Paul James (academic)

Paul James (born 1958, Melbourne), is Professor at the Institute for Culture and Society, University of Western Sydney, Australia, and a writer on globalization and social theory. He is Director of the United Nations Global Compact Cities Programme, a UN International Secretariat with offices in Sydney, Melbourne and New York.^[1]

Background

After studying politics at the University of Melbourne James was a lecturer in the Department of Politics at Monash University, Melbourne before moving to Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 2002 as Professor of Globalization and Cultural Diversity.^[2]

At RMIT he led and secured funding for several successful initiatives, including the Global Cities Institute (Director, 2006–2013); the UN Global Compact Cities Programme (Director, 2007–present); and the Globalism Institute (Founding Director, 2002-2007; now, Globalism Research Centre) that brought scholars including Tom Nairn, Manfred Steger, Heikki Patomäki and Nevzat Soguk to RMIT.^[3]

James lives in North Fitzroy, Melbourne, with Stephanie Trigg, Professor of Medieval Literature at the University of Melbourne, and their son.

Contributions

James is primarily known as a theorist of globalization, particularly how nation-states alter under an emergent level of global integration. His work has been read as challenging the simple notion of 'global flows' presented by other writers such Zygmunt Bauman and Arjun Appadurai.^[4] Using a distinctive comparative method called 'constitutive abstraction' or 'engaged theory', he has contributed to theories of political culture, the changing nature of community, and the structures and subjectivities of social formation. He is author or editor of 25 books, including a Sage Publications series on globalization. The series, Central Currents in Globalization, is a collection of writings by key figures in the field of globalization. His collaborative work includes writing with other senior scholars such as Jonathan Friedman, Peter Mandaville, Tom Nairn, Heikki Patomäki, Manfred Steger and Christopher Wise, amongst others.

He co-edits Arena Journal (1986–present), a publication concerned with understanding the crisis-ridden transformations of our time, and is on the board of a dozen other journals.^[5]

His work also contributes empirically to understanding contemporary politics and culture, particularly in Australia, East Timor, and Papua New Guinea. His research on sustainable community development laid part of the foundation for the 2007 legislation that went through the Papua New Parliament,^[6] and was developed by the Minister for Community Development at the time, Dame Carol Kidu.

As Director of the UN Global Compact Cities Programme, James also works in the field of urban sustainability.^[7] He argues against the mainstream view that 'smart cities' are necessarily better or more sustainable cities, suggesting instead that it is the integration of learning and practice which makes for intelligent and sustainable cities.^[8] Along these lines he is quoted as saying that London used the 2012 Olympics in an intelligent way 'where the economy, politics and culture thrive, aided by good transport and a strong information technology infrastructure, all built on a platform of ecological sustainability'.^[9]

Consistent with this approach, he is one of the key developers of the 'Circles of Sustainability' method used by a number of cities around the world to respond to relatively intractable or complex issues.^[10] That method takes the emphasis away from economic growth and suggests that cities should rather be aiming for social sustainability, including cultural resilience, political vibrancy, economic prosperity and ecological adaptation.^[11]

As Research Director of Global Reconciliation (2009–present), an organization dedicated to global dialogue and community-level practice, he has (with Paul Komesaroff) contributed to redefining the concept of 'reconciliation'. Instead of an emphasis on reconciliation as an event of testimony and contrition, the Global Reconciliation Foundation treats reconciliation as an ongoing process of dialogue and practice across the boundaries of continuing difference.^[12] In 2002, James, Komesaroff, and a management team led by Peter Phipps and Haris Halilovich, ran the first national reconciliation forum in Bosnia Hercegovina. In October 2012, James, Komesaroff and Suresh Sudram, together with a team in Australia and Sri Lanka ran the first national civil-society reconciliation forum in Sri Lanka since the end of the war. This followed a Reconciliation Summit on the Middle East held in Amman, Jordan in 2009, organized by Komesaroff and James.^[13]

Recognition

• Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (2010–present)
• Melbourne Ambassador (2010–present)
• Collaborating Advisor to the Minister for Community Development of Papua New Guinea (2004-2010); including contributing to drafting the Minister’s New Policy Document (2004) and the Corporate Plan (2004-2007)^[14]
• Bronze Medal, ‘Beyond the Frontiers of Knowledge’, awarded to the Community Sustainability International Project, Malaysia, by the University of Malaya (2005)
• Member of the G20 Advisory Group to the Canadian Prime Minister (2004)
• Crisp Medal by the Australasian Political Studies Association for the best book in the field of political studies (1996)
• Australian Research Council Fellowship (1994-1996)
• Japan-Australia Foundation Fellowship (1991)

Criticism

Because his work has a general reach, criticisms of Paul James’ work tend to take the form of rebukes for what he does not do or challenges to take seriously mainstream considerations such as citizenship and social movement success.^[15] For example, describing James’s book written with Tom Nairn, Global Matrix, Claudia Aradau (2007, p371) writes that: “Contradiction remains however the structuring principle of the book and a method of analysis. It allows the authors to think alternatives from ‘the field of our own ideological determinations’ (Balibar, 2004, 25)". She then goes onto to criticize the authors for failing to consider citizenship as one of the missing conceptions in the range of alternatives to the world in crisis that the authors describe. In a similar vein, Bihku Parekh says that "James does not explore how the nation and the state are internally related such that the apparently strange idea of the nation-state was considered self-evident by many."^[16]

