Global Governing Organizations

Abstract

This article concerns how particular global governing organizations are involved in global order-building. Drawing upon studies of globalization and governmentality, it suggests that global governing organizations generate multi faceted connections among peoples and territories, and engender new dislocations and social injustices for various groups and populations. Through the use of archival research, policy documents and field interviews with United Nations policy and research personnel, the article demonstrates how global order-building attempts to interconnect and make interdependent certain parts of the world and particular social practices while making others redundant and undesirable. In expanding Bauman's concept of order-building, the author argues that global order-building is premised on waste management initiatives to control seemingly unruly lives and social practices. It operates through ‘technologies of agency’ seeking to enhance possibilities for individuals and groups to undertake self-improvement initiatives. Global order-building shapes new forms of conduct dependent upon many types of knowledge, capacities and skills, with shifting effects for questions of social justice.