This dissertation, Fresh from the Factory: Breakfast Cereal, Natural Food, and the Marketing of Reform, 1890–1920, challenges dominant depictions of industry and environmental activism as adversarial by investigating producers who sought to reform capitalism with a new consumer good. Cereal companies at the end of the nineteenth century became some of the first manufacturers to distribute ready-to-eat food to consumers nationwide. Breakfast cereal’s ubiquitous advertising spoke of the virtues of “natural food” made in some of the country’s most impressive factories. Aimed squarely at women, this advertising preached the virtues of machine-made “natural food” by associating it with nutritional science, religious imagery, and stereotypes about the closeness-to-nature of women and racialized people. Selling a vision in which people could “return to nature” without going anywhere, industrialists persuaded consumers to pursue communion with nature by buying and eating packaged breakfast food. Breakfast cereal manufacturers became some of the world’s largest food processors— and among its most widely-read nature writers, health authorities, and social reformers. Fresh from the Factory follows the production and promotion of cereal as it developed in the early twentieth century. The first chapter tracks the cereal industry’s emergence out of a natural food movement that warmed to mass commerce over the nineteenth century. This movement’s spokespeople claimed to alone know what God, interchangeable with Nature, wanted people to eat. God’s authority proved useful for breakfast cereal producers, too, in branding their goods as “natural.” Subsequent chapters follow breakfast cereal from nature to table. To sell natural food, cereal companies spread new definitions of nature. These depictions rarely included plants or farms, instead emphasizing factories as the source of breakfast food and distribution in packages as the key to its freshness; in company nature writing, it was electric power, machinery, and pasteboard boxes that best mimicked the Garden of Eden. As cereal reached the table, consumers, regulators, and writers embraced, criticized, or even litigated against the product. Men often satirized the expensive grains in garish boxes, but many women found in cereal a more promising cure for sick children and arduous housework than the country retreats then favored by literary nature writers. By the early 1900s, breakfast cereal had become an American staple food, altering the country’s relationship to nature, cities, and the consumer economy. The dissertation ends in the 1920s. By this point, the federal government did more to protect national health, more people bought prepared packaged foods, and vitamins and calories had ascended over religion-infused ideas about nutrition. Still, the breakfast cereal industry’s ideas of nature persisted, and so the dissertation concludes by reflecting on continuing links between reform, business, and nature. I intend for scholars across fields to find this dissertation useful in considering how industry and the environment shape each other and the capacity of capitalism to reform itself.

With millions of people involved in collecting and treating recyclable products, waste recycling provides a critical entry point to an investigation of the spaces and dynamics of the Chinese economy. Based on sixteen months of in-depth ethnographic research, this thesis, 'Invisible spaces: variegated geographies of waste in China', describes and analyses waste and its boundaries, as well as the actors that deal with it at different scales within the country. The work examines how waste circulates, how it is regulated, and how it is represented in China. It presents stories of the people and places that configure the waste industry, and situates its analysis at the intersection of three different strands of literature: i) variegated capitalism; ii) informal economy; and iii) geographies of waste. The research contends that the 'afterlives' of goods are a productive prism which can be used to understand the variegated mode of capitalism in contemporary China and thus investigates the following question: to what extent do the different cultural, social, political, economic, and material dimensions of waste reveal the heterogeneous characteristics of Chinese capitalism? Central to my analysis is the concept of invisibility. I conceive invisibility as a socio- political process that brings about an uneven access to resources and labour for subaltern groups, as well as a relational concept encompassing the three complementary and dialectical dimensions of absolute, relative, and relational space. Invisibility is not only a metaphor to define the agency of informal workers, but also an allegory to describe the marginalisation of their activities and spaces. It is an asset and a curse, a condition and a strategy. These multiple dimensions make invisibility a productive device bringing to light the geographies of different accumulation regimes and everyday practices, as well as a potent tool to analyse the alternative representations of waste, value, labour, and development at play in contemporary China. With this in mind, the thesis engages with a number of important debates in geography. In particular, the five empirical chapters engage with literature on global production networks, labour geography, primitive accumulation, geographies of waste, and urban political ecology. While drawing these literatures into conversation with the variegated capitalism framework, the work suggests that the invisibility of waste activities is a powerful tool to analyse the nature and the mechanisms of the variegated modes of production in contemporary China.

