This review surveys an emergent methodological trend in anthropological research that concerns the adaptation of long-standing modes of ethnographic practices to more complex objects of study. Ethnography moves from its conventional single-site location, contextualized by macro-constructions of a larger social order, such as the capitalist world system, to multiple sites of observation and participation that cross-cut dichotomies such as the “local” and the “global,” the “lifeworld” and the “system.” Resulting ethnographies are therefore both in and out of the world system. The anxieties to which this methodological shift gives rise are considered in terms of testing the limits of ethnography, attenuating the power of fieldwork, and losing the perspective of the subaltern. The emergence of multi-sited ethnography is located within new spheres of interdisciplinary work, including media studies, science and technology studies, and cultural studies broadly. Several “tracking” strategies that shape multi-site...

http://anthro.vancouver.wsu.edu/media/Course_files/anth-490-edward-h-hagen/marcus-1995-ethnography-in-of-the-world-system_the-emergence-of-multi-sited-ethnography.pdf

Ethnography in/of the World System: The Emergence of Multi-Sited Ethnography

It seems that a new paradigm is being formed within the social sciences, the ‘new mobilities’ paradigm. Some recent contributions to forming and stabilising this new paradigm include work from anthropology, cultural studies, geography, migration studies, science and technology studies, tourism and transport studies, and sociology. In this paper we draw out some characteristics, properties, and implications of this emergent paradigm, especially documenting some novel mobile theories and methods. We reflect on how far this paradigm has developed and thereby to extend and develop the ‘mobility turn’ within the social sciences.

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The new mobilities paradigm.

Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method is a systematic introduction to discourse analysis as a body of theories and methods for social research. It brings together three central approaches, Laclau and Mouffe's discourse theory, critical discourse analysis and discursive psychology, in order to establish a dialogue between different forms of discourse analysis often kept apart by disciplinary boundaries. The book introduces the three approaches in a clear and easily comprehensible manner, explaining the distinctive philosophical premises and theoretical perspectives of each approach as well as the methodological guidelines and tools they provide for empirical discourse analysis. The authors also demonstrate the possibilities for combining different discourse analytical and non-discourse analytical approaches in empirical study. Finally, they contextualize discourse analysis within the social constructionist debate about critical social research, rejecting the view that a critical stance is incompatible with social constructionist premises and arguing that critique must be an inherent part of social research.

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Discourse Analysis as Theory and Method

The End of History and the Last Man

This article provides a synthesizing overview of the past 20 yr. of consumer research addressing the sociocultural, experiential, symbolic, and ideological aspects of consumption. Our aim is to provide a viable disciplinary brand for this research tradition that we call consumer culture theory (CCT). We propose that CCT has fulfilled recurrent calls for developing a distinctive body of theoretical knowledge about consumption and marketplace behaviors. In developing this argument, we redress three enduring misconceptions about the nature and analytic orientation of CCT. We then assess how CCT has contributed to consumer research by illuminating the cultural dimensions of the consumption cycle and by developing novel theorizations concerning four thematic domains of research interest.

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Consumer Culture Theory (Cct): Twenty Years of Research

Preface In Pursuit of the Postmodern Theories of Consumer Culture Towards a Sociology of Postmodern Culture Postmodernism, Cultural Change and Social Practice Postmodernism and the Aestheticization of Everyday Life Lifestyle and Consumer Culture City Cultures and Postmodern Lifestyles Postmodernism, Consumer Culture and Global Disorder Common Culture or Uncommon Cultures?

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Consumer Culture and Postmodernism

In his paper ’The Discourse of Diet’, Bryan Turner (1982) drew attention to the role of dietary management in the production of docile, disciplined bodies. Concluding in a speculative vein, Turner (1982, p 14) remarked that the emerging problem of ageing populations within late capitalist society has pushed a new discourse, demography, to the fore ’centred on a regime of diet, jogging and cosmetics to control the alienated and disaffected citizens of retirement compounds.’ This statement, which we will take as our point of departure, curiously draws together diet, cosmetics and jogging under the rubric of demography yet these activities have already had their meaning pro-defined within the context of a consumer culture. The vast range of dietary, slimming, exercise and cosmetic body maintenance products which are currently produced, marketed and sold point to the significance of appearance and bodily presentation within late capitalist society. Consumer culture latches onto the prevalent self-preservatlonist conception of the body, which encourages the individual to adopt instrumental strategies to combat deterioration and decay (applauded too by state bureaucracies who seek to reduce health costs by educating the public against bodily neglect) and combines it with the notion that the body is a vehicle of pleasure and self-expression. Images of the body beautiful, openly sexual and associated with hedonism, leisure and display, emphasise the importance of appearance and the ’look’.

The body in consumer culture

Introduction Globalizing Cultural Complexity The Autonomization of the Cultural Sphere Personality, Unity and the Ordered Life The Heroic Life and Everyday Life Globalizing the Postmodern Global and Local Cultures Localism, Globalism and Cultural Identity Travel, Migration and Images of Social Life

Undoing Culture: Globalization, Postmodernism and Identity

Preface - Mike Featherstone, Mike Hepworth and Bryan S Turner Recent Developments in the Theory of the Body - Bryan S Turner Bringing Bodies Back In - Arthur Frank On Human Beings and Their Emotions - Norbert Elias a Process-Sociological Essay On the Civilizing of Appetite - Stephen Mennell The Discourse of Diet - Bryan S Turner The Body in Consumer Culture - Mike Featherstone The Midlifestyle of 'George and Lynne' - Mike Featherstone and Mike Hepworth Martial Arts as a Resource for Liberal Education - Donald N Levine The Case of Aikido Bio-politics and Social Policy - Martin Hewitt Foucault's Account of Welfare Genealogy and The Body - Scott Lash Foucault/Deleuze/Nietzsche The Art of The Body in The Discourse of Postmodernity - Roy Boyne Love's Labour Lost? A Sociological View - Margareta Bertilsson Biographical Boundaries - Graham McCann Sociology and Marilyn Monroe Carmen - or The Invention of a New Feminine Myth - Dick Pels and Aya Crebas The Mask of Ageing - Mike Featherstone and Mike Hepworth Sociological Discourse and The Body - J M Berthelot

The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory

This article is concerned with the relationship between body, image and affect within consumer culture. Body image is generally understood as a mental image of the body as it appears to others. It is often assumed in consumer culture that people attend to their body image in an instrumental manner, as status and social acceptability depend on how a person looks. This view is based on popular physiognomic assumptions that the body, especially the face, is a reflection of the self: that a person’s inner character or personality will shine through the outer appearance. The modification and cosmetic enhancement of the body through a range of regimes and technologies can be used to construct a beautiful appearance and thereby a beautiful self. The article begins by examining body images in consumer culture and their relation to photography and moving images. This is followed by an examination of the consumer culture transformative process through a discussion of cosmetic surgery. The article then questions the over-simplistic logic that assumes that transformative techniques will automatically result in a more positive and acceptable body image. The new body and face may encourage people to look at the transformed person in a new way. But the moving body, the body without image, which communicates through proprioceptive senses and intensities of affect, can override the perception of the transformed appearance. A discussion of the affective body follows, via a closer examination of the body without image, the opening of the body to greater affect and indeterminacy. The affective body image and its potential greater visibility through new media technologies are then discussed through some examples taken from digital video art. The article concludes by examining some of the implications of these shifts within consumer culture and new media technologies.

Mike Featherstone

Papers

Consumer Culture and Postmodernism

The body in consumer culture

Undoing Culture: Globalization, Postmodernism and Identity

The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory

Body, Image and Affect in Consumer Culture: