“That Coming Storm”: The Irish Poor Law, Colonial Biopolitics, and the Great Famine

Nally, David

doi:10.1080/00045600802118426

Cited by 49 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 54 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…For example, assertive efforts by the British and Portuguese colonial governments from the 16 th to the 19 th centuries to promote cannabis use were linked to the worldwide commodification of labor power and the production of a quiescent labor force (Angrosino ). Colonial biopolitics, a field that has come into its own (see Nally ), offers useful insights into the manner in which colonial subjects were selectively produced and managed through discourses that acquire the official backing of the state.…”

Section: Theorizing Cannabismentioning

confidence: 99%

High Points: An Historical Geography of Cannabis

Warf

2014

Geographical Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

ABSTRACT. Cannabis, including hemp and its psychoactive counterpart, has a long but largely overlooked historical geography. Situating the topic within varied perspectives such as world-systems theory, Foucauldian biopolitics, and the moral economy of drugs, this paper charts its diffusion over several millennia, noting the contingent and uneven ways in which it was enveloped within varying social and political circumstances. Following a brief theorization, it explores the plant's early uses in East and South Asia, its shift to the Middle East, and resultant popularity in the Arab world and Africa. Next, it turns to its expansion under colonialism, including deliberate cultivation by Portuguese and British authorities in the New World as part of the construction of a pacified labor force. The fifth section offers an overview of cannabis's contested history in the United States, in which a series of early 20 th -century moral panics led to its demonization; later, the drug enjoyed gradual liberalization.

show abstract

Section: Theorizing Cannabismentioning

confidence: 99%

High Points: An Historical Geography of Cannabis

Warf

2014

Geographical Review

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In his analysis of the Irish Poor Law system, Nally (2008) finds that the crisis provided the opportunity for the state to intervene between the population and their food supply, exploiting the catastrophe "to further the aims of population reform," and justifying the view that "agricultural rationalization, fiscal restructuring, and population clearances were necessary to 'ameliorate ' and 'improve' Irish society" (2008: 714). As with Cambodia, the replacement of existing endowments and entitlements with state-mediated ones enabled the state to make "dangerous distinctions between productive and unproductive life" (2008: 714); indeed, to make life through letting die.…”

Section: Expanded Entitlementsmentioning

confidence: 98%

To live and let die: Food, famine, and administrative violence in Democratic Kampuchea, 1975–1979

Tyner

Rice

2015

Political Geography

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

a b s t r a c t Between 1975 and 1979 approximately two million people died in the Cambodian genocide. We argue that the mass violence that transpired during this period was a manifestation of the Khmer Rouge's attempt to make life. Through a focus on the production of both violence and vulnerability we direct attention to the contradictory policies and practices forwarded by the Khmer Rouge that were designed to maximize life through the maximization of death. Specifically, we consider the mass starvation that accompanied the genocide as a structure of violence; we forward the argument that the rationing of food constitutes a calculated yet contradictory policy, namely that food rations represent in material form an inner contradiction of fostering life and disallowing life. Subsequently, the policy of forced rationsdwhich imposed a particular space of vulnerability on Cambodia's populationdresulted in massive loss of life through starvation and disease that were not the unintended side-effects of poor research, poor planning, or poor implementation on behalf of the Khmer Rouge, but rather were the necessary consequences of a proto-capitalist form of state-building.

show abstract

“…Given this concern with the ‘natural laws’ of economy and population – over and above the concern for the people – colonial‐era famines became “lethal engines for sweeping the soil of its human encumbrances” (Nally, , p. 43) in the name of improving society in the future (Davis, ; Foucault, ; Nally, ; Watts, ).…”

Section: Subsistence Maintaining Market Freedoms and ‘Adam Smith’mentioning

confidence: 99%

Famine: Adam Smith and Foucauldian Political Economy

Williams

2015

Scottish J Political Eco

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is often assumed that the attitudes of the early political economists, such as Smith, to issues of scarcity and famine were dogmatically laissez-faire. This view has been given fresh impetus by Michel Foucault's recently published lectures on the history of political economy. The article challenges this view. By examining Smith's texts and analyzing the way that Smith was received by critics in the century following the publication of the Wealth of Nations, the article argues that contemporary interpretations of Smith's views on scarcity and famine must be nuanced.The only quarrel [he] had with hon. Gentlemen with respect to Adam Smith was, that they never would read beyond one page of him. (Henry Drummond MP, addressing the House of Commons in 1849 [Hansard, 1849])

show abstract

“That Coming Storm”: The Irish Poor Law, Colonial Biopolitics, and the Great Famine

Cited by 49 publications

References 54 publications

High Points: An Historical Geography of Cannabis

High Points: An Historical Geography of Cannabis

To live and let die: Food, famine, and administrative violence in Democratic Kampuchea, 1975–1979

Famine: Adam Smith and Foucauldian Political Economy

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About