CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
7.2 REPRESENTATION OF THE DISCOURSE OF FINANCESCAPES
As described in the previous chapters, the discourse of financescapes (Appadurai, 1990, 1996) associated the term with the arena of economics. Keywords associated with the identification of this discourse were capital, trade, international trade, business, industry, investment, profit, mobile money, world markets, production cost/s, revenue and foreign exchange.
All four Grade 12 Economics textbooks contained unbalanced and biased portrayals of the discourse of financescapes which portray global trade as inevitable and desirable. The texts appear to persuade the readers towards the notion of the outward-looking economic policy of globalisation by ‘selling’ the concept of globalisation. With the continual emphasis on the notion of efficiency as a result of competition and innovation, the texts insinuate that this is a highly desirable attribute for improving living standards. Efficiency, innovation and competition are presented uncritically as valuable phenomena evident in international trade, through the use of unmodalised assertions, absence of hedging, assumptions, nominalisations, foregrounding and a register of positive value connotations. Of note is the pointed silence and deliberate omission of the negative effects of efficiency in all four textbooks. The text portrays efficiency as a valuable and splendid phenomenon and aspiration, yet efficiency can lead to the
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reality of redundancy of human capital, poverty through job losses and other kinds of trauma such as deprivation and humiliation (Ar, 2015; Sengupta, 2001; Jovanovic, 2010).
Using the metaphor of a whirlpool, Morawski (2003) observes that globalisation draws in and overpowers those who are in close proximity to it. While neoliberal protagonists (Carnoy, 1999; Cvetkovich & Kellner, 1997; Kenway, 1997) advocate that globalisation results in a greater level of efficiency in the distribution of scarce world resources, resulting in greater consumption and output than that generated under protectionism, Kapstein (2000) cautions that greater efficiency has resulted in the displacement of workers, low wages and low employment levels. In the textbooks there is a pointed silence on and omission of facts describing the negative effects of efficiency. Some of these include the fact that efficiency warrants the manufacturing of a product at the lowest cost (for example, through lowered wages) to ensure the maximisation of profit (Ar, 2015; Fridell, 2006). This suppression of pertinent issues reveals ideology at work, as the inclusion of the above implications of efficiency would change the tangent of the discourse. What is left unsaid is notable by its absence, as the suppression of salient facts deliberately misrepresents the discourse, and thus this silence becomes ideological (Hart, 2011). The textbooks also appear to promote and prescribe to readers rather than initiating discussions and raising awareness on the negative consequences of efficiency, innovation and competition.
The continual use of the term competition in the textbooks reveals that it is being accepted as a common-sense, generally accepted value. The concept of competition is also ideological in that it becomes a common-sense notion that if a country wants to survive economically, it needs to be competitive in this global era (Ar, 2015). Moreover, the textbooks appear to normalise the taken for granted, common-sense notion that competition and efficiency are at the heart of the desired goals of business. When notions like these become naturalised and taken for granted they become ideological tools (Ar, 2015; Fairclough, 2003). Yet critics of neoliberal capitalism argue that competition is wasteful, destroys the balance in nature and the environment, and favours the powerful who have the different kinds of capital needed to succeed (Bourdieu, 1998; Jovanovic, 2010).
In fact competition and exploitation are the results of the imperatives of market capitalism
“which compel all producers to compete, accumulate, and maximize profits in order to remain competitive and survive” (Fridell, 2006, p. 22). Actually people who have accumulated billions of dollars in competitive markets have done so bylowering conditions and wages of workers,
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manipulating countries into a desperate contest to lower wages and weaken labour benefits for the benefit of the wealthy (Oxfam International, 2018). The State is complicit in the veneration of this neoliberal mantra, as competition needs governmental policy to endorse this nature of market constructed on formal inequality (Foucault & Senellart, 2008). Normalisation of the notion that competition is at the heart of the desired goals of global business thus becomes an ideological tool, as the textbooks repeatedly portray this seemingly natural notion as common sense (Fairclough, 2003). Therefore Bazzul (2012) repeatedly implores that all stakeholders in education should continually challenge the common-sense notions which reinforce competition and background collaboration.
All four textbooks appear to position themselves against the inward-looking policies of protectionism and import substitution in the discourse of financescapes. This is apparent in the treatment of the inward-looking economic policies, especially in textbook C with the inclusion of a paragraph detailing the scepticism which meets their practice. No other trade policy included a comment on scepticism of its practices, so the decision to include this aspect of protectionist policies signals this text’s biased stance against the inward-looking economic policies, which suggests that the text is not impartial and neutral. With the aid of linguistic and pictorial strategies of register, negative value connotations and modality the text positions inward-looking economic policies as flawed and inadequate in the economy of a country.
