Transnational Struggles for Water and Power

               According to the text, the dam building has been a spectacular phenomenon in this 20th century. This development project means to drive a country to a modernity by provide citizen both water and electricity, but in order to do so, people in the local areas needed to move out for the sake of the development of the country, and unfortunately every times this kind of project will take place in the rural area which makes sense geographically, more over 'politically' that the rural people are not likely to have a potential to go against the state will. Later the non-governmental organizations, especially on the human rights issue appeared more active in the global stage to rescue the 'poor' local folks.
               So, can we conclude that; the developmental project such as dam will really bring the development as a whole while somebody need to sacrificed their land ? , the more dam has been building, the more rights and security of the local people has taken away?, Since, the development project is an instrument to lift the society into the modern society, will this development related to the migration of people (tourism, economic opportunity, maybe?), if not from the forcing people to migrate out of their homeland.
              But anyway, as a trend the number of the dam building project has been decreasing lately, Is this also mean the saturation of the water development or the protest that has been going on against the will of the state by the local community?...

~Gringolandia~

                         
                 Gringolandia are called by the locals of Cancuns. The area in which a part if Quintana Roo, one state of Mexico, previously referred to "Empty Quarter" turn to a highly tourism industrial site for both outsider to come and enjoy their holidays here, for example and insider, for Mexican to move domestically to find a job opportunities here. Since the project area's been developed a lot, the influx of people also dramatically high, but the inequality is still very high as well !!!!

                          The empty area could turn into the major source of national income, when the government heavily facilitate the area to be a top tourist attraction, but that economically successful have to trade with the widening gap between the rich and the poor in the society. The development is needed for the country, but would that really bring the happiness for the people in the country? There'll always be an argument for any development project, since it has to benefits some and hurts some, where is the right balance?

                          Generally, to promote development, the 'already high developed area' seems to get more attention than the place far from any development, because of the popularity of the higher class citizen or whatnot, then the argument arise that to do that it'll only widening the gab between the rich and the poor. But to do otherwise, like in the example of 'Gringolandia' that government chose to upgrade and urbanize the run down or empty area to a place where there's economic return, seems to also have a problem of creating gap between rich and poor within the Cancuns area as well.

                           Then, I came to realize that what's really a right thing to do, since every move (of the government development plan) generate disparity of people. Isn't a development should bring a social equality? 

                           I, personally, praise for what Mexican government has done that focusing on the underdeveloped land than the already-developed land for the development project. To be clear on my standpoint, if I have to make a decision of which province of Thailand will be a place where the development project (for example, the computers provided for all the primary school kids) takes place, between Bangkok and CheangRai, I would just simply pick the second choice. The reason is that too many development project has already focused on Bangkok which easier to implement and more obvious in degree of the outcome, but no one really care about places where electricity haven't reach yet...

Biopolitics and the Rights of Man

According to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789, it’s not clear that the word ‘man’ and ‘citizen’ are two different words, independent from each other or there’s something in common. “ Men are born and remain free and equal in rights” and “ Every man is born with inalienable and indefeasible rights” as a bare natural life as stated in the Declaration 1789, but until the biopolitics of modernity takes place the ‘men’ transformed itself to be the ‘citizen’ whom rights are ‘preserved’ not ‘born with’.

                The article try to link between the rights of man and the nation state, and since the modernity, bare lives were given some parts of their right to the state and therefore ‘national sovereignty’. “The ‘subject’ is transformed into a ‘citizen’ means that birth, here for the first time becomes the immediate bearer of sovereignty” meaning being born in which states then is the citizen of that state. The concept of “blood and soil” is indicate the citizenship in which born to the citizen of that state and born in that state territory. Then ‘refugee’ came in to play that it threaten the concept of citizenship and the link between ‘nativity’ and ‘nationality’

                In my opinion, refugee made the line between the man and citizenship become even blurred, and nation state started to lose its power.

