Quebec City 2001 and the Making of Transnationals Subjects

Abstract

In Quebec City, where this article was written, the 'Summit of the Americas' was held between 20 April and 22 April 2001. A polycentric gathering of wouldbe hemispheric actors--from globalizing elites intent on making a 'Free Trade Area of the Americas' (FTAA), to sundry 'Peoples of the Americas' collected in a parallel summit, to a saturnalia of protests at the periphery of both events--it was a privileged occasion on which to think critically about the political construction of transnational subjects. This essay begins with a brief survey of the places where the events related to the Summit of the Americas were held. In the second part, these places and what was made in them are related to broader processes of order and change in the world economy.