This thesis uses transnational historical materialist theory and methodology to explicate the transformation of Ukraine's economy after the demise of the USSR, examining specifically the period from 1991 to the present. Thus, the thesis explores the ways in which the formation of the capitalist historic bloc, the ascent and agency of Ukraine's capitalist and ruling class(es), and the agency of transnational capital are the driving forces behind that transformation and its socially destabilising nature. Social agency is one critical issue in this argument, in that as this thesis shows the main reason behind the inability to stabilise the social order in Ukraine is the ongoing rivalry in the process of class formation. Neoliberal marketization reforms (actively supported by IMF, WB, and EBRD) allowed Ukraine's rival ruling and emerging capitalist class and their fractions to pursue their personal economic interests and by that undermine possibilities for socioeconomic stabilisation. Thus Ukraine's economy has been shaped through processes of accumulation by dispossession (Harvey, 2003), or privatisation, and capitalist class fractional formation and rivalry. In the latter process a capitalist class-for-itself has emerged through organising its fractions around political parties and through actively engaging with the EU and US lobby and interest groups. Through these practices, a process of trasformismo (Gramsci, 1971) and effective strengthening of Ukraine's capitalist historic bloc is evolving. Ukraine's ideologically semi-denationalised ruling (Sassen, 2007) and capitalist forces that emerge from the trasformismo dialectic by transnationalising Ukraine's state for their own political and/or economic gain essentially institutionalise the discipline of capital and facilitate a passive revolution (Gramsci, Ibid.) towards a generation of consent to the global hegemony of neoliberal market ideology. This 'passive revolution' further incapacitates possibilities for the emergence of ideological and thus political counter-movements and alternative institutional forms.

A tese discute o capitalismo atual, fazendo uma crítica ao capital, mostrando suas permanências e suas mudanças, para explicar esta última, discute a internacionalização do capital, a flexibilização e a inovação. A inovação é vista como o terreno das ideias, no qual o conhecimento está sendo apropriado para promover competitividade, com uma captura da subjetividade humana. E nesse contexto o mundo digital e os territórios são elementos importantes para desenvolver o sistema. Caxias do Sul é usada como recorte espacial para o estudo, verificando se as ambiguidades, as dificuldades e a reordenação que o imperativo inovação promove nos territórios e em seus atores. / The theory discusses the current capitalism, making a critic to the capital, showing their permanence and their changes, to explain this last one, it discusses her internationalization of the capital, the flexibility and the innovation. The innovation is seen as the land of the ideas, where the knowledge this being appropriate to promote competitiveness, with a capture of the human subjectivity. And in that context the digital world and the territories are important elements to develop the system. Caxias do Sul, it is used as space cutting for the study, being verified the ambiguities, the difficulties and the reverse-ordination that the imperative innovation promotes in the territories and in their actors.

