lease join us for the last meeting of the Money, Markets and Governance workshop for the Winter Quarter, on coming Tuesday, March 6th, at 5 – 6:30 PM in classroom 106 at SSRB (the Social Science Research Building):
Molly Cunningham
PhD Candidate, Anthropology, University of Chicago
Civil Service Legacies and Derivative Futures:
Unsettling Accounts of Detroit’s Grand Bargain Settlement
Discussant: Kai Parker
PhD student, History, University of Chicago
Abstract: This paper examines political histories, investment logics, and accounting standards of Detroit’s legacy commitments to its civil service, as these debts are subjected to state intervention through emergency management and liquidation through chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy. When Detroit’s emergency manager filed for bankruptcy, the liquidation of these benefits held as credit by vulnerable retirees sparked controversy and anxiety; however, by the case’s close, the emergency manager had reached a negotiated settlement with retiree representatives that was celebrated in the press and dubbed “the grand bargain” – heralding new forms of corporate commitment to municipal futures, bipartisan cooperation in the name of urban revitalization, and the heroic sacrifice of long-suffering civil servants. This paper demonstrates that the heroic narrative of redemption that works to settle this legal settlement in the public imagination obscures the antiblack violence of dispossession it enacts, while inaugurating a new market reality of governing according to the demands of derivative markets and their risk-pricing models – a frontier project that harnesses affective urgency to the narrative silences of necessity.
For accessibility concerns or other questions, please contact the workshop’s coordinator at yanivr {at} uchicago {dot} edu.