This week, featuring two Geography Ph.D. Exit Talks:

1. Securitization, surplus populations, and embodied frontiers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Dr. Shae Frydenlund

2. Chinese Coal Power Overcapacity: Capital Devaluation and Its Consequences for Labor. Xi Wang

Friday, April, 23th at 12:00PM MT
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Securitization, surplus populations, and embodied frontiers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Dr. Shae Frydenlund
Global Shifts Postdoctoral Fellow
University of Pennsylvania Perry World House

Abstract

Departing from studies of frontiers that foreground geographical expansion outward, I explore a capitalist frontier that turns inward toward the bodies and work of Rohingya refugees in Malaysia. I articulate intimate geopolitics with a world-ecology approach to examine how the unfree labor of dispossessed, casually employed Rohingya refugees – a ‘relative surplus population’ whose work is only intermittently necessary to capital – is selectively reincorporated into capitalist circuits, and with what effects. Drawing on 9 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a Rohingya enclave adjacent to Kuala Lumpur’s largest produce and meat markets, I argue that interrelated processes of racialization and securitization join to create both embodied borders and unfree refugee labor, which I conceptualize as a moment of embodied frontier-making. Vie

Chinese Coal Power Overcapacity: Capital Devaluation and Its Consequences for Labor

Xi Wang, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Geography,

Abstract

China’s electricity sector suffers from significant overcapacity in coal-fired generation. Between 2000-2018, China built more than 800 gigawatts (GW) of new coal power capacity, accounting for 75 percent of all new coal capacity worldwide. This continues despite the falling rate of power demand growth, which reflects the slowdown in China’s economy. I argue that it is a mistake to see power overcapacity as the product of bad planning, but rather, that overcapacity stems from China’s broader problem of capital overaccumulation as a result of its export-oriented economy. I examine the relationship between coal generation overcapacity and the subsequent capital devaluation in the autonomous region of Inner Mongolia. Chinese leadership has been able to both maintain economic growth and social stability in the near term and channel the burden of devaluation away from state-owned enterprises (SOEs) by directing much of China’s excess capital into generation infrastructure. Overbuilding generation capacity has enabled China to maintain social stability by creating projects that provide jobs and make use of China’s surplus commodities. The labor of migrant construction workers is required to transform surplus capital into fixed capital to produce returns. A three-part configuration used in plant construction enables SOEs to offload devaluation at the margins to construction workers. Bearing the fallout of devaluation ‘wastes’ workers’ bodies and manifests in their living and work environments, and wage payments. This led to hitherto low-level and geographically-diffuse, but persistent worker strikes and blockades. Such forms of rent seeking increasingly cuts against the central state’s desire to maintain social stability in the long term.

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This doctoral dissertation project examines the role of refugee women in the revitalization of American cities. It offers a new approach to analyzing how urban revitalization and emerging processes of gentrification are inextricably linked to both refugee women’s unwaged labor in resettlement cities in the U.S. and the unwaged labor of women relatives living in displacement in their home or intermediary countries. This multi-sited research project opens up new possibilities for understanding how refugee remittances flow from the Global South to the United States. This project will directly benefit society by enhancing understandings of the relationship between refugee women and urban economic development. This research project promotes teaching, learning, and knowledge-sharing between diverse groups through collaborative partnerships with refugee community organizations. Its findings will be shared with municipal governments and nonprofit refugee service organizations to contribute to the formulation of more effective, inclusive, and equitable refugee resettlement policies. 

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Shae's paper “Labor, Racialization and Territory in Nepal’s Indigenous Nationalities Discourse: moving beyond “tribal” vs “peasant” categories,” was selected as a winner of the 2016  prize. The prize is awarded by the .

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The Department of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder congratulates the winners the following Graduate Student Awards. These awards were recognized at our Spring Commencement Ceremony on May 6, 2016.

Gilbert F. White Doctoral Fellowship for 2016-2017 - Theodore Barnhart and Yang Yang

Adam Kolff Memorial Research Fellowship for MA Students - Gretchen Lang and Adam Mahood

Jennifer Dinaburg Memorial Research Fellowship for PhD Students - Robert Andrus, Angela Cunningham, Shae Frydenlund, Alice Hill, Rupak Shrestha, and Alana Wilson

James A. and Jeanne B. DeSana Graduate Research Scholarship - Theodore Barnhart, Shae Frydenlund, Julia Guarino, Aaron Malone, Rupak Shrestha, Kristy Weber, and Qinghuan Zhang

Department of Geography Excellence in Graduate Teaching Awards - Johannes Uhl (Teaching Assistant (TA) Award) and Shae Frydenlund (Graduate Student Mentoring Award).

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Shae will receive $750 in Graduate Student Funds from the  in support of her project entitled "From Mining to Meatpacking: Burmese-speaking refugees and the translocal production of labor and housing markets".

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The Geography Department is excited to announce the launch of the new Tibet Himalaya Initiative at CU, an interdisciplinary hub for research, teaching, and public engagement on Tibet and the Himalayas. ���Ҵ�ý�ƽ������ has unique research strengths in the study of contemporary Tibet and the Himalayas with faculty expertise in Anthropology, Art History, Geography, and Religious Studies as well as a significant location in the history of the spread of Tibetan Buddhism in the West. Many Geography faculty and students have current research projects in Tibet and the Himalayas and are active participants in the THI, including Emily Yeh, Galen Murton, Shae Frydenlund, Sierra Gladfelter, Emily Volkmar, Tashi Dorje, and Rupak Shrestha. More information can be found here: http://www.colorado.edu/tibethimalayainitiative/.

See more at 

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Beverly Sears Graduate Student Research Grants for 2015-2016 have been awarded to Shae Frydenlund and Eric Lovell. These grants are competitive awards sponsored by the Graduate School that support the research, scholarship and creative work of graduate students from all departments. All funding is provided by private donations

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Max Counter and Shea Frydenlund have been selected as the 2013-2014 recipients of the department's Adam Kolff Memorial Research Fellowship. The 2013-2014 fellowship provides $2000 toward research expenses for MA students.

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