Introduction
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world ‘out there’ (practices, institutions, structures of social re/production), how we think
(meaning systems, ideologies, paradigms), and who we are (subjectivity, agency, self and
collective identitites) as interacting dimensions of social reality” (Peterson 1997, 185). In
other words, relational thinking allows us to introduce subjects and subjectivity into an
otherwise abstract discussion about processes, structures, markets, and states. Second, it
sensitizes us to specifically gendered representations and valorizations at work in global
restructuring. For instance, are certain sectors of the market becoming increasingly
masculinized, that is spaces where "masculine" behavior is being rewarded and which
will consequently attract more men than women? Alternatively, are parts of (civil)
society and the state becoming feminized or re-masculinized? If so, what are the
consequences of this? Third, a relational thinking reveals the gendered power dimensions
of global restructuring. How and to what extent is global restructuring embedded in and
exacerbating unequal power relations? How are processes of inclusion and exclusion
being mediated through gender, race, ethnicity, class, sexuality, and nation? Fourth,
relational thinking enables apprehension of hybridity created out of re-constructions and
re-negotiations of all manner of boundaries.
Peterson (2003) has more recently applied relational thinking to the project of
“rewriting” global political economy (GPE) by reframing the market or the economy as
“reproductive-productive-virtual or RPV economies.” This RPV framing reveals
globalization as a hybrid, produced by the mutual constitution of “socio-cultural
processes of identity formation,” “cultural socialization,” and “material effects, social
Convention