May 23, 5:00 pm: Maira Hayat, “Sharing” Value: Corporate Capital and Culture, a Brand of Water, and a State

Please join us for our final meeting of the Money, Markets and Governance workshop on Tuesday, May 23, 5:00 – 6:30 p.m in SSRB 404.

Discussant:  Marc Kelley, Anthropology, University of Chicago

Abstract:

This paper examines state-corporation relations in Pakistan. Y is amongst the largest drinking water MNCs in Pakistan. The paper examines Y’s corporate social responsibility discourse and practice in Pakistan; how Y’s global posturing builds upon/occludes Pakistan-specific activity and what this tells us about the travels of multinational corporate capital and how it ‘touches down.’ It probes the kind of commodity drinking water is, and what the limits to the cultural determination of needs might be. It considers Y’s branding and its failures/refractions in ‘emerging markets’; where the frontiers of capital are (thought to be) located; and what the pitfalls of unpacking ‘the multinational corporation’ in a global south setting might be.