This blog was created to publish ideas, commentary and analysis on issues in the global political economy and the media. Its owner is Ismail Lagardien, a political economist, writer and independent scholar.
I worked as a journalist and photojournalist, a public servant in the first post-apartheid South African government, and studied international political economy at the London School of Economics and the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. My master’s dissertation was on state failure in Africa and my doctoral thesis was a essentially a critique of the Neo-Classical Economics model as orthodoxy in global public policy-making. This blog is an extension of my work as a journalist and scholar. Between writing and doing research on global political economy, I teach at the University of South Carolina.
This blog has been up and running with intermittent postings for a couple of years. Some of the older articles which were published in print, and which were linked to this blog have been removed.
The blog has three main features. The first, l’engagé is the main page and deals with my scholarly interests in global political economy, media and cultural criticism. Here you will also find a page on my academic – research and teaching – work. The second is a photographic journal, and the third is on football, that crazy love of mine…. Together these make up my intellectual, creative and political ideas, beliefs and values, and general interests.
I was born in Fietas and grew up in Eldorado Park near Johannesburg, South Africa. For now, live in the Deep South of the United States.