The Immigrant as Threat to American Security

                As American history; immigration has played a major role in the most parts of American culture and society. It's a melting pot countries that people fleeing from somewhere else to seek a freedom here. The American people who migrated from England, for example, were settled on land and started to create cultures. According to the book " But Americans, at variety of moments, have also fear of immigrants ... ", in my perspective is that the Whites people who settled in American land said that they fear of otherness, especially drastically increasing when the time of 9/11 terrorist attack, but they, themselves also migrated from somewhere else as well, unlike the native Americans or Red-Indians who were there before the invasion from Europe.

                After the 9/11 attack, the Americans have been more cautious with immigration flowing in the country, especially the Arabian or Muslims, which Americans point of view would already judge the Arabian in coming as a threat to the country and now the US and the world would be more alert than before to protect their national security.

Homo Sacer- Giorgio Agamben

"Living animal with the additional capacity for political existence"

The word 'life' in ancient Greek has two meanings 'zoe'(the simple fact of the all living being) and 'bios'(the way of living to an individual or a group). 
Bios was previously used more preferable in the political context, then the word 'zoe'
came in to play in the sphere of modernity.

In the sovereign sphere, 'Homo Sacer' is a 'bare life' who can be killed and yet not be able to called 'sacreficed' and furthermore no accuses for the one who permitted that committing homocide.

With sovereignty in its territory, the line has been drawn  to exclude the outsider and include the insider as a political element. Because man is a living being that comes with language which separate himself to his bare life and in the same time maintain himself in an inclusive exclusion which lies in the indistictive zone as both an object and a subject of political power.

The Economy of Appearances/ Natural Universals & Global Scale

            
                As i reading the materials, first point i see is city or nation-state in this capitalism world compete in the international level to attract the investment into the country whether for the national interest or the high-ranking elites interest. Then comes the Bre-X that cooperate with Indonesian elites, conjuring itself by crating the dramatization to its own story, then this strategy flash me to more self-familiar context, the celebrities world. Celebrities is a great example for this in my opinion, they tend to generate their popularity through the news or even more 'scandal' because this scandal bring their names in the paper which effectively keep them at the top of the list. Some company had nothing like the Bre-X, they create the imagination of the piles of gold to facilitate their stock market. No offense to the no-talented celebrities nowadays, just like it that they make a scandal to get on the news, to be seen in the media, and to keep money flying into their pocket. The Bre-X create their own 'encouraging' or 'shocking' story to make a belief in their product to, again, popularized their brand and enlarging investment. Even this dramatization keep the Bre-X alive longer than it should be but the magical world doesn't last forever, if they don't own the real 'thing'. 
            
           "The investment drama of the Bre-X story shows how articulations among globalist, nationalist, and regionalist projects bring each project to life."

            According to the global warming which is the hot global issue, the reading implies that we all connected through the air and water and we need to save it. The dichotomy arise between the belief that forest should serve economic and state-administrative interest and the belief that nature deserves protection for itself. The point that relates to our course is that the national park which can create the sense of belonging in that nation-state to confirm their citizenship.

            Form both readings, they clarify the perspectives that i've never thought of before...

The Coming of a New Geography/ Siam Mapped

"Why the sun does set in the sea?
 Also at dawn, it does rise up from the sea.
 Or is it true, as English think,
 That the shape of the earth is like an orange?
 And does the sun, standing still, never move?
 Amusingly, the earth itself rotates,
 Even the three worlds are so huge.
 How dull I am not to understand how it can be."
                              by the Siam interpreter who familiar with the western ideas

           The questions about our nature, especially on the astronomical matter, had been asked out of curious by Siamese widely through out the time. The King Mongkut was an expert on the calculation and the concepts of the stars, who happened to raise a new concept against the old belief and support the western concept of the earth.
Clashes between two ideas arose from the two different believes of the world nature; Thai indigenous astronomy based on Traiphum and Western astronomy. This is what happened when two culture widely different in the modernized matter. It's almost like a war that both sides tried to win the argument, and dominated their believes. Luckily, the journey of the king who fighting for his own belief did shown in the experimental day at Wako, after since the old belief for example that the earth was flat was swept away. This is one example of transnational phenomenon that there's relationships in one territory and when another relationship from outside penetrating in, then the different is created and the conflict is possible. The idea of nation-state whether is an offspring of the making of map or vice versa is still questioned.