Transmodern initiatives or reengineering modernity

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Schwandt, Mark Wayne
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University of Guelph
Abstract

This thesis investigates current discourses of transmodernity in relation to the relatively contemporaneous discourse and praxis of "reengineering." Focusing, in particular, on Enrique Dussel's definition of transmodernity as a response to modern world-system expansion, and on Richard Marsden's Foucauldian-Marxian analysis of corporate reengineering, it attempts a cautious synthesis of these disparate frameworks of analysis in an effort to open up question about the possibility of intercultural dialogue, and to consider the inter-continental projection of Eurocentric knowledges as and early manner of time-space compression, predating normally cited examples. Drawing comparisons between the "I want" attitude constitutive of postmodern hedonism and "I-conquer" mentality of the colonizer-conquistador, it argues that structural imperatives of capital accumulation underpin both these manifestations. Dussel posits that a "sacrificial paradigm" has accompanied coloniality, whereby "progress" justifies human suffering. The thesis concludes that a similar ideology underlies the post-modern "new-economy."

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transmodern initiatives, reengineering modernity, Enrique Dussel, Richard Marsden, new-economy
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