CoordenaÃÃo de AperfeiÃoamento de Pessoal de NÃvel Superior / O texto aqui apresentado tem o intuito de apresentar uma diagnÃstica crÃtica das condiÃÃes de possibilidade da insurgÃncia das formas de vida no capitalismo. Desta maneira, evocamos, ao longo do texto, a relaÃÃo entre capitalismo, racionalidades e ideologia, para compreender como as formas de dominaÃÃo e exploraÃÃo se organizam condensando-se nas formas de vida. A diagnÃstica, para alÃm de compor o objetivo desse trabalho, à tambÃm o mÃtodo usado para a realizaÃÃo desse objetivo. Tentamos, ao longo do texto, reconstruir as contingÃncias do capitalismo (em sua dimensÃo de economia-polÃtica), das racionalidades e das ideologias. NÃo se tratou, contudo, da reconstruÃÃo dos modos de vida nas vÃrias fases aqui apresentadas do capitalismo. E sim, a partir das conformaÃÃes hegemÃnicas desses conceitos, apresentar como, no plano da macropolÃtica, estes influenciam nas disposiÃÃes e tendÃncias das formas de sociabilidade. A hipÃtese central aqui apresentada, porÃm, à de que tais disposiÃÃes estÃo imbricadas na administraÃÃo das motilidades. Assim subjacente ao trabalho de diagnÃstica,se fez necessÃrio um diagnÃstico complementar: o da administraÃÃo dos afetos. Com isso, na primeira parte do texto, composta pelos trÃs primeiros capÃtulos, percebe-se um esforÃo das formas de racionalidade em oferecer um ideal de felicidade. Entretanto, ao evocar a psicanÃlise, como ferramenta crÃtica e analÃtica deste trabalho, o medo e a angÃstia surgem como afetos com forte poder de influenciar as tendÃncias e disposiÃÃes das formas de vida. A literatura ofereceu, tambÃm, a ideia de um afeto que nÃo participa do circuito gerencial: o desamparo. Diante deste o questionamento sobre as figuras que se situam fora das formas de vidas tornou-se necessÃrio. O conceito de âvida indignaâ despontou, entÃo, como categoria analÃtica. Assim, na Ãltima parte do trabalho foram discutidas as relaÃÃes entre os circuitos afetivos, as formas de vida e a âvida indignaâ. A noÃÃo psicanalÃtica de gozo foi de suma importÃncia para isso, pois toda a anÃlise final à pautada na ideia da passagem de uma sociedade que regula atravÃs da proibiÃÃo para uma sociedade que regula atravÃs do incentivo. Por fim, buscou-se responder ao questionamento que intitula esse texto: âquem à digno de viver no capitalismo?â. / The text presented here intends to present a critical diagnosis of the conditions of possibility of the insurgency of life forms in capitalism. In this way, we have evoked throughout the text the relation between capitalism, rationalities and ideology, in order to understand how the forms of domination and exploitation are organized by condensing themselves into the forms of life. The diagnosis, besides composing the objective of this work, is also the method used to achieve it. Weâve tried, throughout the text, to reconstruct the contingencies of capitalism (in its dimension of political economy), of rationalities and ideologies. It was not, however, a question of the reconstruction of the ways of life of the capitalism in the various phases presented here. Instead, from the hegemonic conformations of these concepts, the goal is to present how, at the macro political level, these influence on the dispositions and tendencies of the forms of sociability. The central hypothesis presented here, however, is that such provisions are imbricated in the management of motilities. Underlying the diagnostic work, a complementary diagnosis was necessary: the administration of the affections. With this, in the first part of the text, composed by the first three chapters, one perceives an effort of the forms of rationality in offering an ideal of happiness. However, by evoking psychoanalysis as a critical and analytical tool of this work, fear and anguish arise as affections with a strong power to influence the tendencies and dispositions of life forms. The literature also offered the idea of an affection that does not participate in the management circuit: the helplessness. Before this the questioning about the figures that are placed outside the forms of lives became necessary. The concept of "unworthy life" then emerged as an analytical category. Thus, in the last part of the work the relations between the affective circuits, the forms of life and the "unworthy life" were discussed. The psychoanalytic notion of jouissance was very important for this, since all the final analysis is based on the idea of the passage from a society that regulates through the prohibition to a society that regulates through the incentive. Finally, we tried to answer the question that entitles this text: "who is worth living in capitalism?".

