In processes of economic integration, neoliberal discourse and corresponding notions of development comprise some of the most readily available imaginaries of political and social interaction and change. However, these processes are always also locally produced and negotiated. Engaging with discourse theory, Marxism and postcolonial feminist theory, this dissertation brings together “macro” and “micro” aspects of globalization. The aim is to interrogate discursive reinforcements of and challenges to global orders of production and divisions of labor. With a focus on representations of Free Trade Zones (FTZs), which are tax-exempted enclaves for export production, the study explores competing meanings attributed to the operation of transnational capital in Nicaragua. Based on policy documents, political speeches, promotional videotapes and interviews, the political rhetoric of two governments with competing agendas is analyzed: the neoliberal/conservative government of the Liberal Constitutionalist Party (2002–2007), which framed the FTZs in terms of national progress, and the leftist government of the Sandinista National Liberation Front (2007– ), which attempts to reconnect to the country’s revolutionary past. In this way efforts to formulate legitimate political agendas in the context of shifting relations between states and markets are detailed, together with constructions of citizens and workers along differentiations of class and gender. Relying on interviews with FTZ workers, the study examines ways to interpret, inhabit or resist imperative subject positions at the intersections of contending projects of nation-building and transnational orders of production, in conjunction with a discussion of the uneasy distinction between representation and appropriation that troubles transnational feminist research projects.

My thesis addresses how Christianity can constitute itself as a creative force and a form of governance across different scales. I carried out 12 months of fieldwork between 2013 and 2015 in Papua New Guinea's National Parliament (Port Moresby). My interlocutors were bureaucrats, liberal professionals and pastors who formed a group known as the Unity Team. The Unity Team, spearheaded by the Speaker of the 9th Parliament, Hon. Theodor Zurenuoc, were responsible for controversial initiatives, such as the destruction and dismantling of traditional carvings from Parliament in 2013, which they considered ungodly and evil, and the placement of a donated KJV Bible in the chamber of Parliament in 2015. My interlocutors regard Christianity as central to eliciting modern subjects and institutions. They consider Christianity to be a universal form of discernment, contrasted to particularistic forms of knowing and relating which are thought to create corruption and low institutional performance. I show how the Unity Team regarded Christianity as more than a way of doing away with satanic forces and building a Christian self. They expected Christianity to be a frame of reference informing work ethics, infusing citizenship and, finally, productive of a public and national realm. By exploring Christianity ethnographically, I offer a contribution to Anthropological discussions concerning politics, bureaucracy, citizenship, and nation-making.