Ignorance, denial, internalisation, and transcendence

A post-structural perspective on Polanyi's double movement

Bibliographic Data

ID5773676
AuthorsChristopher Holme (0000-0002-1248-0983, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume39
Issue2
Pages273-290
Publication date2012-11-20
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReview of International Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0260-2105 • E-ISSN: 1469-9044
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0260210512000320
OpenAlexW2161755245
LanguageEN
Citations received13
References cited46

In this article, I suggest what an engagement between post-structuralism and the work of Karl Polanyi might look like. I do this by presenting a reading of Polanyi's concept of 'double movement' as a form of problematisation through binary opposition. I suggest that the central opposition that the double movement depicts - between economy and society as reflected in processes of marketisation and social protection - presents itself in such a way that the problems emanating from the opposition can only be solved through its transcendence. On one hand, the terms of transcendence are limited by the terms of the opposition. On the other hand, since transcendence is never reached, the double movement problematisation stabilises the existence of a lacuna between the lived experience of market society and the discursive field of that market society. As such, the form of the problematisation places a double-limit upon the ways in which 'solutions' can be presented. I present this thesis in relation to two instances of double movement discussed by Polanyi in his book, The Great Transformation . I then apply the argument to invocations of the economy-society opposition in contemporary political economic discourse, where it remains as ubiquitous as ever

Binary opposition · Denial · Opposition (politics · Transcendence (philosophy · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Political Economy and Marxism · Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, and Politics