In this seminar, we examine the history and present of the thousands of spaces of exception carved out from tax regimes, including special economic zones, free ports, tax havens, or charter cities. Doing so requires a multidisciplinary look at literature from historians, anthropologists, sociologists, economists, and political geographers. Nearly every country has one or more of these zones. Millions of people are employed in such sites, especially women in the textile industry. So how did we get here? How did these sites operate in the past? How and why did the concept of spaces of exception develop, and who promoted them? And what does this matter for democracy, sovereignty, labor rights, migration, citizenship, and the functioning of the global economy today?
To try to answer these questions, we will be looking at the histories of colonialism, decolonization, the Cold War, and the role of the United Nations. We will examine labor in factories and state strategies for implementing zones. We will discuss changes in manufacturing, supply chains, and a host of other topics related to the logistics of how goods get to us, where they are warehoused, and under what conditions they were manufactured. We will draw on case studies from various world regions, especially Asia and the Americas.
- Trainer/in: Stephan Kaschner
- Trainer/in: Megan Maruschke