Close analysis of the portrayals reveals that an impression of factual and precise information conceals the lack of evidence upon which the representation is based. Thus writers (Apple &
Christian-Smith, 1991; Sleeter & Grant, 1991) contend that textbook content can conceal and trivialise knowledge when they ‘select in’ some knowledge and ‘select out’ others to control historical and economic reality. The inclusion and exclusion of certain knowledge therefore contributes to the inevitable selection of knowledge (Fairclough, 2003). In addition, the lack of tangible evidence leads to questions about the validity of the information that the text presents (Sunoo, 1998; Machin & Mayr, 2012.
International trade is favourably represented in all four textbooks through the employment of the linguistic and pictorial strategies of assumptions, embellishments, modality, insinuation, connotations, grammatical positioning of actions and exclusions. By using these features the writers position international trade and hence globalisation in a particular way which can become internalised and naturalised. In so doing this portrayal sustains the hegemonic idea that international trade is important for a flourishing economy (Ar, 2015). Also of significance was
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the evidence showing that the texts chose to visually and linguistically exclude the negative impacts that international trade has on a country. It is ideologically significant that the texts made a conscious choice to visually and linguistically highlight the benefits of international trade while omitting the negative impacts (Ar, 2015; Bauman, 2011b; Jovanovic, 2010;
Sengupta, 2001). Therefore Fairclough (1989) maintains that when ideology works in implicit ways, it is at its most effective.
For example, although the stated intention of textbook A was to give a detailed account of arguments against free trade, the presentation of the case studies appears to contradict the intention through the language used, and conveys an unintended meaning thus betraying a hidden bias. The case study assessing import substitution contains no dates or place names and includes a request for help from pupils, thus insinuating that this is not a factual representation.
The case study assessing export promotion gives a detailed description of the Asian Tigers, including dates and names of countries, thereby inferring that this is a factual representation.
The economic policy of protectionism contains a case study reporting a speech given by the South African President, Jacob Zuma, imploring countries not to move towards trade protectionism. Precise dates and place names are also given, once again insinuating that it is a factual account. The case study assessing the policy of free trade describes the international organisation of Fairtrade and the role it plays in helping less developed countries to export their products. Here too precise dates and place names are given to portray a factual account. From the above implicit comparison I infer that the inward-looking economic policies are presented as deficient, and legitimation is given to this deficiency through the uncritical manner in which this knowledge is presented. Through such a mechanism this narrative can become hegemonic as learners are unlikely to question the validity of this authoritative representation (Barbosa &
Ferreira, 2015).
Unlike the textbooks, critics of international and free trade are vociferous in their condemnation of these economic policies and the vehicles used to drive them. Critics argue that instead of raising living standards for the masses in countries, the monopolistic and internationalised activities of corporate and financial institutions increase inequalities (Bauman, 2011b; Harvey, 2007; Jovanovic, 2010; Nussbaum, 2011; Oxfam International, 2018; White, 2009). Large international companies that have the ability to move and establish themselves around the globe in search of greater profits through lower labour costs are themselves the beneficiaries of increased foreign trade. These large corporations move to newer markets to take advantage of
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those countries’ lower costs of production (Machin & Mayr, 2012). Multinational companies generally expend their resources, including production technologies, in developing countries with a large labour force so that this labour can be exploited to produce large volumes of goods in as short a time as possible (Ar, 2015). Large multinational corporations may also circumvent labour law by using smaller businesses to outsource their production – smaller businesses with poorly paid informal workers (Oxfam International, 2018). The consequence of this power imbalance in the globalised economy benefits the most powerful players, to the detriment of the informal labour force (Oxfam International, 2018; White, 2009).Critics also voice the fear that these corporations, through the undemocratic concentration of wealth, can exercise power over State policies (Jovanovic, 2010). Such practices can also perpetrate a power hierarchy which disadvantages some whilst promoting a form of elitism in others (White, 2009).
When readers are continuously fed these assumptions they can become incorporated and internalised as common-sense notions through which the readers interpret, exist in and comprehend the world (Harvey, 2007). I conclude that this representation of international trade is ideological, as it serves to give hegemony to the universal and seemingly unquestionable factuality of international trade (Fairclough, 2003). It is therefore essential that textbooks are reviewed to uncover the hidden and underlying assumptions within their content (Foster &
Crawford, 2006).