Anthropological Review on the Book “the Devil behind the Mirror: Globalization and Politics in the Dominican Republic”
The “the Devil behind the Mirror: Globalization and Politics in the Dominican Republic” is a book by Steven Gregory. Gregory makes arguments in six areas. These areas are the politics of livelihood, the spatial economy of difference, the structure of the imagination, sex tourism, and the political economy of masculinity, race identity, and the body politic and also the politics of transnational capital. The author has provided varied arguments on the areas mentioned above. The book review will look into these arguments by the author, their strengths, and their weaknesses. Besides, the discussion will also look into the methodology and conceptual lens employed by the author of the novel.
The author of the book provides the accounts and the impacts of the transactional processes that are attributed to globalization. Also addressed are the effects of the operations on the lives of people and livelihood. The author has based his case on the people of the Dominican Republic (Morris, 2018). In his work, Steven demonstrates how the “transactional flows of capital, culture, and people are mediated by the contextually specific power relations, politics, and history” against the Haitians who have occupied the lowest part of the Dominican economic ladder. The novel ‘The Devil behind the Mirror’ masterfully provided a coherent analysis of the global economic change in everyday lives. According to the book, “small countries globalization glitters with the promise of deliverance from entrenched poverty” (Morris, 2018). Don't use plagiarised sources.Get your custom essay just from $11/page
The author has explored how contextual power relations mediate the impacts of transnational flows of capital, culture, and people. The author has individually examined “how the distinct economic, cultural, and social process are associated with globalization and neoliberal economic reforms have restructured the lives and livelihood of people in the Dominican Republic” (Steven 2014 p4). The arguments by Gregory on the subject have been critical in exploring the impacts of globalization and neoliberal economic changes on the economic, cultural, and social processes in the nation. In the argument, the author has provided hope to the administrators of the developing countries how globalization will solve the level of poverty and economic dependency.
In his work, Steven reveals the various ways that poor but resourceful people in certain places lives in, through and against the effects of globalization. The author identifies the rebellious method employed by members of the public to fight against the differences in societies. Such variations include social status, race, gender, and spatial mobility from this social division of labor. In the novel, Gregory argues on the gendered networks of space, power, and employment through an in-depth analysis and examination of sex tourism in Boca china (Steven 2014). The author has also argued on the issues of migrant and the dominance of Haitian descent in Dominion politics. He presents an analysis of the contested approval process of multinational corporations’ plan to construct a deep water “Megaport” and give an examination of the process of spatial coordination, teasing out the disparate discourses and practices among the transnational corporations’ availability and roles in the Dominican republic.
The work of Gregory has been distinguished from other literature work development, dependency, and other globalization fields by employing ethnographic case-studies into a broader economic context that has acknowledged the role of globalization in the lives of people (Heredia, 2017). Besides, the work by Gregory has given a clear demonstration of the continuing and the increasing need and urgency for research in the field of ethnographic in the contemporary world. The arguments by the author have some strengths, such as the provision of readable and understandable descriptions of people and places in the cases given in the Dominican Republic within the sophisticate frameworks employed (Heredia, 20170. Also, the issues discussed by the author apply to all nations, making the novel readable to all people across the globe.
Additionally, the issues articulated by the author are enjoyable to read for all people across all levels of academic, government officials among other parties where they have significant impacts on the parties (Heredia, 2017). However, Gregory wok has some limitations, such as linking the happenings and the individuals that he observes to the global systems theory, which does not work as expected. One weakness is where the author has only given the approach a cursory review without proper linkage to the two concepts (Heredia, 2017). The other flaw is where the author has not acknowledged the vast existing empirical research that has tried and continues to look at the macro level, most of the activities that have been examined in the two separate scenarios used in the Dominican Republican.
References
Hippert, C. (2017). The moral economy of corner stores, buying food on credit, and Haitian-Dominican interpersonal relations in the Dominican Republic. Food and Foodways, 25(3), 193-214.
Morris, A. E. (2018). Creative Control: Navigating Foreign Presence in Contemporary Dominican and Cuban Narrative. Latin American Literary Review, 45(90), 68-78.
The Devil behind the Mirror: Globalization and Politics in the Dominican Republic by Steven Gregory 2014