The Absent Present Hauntings of Coloniality: Examining ‘Management in the Wild’ through the Bottom of the Pyramid

Abstract

The paper contends that within neoliberal spaces of reform and remediation the Global South has reemerged as a site for reflection, experimentation, and intervention in ways that (a) re- inscribe creatively colonial forms of hegemony and domination (epistemic, economic, and ideological); and (b) mobilize strategically colonially inflected thinking on race, class, gender, and nation in a bid to advance and sustain regimes of neoliberal normativity. Using the critical lens of postcolonial studies, I attempt to understand the ways in which colonial rationalities continue to underwrite contemporary neoliberal crisis management projects. Taking the case of the well-known Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) program, the paper seeks to understand how colonial rationalities are mobilized and harnessed in the interest of neoliberal market making, in our case, in the context of market-led poverty alleviation efforts. The paper puts forth the concept of ‘management in the wild’ in an attempt to theorize the heterogeneous spaces of neoliberal regimes aimed at solving long-standing global challenges and issues. I argue that coloniality (enduring effects of colonial grids of intelligibility) haunts the terrain of management in the wild. How and in what ways does the colonial past fold into our present? This is what the paper seeks to address, comprehend, and clarify.