Showing papers in "Theory, Culture & Society in 1999"
TL;DR: The authors argue that the failure of certain theories of reflexive identity transformation to consider more fully issues connected to gender identity leads to an overemphasis on the expressive part of identity transformation.
Abstract: This article argues that the failure of certain theories of reflexive identity transformation to consider more fully issues connected to gender identity leads to an overemphasis on the expressive p...
725 citations
TL;DR: The authors poses the question of the social and intellectual conditions for genuine social scientific internationalism, through an analysis of the worldwide spread of a new global vulgate resulting from the false and uncontrolled universalization of the folk concepts and preoccupations of American society and academe.
Abstract: This article poses the question of the social and intellectual conditions for genuine social scientific internationalism, through an analysis of the worldwide spread of a new global vulgate resulting from the false and uncontrolled universalization of the folk concepts and preoccupations of American society and academe. The terms, themes and tropes of this new planetary doxa - `multiculturalism', `globalization', `liberals versus communitarians', `underclass', racial `minority' and identity, etc. - tend to project and impose on all societies American concerns and viewpoints, thereby transfigured into tools of analysis and yardsticks of policy fit to naturalize the peculiar historical experience of one peculiar society, tacitly instituted as a model for humanity. The article suggests how the logic of the international circulation of ideas, the transformations of the academic field, the strategies of foundations and publishers, and of local collaborators in global conceptual `import-export' converge to fost...
643 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors suggest that complexity theory, itself a rhetorical hybrid, takes on new meanings as it circulates in and through a number of actor-networks and, specifically, global science, global business and global New Age.
Abstract: This article is an attempt to understand the increasing profile of complexity theory as a geography of dissemination. In the first part I suggest that complexity theory, itself a rhetorical hybrid, takes on new meanings as it circulates in and through a number of actor-networks and, specifically, global science, global business and global New Age. As complexity theory circulates in these networks, so it encounters new conditions, which generate new hybrid theoretical forms. In the second part of the article, I consider how complexity theory might be interpreted as the emergence of a new structure of feeling in Euro-American societies, which frames the future as open and full of productivity. The conclusion offers some words of warning.
324 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce the special issue "Belonging and Performativity" and discuss key related concepts that unite the articles of the issue: difference and their differences; the politics of visuality; embodiment; and the idea of routes.
Abstract: This short piece introduces the Special Issue, giving both a general sense of the terms `belonging' and `performativity', and discussing key related concepts that unite the articles of the issue: difference and their differences; the politics of visuality; embodiment; and the idea of routes. The predominant themes as they appear in the different articles are discussed under these headings.
287 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the relationship between the construction of the identity of places and the creation of terrains of belonging, arguing that gender and ethnicity are mutually dependent on each other for their construction; imperatives of gender serve to stabilize a fluctuating and indeterminate ethnic culture.
Abstract: Focusing on discourses and practices of identity in an Italian organization in London, this article examines the relationship between the construction of the identity of places and the construction of terrains of belonging. Various forms of cultural practices that mark out spatial and identity boundaries for the London Italian population are discussed in relation to the deployment of gender and ethnicity. Advancing a corporeal approach to identity formation, it is argued that displays of the Italian presence in London operate through the repetition of regulatory norms that produces the effect of materialization of cultural belonging through the ethnicizing and gendering of individual bodies. Gender and ethnicity are deeply embedded in one another and their entwinement is to be understood as the outcome of their construction along similar bodily lines. Also, the author shows that gender and ethnicity are mutually dependent on each other for their construction; imperatives of gender serve to stabilize a fluctuating and indeterminate ethnic culture, while ethnic conventions naturalize the different positions men and women occupy in social life.
228 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine both the work of Judith Butler on gender performativity and examples of how Butler's writings have been appropriated by certain other writers, and explore three different ways in which Butler's work has been appropriated.
Abstract: The aim of this article is to examine both the work of Judith Butler on gender performativity and examples of how Butler's writings have been appropriated by certain other writers. I explore three ...
191 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the dialectic of subject formation and the relation between the psyche and the subject's subject is considered. Butler's work considers two themes in Butler's work, namely, the subject is instituted through constraint and subject formation.
Abstract: This article considers two themes in Butler's work: the dialectic of subject formation - that the autonomous subject is instituted through constraint - and the relation between the psyche and the s...
166 citations
TL;DR: The authors examine racial narratives of passing and their relationship to discourses of hybridity, and suggest that passing must be understood in relationship to forms of social antagonism, and argue that passing as black as a white subject can function as a technique of knowledge which assumes 'blackness' to be imageable and hence beable.
