Alein Nation

Well Patrick isn't the only one making a late response, I apologize as well for my late responses

Upon reading Alein nation, the first statement alone i thought was confusing. Then I got the ball rolling, and it was indeed an intruiging article. It was interesting to see how the Camaroff's related zombies to immigrants, and capitalism. It was interesting that within the first page really, there wasn't much of a mention of zombies at all. I was also surprised about the professionalism really of the article, seeing as it talking about zombies, and most of the time, they are not taken from such a scholarly view.

The article discusses in the beginning of the 18th through the 19th century, that capitalism was really what was in the 18th century, because everyone could buy their own land, and make a profit for one's self. To the 19th century, where everything became about the factory worker. The machine shops, etc. The article argues that this was due to gambling; the lottery namely.
"Now it is routinized in a widespread infatuation with, and popular participation in, financial 'investments' that take the form of cast, high-risk dealings in stocks and bonds and funds whose rise and fall appear to be governed purely by chance. It also expresses itself in a fascination with 'futures' and with their downmarket counterpart, the lottery; banal, if symbolically saturated fatasies these of a winning number at the behest of unseen forces."
This quote simply shows that because of the lottery, it pretty much did away with the thought of capitalism.

In the next part of the article, it discusses how capitalism fell due to the immigrants. If everyone can get someone else that worked for them, to do their work, then they can get a lot more done. The immigrants being moderately mindless, similar to the zombie.

The article also discusses how the idea of the zombie came from africa, my interpretation of this is because of african voodoo. Thus creating the zombie, or bringing the dead back to life, through means of voodoo.