Power, Politics and Resistance

1. Neoliberalism,
Politics and Society
Suehair Houmaisi 17498542
Week 4
Power, Politics and Resistance

2. What is Neoliberalism?
O “Neoliberalism is in the first instance a theory of
political economic practices that proposes that
human well-being can best be advanced by
liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and
skills within an institutional framework
characterised by strong private property rights,
free markets, and free trade.” (Harvey, 2001)

3. My Personal Reflection
One example of Neoliberalism occurring in my personal
life and all over the news is the Prime Minister Tony
Abbot’s Budget.
Effects:
O Changes to Youth Allowance
O Changes to Higher Education
support
O New interest rate on HECS
O GP fee

4. Effects on my family
O Pensioner age increased
O GP fee
O Superannuation age increased
O Cuts on Family income
O Increase in Petrol prices
O More Tax
O Less income for children
over the age of six

5. References
O George, S. (1999). ‘A short history of neoliberalism’.
presented at the Conference on Economic Sovereignty
in a Globalising World, viewed 20th May 2014,
<http://www.tni.org/article/short-history-neoliberalism>.
O Harvey, D. (2005). ‘A brief history of neoliberalism’.
Oxford University Press, New York.
O Harvey, D. (2006). ‘Neoliberalism as creative
destruction’. Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science, 610: 22-24.

6. Week 6
Power, Politics and Resistance

7. Clash of Civilisations
“During the Cold War the world was divided into the First,
Second and Third Worlds. Those divisions are no longer
relevant. It is far more meaningful now to group countries not in
terms of their political or economic systems or in terms of their
level of economic development but rather in terms of their
culture and civilisation. What do we mean when we talk of a
civilisation? A civilisation is a cultural entity. Villages, regions,
ethnic groups, nationalities, religious groups, all have distinct
cultures at different levels of cultural heterogeneity”
(Huntington, 1993).

8. The clash of civilisations in my
world
O Being a religious Muslim
O Living in a Western country
O Being surrounded by media
O Being part of the workforce
O Differing beliefs from the people around me

9. A Picture tells one thousand
words

10. References:
O Huntington, S. P (1993). The clash of civilisations,
Foreign Affairs, 3: 22-49.
O Mahmood, S. (2009). Religious reason and secular
effect: An incommensurable divide? Critical Enquiry,
35: 836-852.

11. Week 11- Power, Politics and Resistance

12. The Three Waves of Feminism
O First wave: These were the women of the nineteenth
and twentieth Century who were fighting for rights we
take for granted today such as: the right to vote, to
earn property and to gain an education.
O Second wave: Women protested against equal work,
wages for housework, legal abortion. Their slogan
was ‘the personal is the political’
O Third wave: Inspired by black women and majority
world feminists. Argued that second wave feminism
was based on white western women and ignored the
differences between black/white, rich/poor etc.
believed gender is socially constructed and aimed at
breaking down walls of gender.
O (Lorber, 2010)

13. Where does Feminism fit into
my life?
O I am educated
O I believe in equality
O I believe women should have rights and deserve
them
O I am a Muslim, veiled women
O However I do believe gender plays a big role in the
society we live in.

14. Fight for Feminism

15. References
O Lorber, J (Ed.). (2010). Gender inequality:
Feminist theories and politics, Oxford University
Press, New York.
O Okin, M. S. (1998). Feminism, women’s rights
and cultural differences, Hypatia, 13, 2: 32-52.
O Power, N. (2009). One dimensional women,
London: Zero Books.