Abstract: In this article, I examine racial narratives of passing and their relationship to discourses of hybridity. Rather than defining passing as inherently transgressive, or as one side of identity politics or the other, I suggest that passing must be understood in relationship to forms of social antagonism. I ask the following questions: how are differences that threaten the system recuperated? How do ambiguous or hybrid bodies get read in a way which further supports the enunciative power of those who are telling the difference? In what ways is `passing' implicated in the very discourse around tellable differences? Although to some extent all identities involve passing - insofar as the subject never `is' what it `images' itself to be - we still need to theorize the differences between passing as white and passing as black. I argue that passing as black as a white subject can function as a technique of knowledge which assumes `blackness' to be imageable and hence beable. However, for black subjects to refuse to pass as white - that is, for black subjects to pass as black - can make visible the violent histories concealed by the invisibility of the mark of passing. Such a process of passing as black subjects is tied to a politics of the collective - a coming together through the recognition of the lack that engenders passing in the first place.
152 citations
TL;DR: Foucault proposes at the end of the first volume of The History of Sexuality to shift the focus of sexual studies from sex-desire to bodies and pleasures.
Abstract: Foucault proposes at the end of the first volume of The History of Sexuality to shift the focus of sexual studies from sex-desire to bodies and pleasures This article seeks to establish what he me
131 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the possibility of using the same analytical framework to talk both about racializing and gendering processes, and how useful is the concept of melancholia.
Abstract: In this interview, Judith Butler speaks about her most recent work, especially Excitable Speech (Routledge, 1997), in terms of how it represents a continuation of certain themes and how it represents moves into new terrains of debate. In particular, she addresses both possible critiques of her work, expecially around the issue of the possibility of political visions and the attention to speech when theorizing subjectification, and responds to questions around certain related themes such as: just what is the possibility of using the same analytical framework to talk both about racializing and gendering processes? How useful is the concept of melancholia? How are textuality and visuality interconnected?
111 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a brief note takes the form of challenging a number of assumptions and generalizations in the article by Bourdieu and Wacquant and calls for the invention of a new vocabulary to address the issues which have arisen for intellectuals in the context of the loss in authority of once secure foundations of modern critical enterprise, and the increasing commodification of intellectual work.
Abstract: This brief note takes the form of challenging a number of assumptions and generalizations in the article by Bourdieu and Wacquant. It calls for the invention of a new vocabulary to address the issues which have arisen for intellectuals in the context of the loss in authority of once secure foundations of modern critical enterprise, and the increasing commodification of intellectual work. The tone of the note seeks to encourage a debate towards establishing a more fruitful agenda for understanding the complex relays between identity, power, governance, globalization, capitalism.
TL;DR: Paul Virilio as discussed by the authors discusses his often controversial views on the cultural writings of Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida and Baudrillard and provides much food for thought for all those presently concerned with the social implications of the 'disappearance' of aesthetics, technoculture, information warfare, cloning and cyberfeminism.
Abstract: In this interview, Paul Virilio talks at length about his life and numerous published works ranging from Speed & Politics: An Essay on Dromology to the recently translated Polar Inertia. Considering important theoretical themes and questions relating to post- and 'hyper'- modernism, poststructuralism, modernity and postmodernity, Virilio discusses his often controversial views on the cultural writings of Foucault, Deleuze, Derrida and Baudrillard. In so doing, Virilio not only clarifies many of his architectural, political and cultural concepts such as 'military space', 'dromology' and the 'integral accident' but also provides much food for thought for all those presently concerned with the social implications of the 'disappearance' of aesthetics, technoculture, information warfare, cloning and 'cyberfeminism'.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that traditional forms may go hand in hand with a retraditionalization of gender in terms of employment, and that the innovation and creativity associated with such new economic formations is therefore called into question.
Abstract: In recent social theory, there has been an emphasis on the emergence of non-market, non-cash nexus or what are sometimes referred to as `traditional' forms of organization in the economic sphere. These are sometimes represented as vital to innovation and as constituting the cutting edge of socioeconomic change. In this article, my concern is to interrogate these new modes of organization. Its main argument is that such traditional forms may go hand in hand with a retraditionalization of gender in terms of employment. The innovation and creativity associated with such new economic formations is therefore called into question.
TL;DR: The relationship between knowledge and values, experts and lay people represents a major issue of the debate involving environment and technology as mentioned in this paper, and there is a growing awareness that the connection between value commitments and technical solutions, scientific expertise and lay competence, is much more entangled than once was believed.
Abstract: The relationship between knowledge and values, experts and lay people, represents a major issue of the debate involving environment and technology. There is a growing awareness that the connection between value commitments and technical solutions, scientific expertise and lay competence, is much more entangled than once was believed. The article deals with this issue by analysing Robert Dahl's `minipopulus' and Silvio Funtowicz and Jerry Ravetz's `extended peer communities' arguments. They are subsequently inserted into the sociological debate which is, at present, considerably influenced by the reflexive modernization framework. As a result, Ulrich Beck's and Anthony Giddens' theories appear as one of four ideal-typical approaches to the social construction of the issues that can be outlined, according to the priority assigned to knowledge versus power and nature versus society. The idea of an `extended peer review' of problems and solutions is remarkably close to the deliberative democracy concept. Howe...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors consider the grounds on which distinctions are drawn between the identities of gender, sexuality, race and class and explore the implications of these distinctions in relation to different kinds of identity politics and, in particular, to the politics implied by Judith Butler's theory of performativity.
