The Rules of the Cultural Marketplace: UNESCO, the WTO and the Dual Natureof Culture

My approach to socio-cultural change is interdisciplinary in nature, crossing the fields of social and political theory, international relations, political economy and development studies. I have a particular interest in theories of governmentality and the international dimensions of neoliberalism.

In my PhD I have been focussing on the changing ways that culture, and in particular cultural diversity, have come to feature within contemporary rationalities and technologies of trade liberalisation, international development and humanitarian intervention. This has involved a series of case studies, notably archival research at UNESCO (as part of an attempt to write a genealogy of the "dual role" ascribed to culture in the organisation's recent Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions), an analysis of the cultural aspects of the War on Terror, and a study of the ways that culture has come to feature in the external trade relations of the EU. This research has extended themes I developed in earlier work (Liberalism and Empire: A Contribution to the Analysis of Liberal Governmentality), a critical engagement with Foucault's recently published lectures from the late 1970s on the genealogy of liberal and neoliberal forms of governmentality, and an attempt to give these a greater international dimension through a closer examination of the relationships that have existed between the projects of liberalism and empire in the UK, France and US. There are themes in my research which respond to the recent theoretical contributions of, in particular, Michel Foucault (The Birth of Biopolitics) and George Yúdice (The Expediency of Culture) regarding the relationship between neoliberalism and cultural change.

I would be extremely interested to hear from anyone who shares similar research themes. Write to me at: ben.garner@manchester.ac.uk