FundaÃÃo Cearense de Apoio ao Desenvolvimento Cientifico e TecnolÃgico / Esta tese analisa o pensamento pÃs-moderno e a educaÃÃo em Lyotard e Vattimo no contexto da crise estrutural do capital contemporÃneo. Tem por objetivo elaborar uma crÃtica ao pensamento pÃs-moderno e a sua categoria central da diferenÃa apresentando-os como expressÃes ideolÃgicas da produÃÃo material dessa crise, demonstrando criticamente suas reflexÃes e seu impacto ideolÃgico na EducaÃÃo a partir do referencial teÃrico marxista: Mandel, com Ãnfase no conceito de capitalismo tardio e a terceira revoluÃÃo; MeszÃros, com prioridade na crise estrutural do capital e sua incontrolabilidade, ativaÃÃo dos limites absolutos e taxa decrescente de utilizaÃÃo da mercadoria; Jameson e Harvey, com a elaboraÃÃo de sua crÃtica ao pensamento pÃs-moderno como expressÃo ideolÃgica do capitalismo tardio. O estudo crÃtico aqui apresentado investiga se o pensamento pÃs-moderno e sua idÃia acerca da EducaÃÃo expressa a lÃgica do capital: em Lyotard, foi explorado o papel da universidade; em Vattimo, a reflexÃo foi sobre a libertaÃÃo midiÃtica das diferenÃas e o novo ideal hermenÃutico para a educaÃÃo. O resultado da pesquisa demonstra que o pensamento pÃs-moderno e sua influÃncia sobre a educaÃÃo expressam o movimento e os interesses do capital contemporÃneo na sua crise estrutural. A determinaÃÃo do capitalismo tardio sobre a educaÃÃo foi vista por meio da influÃncia da terceira revoluÃÃo tecnolÃgica no ensino superior, partindo do pensamento de Mandel. A influÃncia da crise estrutural do capital na educaÃÃo foi analisada, a partir das reflexÃes de MeszÃros. Contudo, a investigaÃÃo demonstrou, ainda, que o pensamento pÃs-moderno, apesar de seus limites epistemolÃgicos e educacionais, tambÃm contribuiu com avanÃos e possibilidades emancipatÃrias. / This thesis analyzes post â modern thinking and education in Lyotard and Vattimo under the context of the structural crisis of contemporary capital. It aims at working out in detail a critical view on post â modern thinking and its central category of difference, featuring it as ideological expressions of the material output of such crisis, proving, critically its reflections and its ideological impact on education, based on the marxist theoretical framework: Mandel, enphasising the late capitalism concept and the third revolution; MeszÃros, setting priority on the structural crisis of capital and its uncontrolability, activation of absolute limits and decreasing rate of utilization of goods; Jameson and Harvey, focusing on their criticism on post â modern thinking as ideological expression of late capitalism. The critical study as shown here examines if post â modern thinking and its view on education expresses the logic of capital: in Lyotard, it has been examined the role of university; in Vattimo, reflection has been about liberation of differences through media and the new hermeneutic ideal for education. The outcome of this study proves that post â modern thinking and its influence on education express the movements and concerns of contemporary capital in its structural crisis. Determination of late capitalism on education has been studied through influence of the third technological revolution on superior teaching based on Mandelâs thinking. The influence of the structural crisis on education has been examined based on MeszÃroâs reflections. However, this study has proved, in addition, that post modern thinking, in spite of its epistemological and educational limits, also has contributed to improvements and possibilities of emancipation.

THESIS ABSTRACT Sandeep K. Sambhi Master of Science Conflict Dispute Resolution Program June 2016 Title: All is Not Fair: The Cosmetics War on Women in India I examine the effects of skin whitening and bleaching practices by women and girls of India, and the links between globalization, capitalism, and Indian media. I examine the negative health effects of the use of skin lightening creams, along with the psycho-social effects for women and girls, and the pan-cultural effects of the advertising and marketing by the companies who sell these creams as cosmetics. I argue that the companies who sell them carry great economic power, bolstered by their promotion of colorism and bias toward fair skin. The links between profit, colorism, caste and gender inequality are explored, along with the historical roots of caste and color in India. Media bias for fair skin in India and media are discussed, along with effects on women’s efficacy, self-esteem, and the effects of fair skin bias on opportunities in work and marriage. Resolution, education and public outreach efforts are also presented here.

A tradição socialista foi marcada pela antinomia revolução versus reforma do capitalismo. Contudo, tanto a orientação revolucionária quanto a reformista perseguiram a utopia da sociedade do trabalho, fundamentando seu conceito de emancipação a partir de um paradigma produtivista. Este paradigma foi responsável por encobrir a articulação entre emancipação e democracia radical ao reduzir o núcleo normativo da autonomia ao modelo de ação baseado no trabalho como ocorreu com a orientação revolucionária ou engessando a autodeterminação política ao domesticar a democracia com as intervenções do poder administrativo tal como ocorreu no caso da orientação reformista. Pretendemos mostrar que, além de se voltar contra as determinações impostas pelo paradigma da produção, a emergência de novos conflitos sociais e de lutas por reconhecimento não podem mais ser explicadas a partir de um único sentido de emancipação. A reconstrução da autocomprensão política de sociedades modernas a partir do projeto de uma democracia radical nos permite entender os diferentes sentidos da emancipação articulados em processos de formação política da opinião e da vontade. A utopia da sociedade do trabalho dá lugar às lutas em torno da integridade e autonomia das formas de vida, espaços de autorealização, conquistas de direitos e autodeterminação política. / The socialist tradition was marked by the antinomy revolution versus reform of capitalism. However, as much as the revolutionary orientation, the reformists also pursued the utopie of labor society, and grounded its concept of emancipation in a paradigm of production. This paradigm was responsable for covering the articulation between emancipation and radical democracy and reducing the normative core of the autonomy to the model of action based on labor as in the case of the revolutionary orientation or weakning the political selfdetermination and domesticating the democracy trough interventions of the administrative power as in the case of the reformist orientation. We intend to show that, beyond facing against the determinations imposed by the paradigm of production, the emergency of new social conflicts and struggles for recognition can not be explained from only one sense of emancipation. The reconstruction of the political selfunderstanding of modern societies from a project of radical democracy allow us to understand the diferent senses of emancipation articulated in political processes of opinion and will formation. The utopie of labor society gives place to the struggles for the integrity and autonomy of forms of life, spheres of selfrealization, conquests of rights, and political selfdetermination.

