo-liberalism

3
Modes of current re-embedding/ re-territorialisati
on

• Partnerships and participation joined up
  inclusion and re-governmentalising 3rd sector
• late- New Public Management managing for
  outcomes
• Disciplinary inclusion and wraparound case
  management Strengthening Families/ Justice
• Positive liberal capabilities human capital
• District Health Boards, healthy housing, and
  Health Action Zones, Primary Health Organisations
• Regulatory frames RMA, ERA, PFA reform

4
Re-embedding/ re-territorialisation 2

• Local government reform wellbeing mandates, Long
  term council community planning (temporal
  embedding), rising council corporatism
• Sustainable Development plans of action and
  creeping regionalisation in Auckland
• Deconcentration of senior policy staff to
  regional offices
• Iwi partnerships consolidation and devolution
• Pluralised consultation, mapping and evaluation
  regimens

5
Re-embedding/ re-territorialisation 3

• Security and safety neighbourhood, regional,
  global
• Industry policy lite Territorial economic and
  social development strategies/ clusters
• The Poverty Reduction consensus national
  strategy/ ownership
• Heavily managed, local demand-responsive and
  moralised/ familised workforce inclusion (WFF)
• Place related moralities/ rhetorics/ aesthetics
  of inclusion community, the nation state
• Neo-conservatism, neo-progressivism.

6
Deleuse and Guatarri on re-territorialisation

• These neo-territorialities are often artificial,
  residual, archaic but they are archaisms having
  a perfectly current function, our modern way of
  imbricating, of sectioning off, of
  reintroducing code fragments, resuscitating old
  codes, inventing pseudo-codes and jargons. These
  modern archaisms are mainly folkloric, but they
  nonetheless represent social and potentially
  political forces
• The Anti-Oedipus 257

7
Re-embedding and re-territorialisation in
Waitakere 1

• Grass roots activism and network/ council
  coordination energy and enthusiasm and skill
• Citywide/ community wellbeing strategy
• Context no realignment of silo/ territorial
  boundaries
• Limited, uneven reassignment of budget to
  regions/ territories
• Voluntaristic accountabilities / commitments/
  mandates
• No substantive moves to shared / common
  accountabilities single agent principal/ output
  relationship retained

8
Re-embedding and re-territorialisation in
Waitakere 2

• Slippery subsidiarity, ongoing re-scalings
• Enormous transaction costs process, process,
  process, consultation confusion, born unevenly by
  community groups/ frontline brokers
• Laissez faire partnerships approach gtLack of
  coherence, overlapping/ blizzard assignments,
  sloppy and unfunded mandates (Wellbeing, LTCCP,
  moral policing of prostitution, P)
• Uncontextualised multiple indicators not followed
  through
• Marginal to budgets and planning cycles Pilot
  economy more transaction costs and
  sustainability issues

9
Overall assessment of re-embedding/
re-territorialisation In NZ/ elsewhere

• Disciplinary, shallow
• Encourages/engages bottom up, but doesnt enable
• Popular/activist/ class dimensions easily
  appropriated
• Quasi- re- territorialisation local power
  containers of community and partnership
• Frail shared accountabilities are weak against
  wider social sorting change outcome
  peripheralisation?

10
How to look at this, then?

• Mostly the class agency of middle classes
• A wider consensual, after neo-liberal project
  inclusive liberalism?
• Compensatory flanking mechanism, reinforcing
  neo-liberal legislation (Jessop)
• Double movement lurches on Both Roll-out and
  reactive/ technical / social/ territorial
  re-embedding

11
Re-embedding and re-territorialisation in
Waitakere 3

• Next phase smarter re-territorialisations, more
  focussed and strategic, picking engagements?
• Proactive piloting, around re-launched Eco- city
  concerns
• Alignment looking for ways to line up funding
  function manfdate
• Wellington/ regional alignment proactivism
  transport, economic development
• Strategic/ sectoral alignment/ partnership, via
  leading sectors eg housing

12
Disembedding and deterritorialisation in NZ and
elsewhere

• New Institutional Economics and radical
  decentralisation service delivery and
  accountability
• Inform, enforce, compete
• Marketising of service delivery across new
  (wider) scales
• More accoutnabilities equals more accountability?
• Fragmentation, narrow vertical accoutnabilities