On the Global Mobility Regime

 In his paper, "Without Borders? Notes on globalization as a Mobility Regime" Ronen Shamir describes the emergent global mobility regime, the "paradigm of suspicion" on which it is premised, and the technologies by which it is realized. I shall link Shamir's analysis to my own hometown's efforts in gating itself, which distinctly express the paradigm of suspicion outlined by Shamir. I shall link Shamir's paper to the idea of self-definition through the opposite, prevalent in Chinese Daoist thought.

Shamir's paper revolves around several terms:

The global mobility regime - The expression of the political economy that revolves around differentiation of mobility opportunities. This is avidly and consistently pursued by the governments of more affluent areas in their dealings with the population of less affluent ones.

The paradigm of suspicion - A modus operandi in the global mobility regime that conflates the perceived threats of crime, immigration, and terrorism, thus constituting a conceptual blueprint for the organization of global risk-management strategies.

Biosocial profiling - “An emergent technology of social intervention that objectifies whole strata of people by assignning them into suspect categories.” (Shamir 2005, 210)

Shamir outlines, with many different examples, the expression of the global mobility regime and the paradigm of suspicion at all levels of civic life. While Shamir's focus was the technology of biosocial profiling, mainly used in borders between countries, I found Shamir's observations regarding gated communities to be particularly interesting.

My hometown of Kochav Yair elected Yuval Arad to be its mayor in 2018. After his election, Arad formed a local security committee, whose protocols show clear expressions of the paradigm of suspicion and the global mobility regime. The most blatant example of the paradigm of suspicion is from the January 2019 committee. In this meeting, the fear of terrorism is mentioned as arising from the many "property violations" that occurred in 2018. In other words, terrorism and crime were conflated. throughout the committee's meetings. Moreover, the committee constantly mentioned possible technological solutions, and promises the implementation of security cameras all throughout the town. Arad is working to locally implement aspects of the global mobility regime while working from a paradigm of suspicion.

In his paper, Shamir emphasizes the disconnect between globalization being theorized as promoting openness, to its emergent global mobility regime which limits the movement of whole strata of people - less affluent people and people of color. Laozi, the axial thinker of Daoism, emphasized how we define ourselves in relation to our opposites, and how we often embrace some of our opposites' characteristics in the process.  The Daoist Zhuangzi pointed to political hypocrisy as an expression of that process. Globalization being theorized and marketed as a regime of openness, while creating more complex systems to further limit mobility, can be viewed as a case of self-definition through the opposite as described by Laozi and Zhuangzi.

In summary, while globalization is often theorized as promoting openness, the emergence of a restrictive global mobility regime has revealed a common underlying paradigm of suspicion which undercuts said openness. This regime and the paradigm of suspicion on which it premised express themselves on all levels of government, even in the government of my own hometown. Daoist thought rightly points out that people and governments who claim they have certain traits often embrace some opposite traits, as a part of the process of self-definition through the other.

References

Shamir, Ronen. "Without Borders? Notes on Globalization as a Mobility Regime", Tel-Aviv, Sociological Theory 23:2 June 2005.

Kochav Yair security committee protocols accessed through the local council's website.   www.kyair.org.il

Laozi, Dao De Jing. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/49965/49965-h/49965-h.htm

Angus C. Graham, Disputers of the Tao (La Salle, 1989)

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