Exploring the construct of social-responsibility orientation across three Asian and two Western societies (Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and the United States), we show evidence that top-level executives in these societies hold fundamentally different beliefs about their responsibilities toward different stakeholders, with concomitant implications for their understanding and enactment of responsible leadership. We further find that these variations are more closely aligned with institutional factors than with cultural variables, suggesting a need to clarify the connection between culture and institutions on the one hand and culture and social-responsibility orientations on the other.

Le charbon était connu au Vietnam depuis longtemps, mais c’est pendant la période coloniale qu’il fit l’objet d’une exploitation systématique. Les Français s’intéressèrent à ces ressources minières du Vietnam dès avant la conquête coloniale. Après l’établissement du protectorat français au Tonkin et en Annam en 1883-1884, l’exploitation des mines de charbon connut un essor rapide sous l’effet de l’afflux de capitaux et l’introduction de techniques de France et devint l’une des principales activités industrielles du Tonkin. Les autorités coloniales soutinrent fortement la « mise en valeur » de la colonie par le capitalisme français. Néanmoins, il n’était pas toujours facile même pour les plus grandes compagnies françaises d’organiser une nouvelle activité de production dans un pays peu industrialisé Alors que les charbonnages de Hòn Gai parvinrent à surmonter des difficultés d’ordre financier, commercial et industriel et réaliser des profits considérables, la plupart des autres entreprises minières ne rémunèrent jamais suffisamment les capitaux engagés, et même certaines d’entre elles se terminèrent par des échecs complets. En particulier, les compagnies minières rencontrèrent une grande difficulté à recruter des ouvriers et les retenir dans les mines, dont les conditions de travail furent particulièrement dures. La forte mobilité caractérisait la main-d’œuvre des mines et retarda ainsi la formation d’une conscience de classe parmi les ouvriers des mines. La grève générale des ouvriers de Hòn Gai en novembre 1936 témoigne pourtant la naissance d’une nouvelle classe sociale, que les militants communistes vietnamiens visèrent à transformer en avant-garde révolutionnaire contre le colonialisme et le capitalisme. / Coal was known in Vietnam from early on, but it was during the colonial period that it was subjected to systematic exploitation. The French were interested in these mineral resources of Vietnam before the colonial conquest. After the establishment of French protectorate in Tonkin and in Annam in 1883-1884, coal mining grew quickly as a result of influx of capital and introduction of technics from France and became one of principal industrial activities in Tonkin. The colonial authorities strongly supported the “mise en valeur” of colony by French capitalism. Nevertheless, it was not easy even for the biggest French companies to organise a new production activity in a country hardly industrialised. Whereas Hòn Gai colliery succeeded in overcoming financial, commercial and industrial difficulties and to make sizeable profits, most other mining enterprises did never provide enough returns to capital employed and even some of them ended in total failure. In particular, mining companies had great difficulty in recruiting workers and retaining them to mines, working conditions of which were particularly harsh. High mobility characterised workforce of mines and delayed thus formation of class consciousness among mine workers. The general strike of Hòn Gai workers in november 1936 witnessed however emergence of a new social class, whom Vietnamese communist activists sought to make revolutionary vanguard against colonialism and capitalism