Occupy, financial fraternity and gender ventrioloquism

Authors

Nan M. Seuffert, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

76416

Publication Details

Seuffert, N. M. (2014). Occupy, financial fraternity and gender ventrioloquism. Law, Culture and the Humanities, 10(3), 380-396.

Abstract

A prominent response to the Occupy movement has been the question ‘‘What does Occupy want?’’ What might we understand about this persistent questioning of the Occupy movement? How might we begin to think about the Occupy movement as resistance to the culture of Wall Street and politicians in recent decades? This article provides some thoughts on the conceptual and discursive relationships between the causes of the global financial crisis, including the neoliberal consensus on financial regulation, and some of the dynamics that have arisen in relation to the Occupy Wall Street movement. In particular, it suggests that Jacques Derrida’s analysis of the tradition of fraternity in modern concepts of democracy, and feminist ideas on ‘‘speaking for others’’ may assist with understanding the relational gender dynamics of this regulatory consensus, the masculinity of the financial industry and the derivatives trading rooms, and one way in which dominant discourses are gendering the Occupy movement.