Publications

Books authored

• James, P., Nadarajah, Y., Haive, K., and Stead, V., 2012 Sustainable Communities, Sustainable Development: Other Paths for Papua New Guinea, Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, ISBN 978-0-8248-3588-0 hb ISBN 978-0-8248-3640-5 pb
• James, P., 2006. Globalism, Nationalism Tribalism: Bringing Theory Back In. London: Sage. ISBN 0 7619 5513 hb ISBN 0 7619 5414 3 pb
• James, P., and Tom Nairn 2005. Global Matrix: Nationalism, Globalism and State-Terrorism. London: Pluto Press. ISBN 0-7453-2290-5 hb ISBN 0 7453 2291 3 pb
• James, P., 2002. Tour of Duty: Winning Hearts and Minds in East Timor (with photographs by Matthew Sleeth). Melbourne: Hardie Grant Publishing. ISBN 0-9579553-1-6 hb ISBN 0 7453 2291 3 pb
• James, P., 1996. Nation Formation: Towards a Theory of Abstract Community. London: Sage. ISBN 0-7619-5072-9 hb ISBN 0 7619 5073 7 pb. Winner of the 1996 Crisp Medal for Political Studies, Australasia

Books edited

• James, P., and M.B. Steger (eds), 2010. Globalization and Culture: Vol. 4, Ideologies of Globalism. London: Sage. ISBN 978-1-4129-1953-1
• James, P., and I. Szeman (eds), 2010. Globalization and Culture: Vol. 3, Global-Local Consumption. London: Sage. ISBN 978-1-4129-1953-1
• James, P., and P. Mandaville (eds), 2010. Globalization and Culture: Vol. 2, Globalizing Religions. London: Sage. ISBN 978-1-4129-1953-1
• James, P., and J. Tulloch (eds), 2010. Globalization and Culture: Vol. 1, Globalizing Communications. London: Sage. ISBN 978-1-4129-1953-1
• Wise, C., and P. James (eds), 2010. Being Arab: Arabism and the Politics of Recognition. Melbourne: Arena Publications. ISBN 978-0-9804158-1-0
• Grenfell, D., and P. James (eds), 2008. Rethinking Security, War and Violence: Beyond Savage Globalization? London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-43226-X, ISBN 978-0-4154-3226-9
• Goodman, J., and P. James (eds), 2007, 2011, Nationalism and Global Solidarities: Alternative Projections to Neoliberal Globalisation. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-38504-0
• James, P., and R. O’Brien (eds), 2007. Globalization and Economy: Vol. 4, Globalizing Labour. London: Sage. ISBN 978-1-4129-1952-4
• James, P., and R. Palan (eds), 2007. Globalization and Economy: Vol. 3, Global Economic Regimes and Institutions. London: Sage. ISBN 978-1-4129-1952-4
• James, P., and H. Patomäki (eds), 2007. Globalization and Economy: Vol. 2, Global Finance and the New Global Economy. London: Sage. ISBN 978-1-4129-1952-4
• James, P., and B. Gills(eds), 2007. Globalization and Economy: Vol. 1, Global Markets and Capitalism . London: Sage. ISBN 978-1-4129-1952-4
• James, P., and R.R. Sharma (eds), 2006. Globalization and Violence: Vol. 4, Transnational Conflict London: Sage. ISBN 1-4129-1954-1
• James, P., and J. Friedman (eds), 2006. Globalization and Violence: Vol. 3, Globalizing War and Intervention. London: Sage. ISBN 1-4129-1954-1
• James, P., and P. Darby (eds), 2006. Globalization and Violence: Vol. 2, Colonial and Postcolonial Globalizations. London: Sage. ISBN 1-4129-1954-1
• James, P., and T. Nairn (eds), 2006. Globalization and Violence: Vol. 1, Globalizing Empires, Old and New. London: Sage. ISBN 1-4129-1954-1
• James, P. (ed.), 2000. Burning Down the House: Bonfire of the Universities. Melbourne: Association for the Public University with Arena Publications. ISBN 0-9598181-5-4
• James, P., W. Veit and S. Wright (eds), 1997. Work of the Future: Global Perspectives. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86448-447-0
• James, P. (ed.), 1996. The State in Question: Transformations of the Australian State. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 1-86373-673-5
• James, P. (ed.), 1994. Critical Politics: From the Personal to the Global. Melbourne: Arena Publications. ISBN 0-9598181-4-6
• James, P. (ed.), 1990. Technocratic Dreaming: Of Very Fast Trains and Japanese Designer Cities. Melbourne: Left Book Club. ISBN 1-875285-03-2

References

External links

• Personal website, RMIT University
• Globalism Research Centre, RMIT University