Abstract: This article considers the grounds on which distinctions are drawn between the identities of gender, sexuality, `race' and class and explores the implications of these distinctions in relation to different kinds of identity politics and, in particular, to the politics implied by Judith Butler's theory of performativity. I argue that what is often taken to be the key site of much queer theory and activism - that is, the reappropriation of signifiers of difference - is problematic in the light of a close analysis of subjectivities which are informed by `race', gender and class. More specifically, it may be that struggles which are frequently linked to issues of visibility are problematic in the context of subjectivities - class subjectivities - that are both enabled and constrained by a particular, and a particularly uneasy, relation to recognition and representation.
TL;DR: A critical examination of the recent paradigm shift in the appraisal of women's dress can be found in this article, where it is argued that while recent theorists have revealed the naivete of the functionalist paradigm upon which previous critiques of fashion have been premised, their alternative conception of liberatory dress as that which highlights the constructed nature of the body is equally as problematic.
Abstract: This article involves a critical examination of the recent paradigm shift in the appraisal of women's dress. Whereas in the past, female fashion was criticized primarily in terms of its impractical and restrictive nature and more `functional' and `natural' modes of dress were advocated, in recent times the legitimacy of the notion of `functional' or `natural' dress has been challenged. As theorists such as Wilson, Sawchuck and Hollander have pointed out, to assume that there is a `natural' mode of dress which reflects the body `as it really is' wrongly presupposes that the body pre-exists culture when in fact it is always inescapably encoded by cultural norms. However, as is argued in the article, while recent theorists have revealed the naivete of the functionalist paradigm upon which previous critiques of fashion have been premised, their alternative conception of liberatory dress as that which highlights the constructed nature of the body is equally as problematic insofar as it leaves unchallenged the ...
TL;DR: This article explored some aspects of the long-standing metaphoric conjunction between the images of the intellectual and that of the stranger in the history of social thought (cf. Simmel's portray...
Abstract: This article explores some aspects of the long-standing metaphoric conjunction between the images of the intellectual and that of the stranger in the history of social thought (cf. Simmel's portray...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors critically engage with the work of Bruno Latour and, in particular, his book We Have Never been Modern, focusing beyond the wit and brevity of Latour's writing.
Abstract: This article critically engages with the work of Bruno Latour and, in particular, his book We Have Never Been Modern. Looking beyond the wit and brevity of Latour's writing, the article focuses on ...
TL;DR: Virilio is one of the most prolific and penetrating critics of the drama of technology in the contemporary era, especially military technology, technologies of representation, computer and information technologies, and biotechnology as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Paul Virilio is one of the most prolific and penetrating critics of the drama of technology in the contemporary era, especially military technology, technologies of representation, computer and information technologies, and biotechnology. For Virilio, the question of technology is the question of our time and his life work constitutes a sustained reflection on the origins, nature and effects of the key technologies that have constituted the modern/ postmodern world. In particular, Virilio carries out a radical critique of the ways that technology is transfonning the contemporary world and even the human species. Yet I want to argue in this study that Virilio has a flawed conception of technology that is excessively negative and one-sided, thus missing the empowering and democratizing aspects of new computer and media technologies. My argument is that his vision of technology is overdetermined by his intense focus on war and military technology and that this optic drives him to predominantly technophobic p...
TL;DR: The authors argue that food can be seen as a line that intersects with sexuality, and that an alternative ethics can be glimpsed in the doubling of food and sex, rather than privileging either.
Abstract: This article questions whether food is replacing sex as the ground of identity negotiation. Examining several food sites, and following Foucault's suggestive remarks about the Greek dietetic regimen, I argue that food can be seen as a line that intersects with sexuality. Rather than privileging either, an alternative ethics can be glimpsed in the doubling of food and sex.
TL;DR: In this article, a methode d'interrogation is defined for the reconstruction of the Ancien Testament in the context of Max Weber's analysis of the Hebrew Bible, which is based on le terme de reconstruction sociologique.
Abstract: L'A. presente une analyse du texte de Max Weber consacre au Judaisme ancien. Il utilise le terme de reconstruction sociologique pour caracteriser le fait que la societe etudiee par Max Weber ne pouvait etre accessible a son observation directe. L'A. consacre son analyse avant tout a la methode employee par Weber pour operer cette reconstruction a partir des elements contenus dans l'Ancien Testament. L'A. demontre chez Weber la construction d'arguments ne cherchant pas forcement appui sur la logique scientifique. Il presente cette methode comme une methode d'interrogation. Enfin, la question de la competence, de la source, comme celle du lecteur, est abordee.
TL;DR: The starting point for any understanding of Jean Baudrillard's media theory is his concept of ''communication'' as discussed by the authors, which is heavily indebted to his theory of symbolic exchange.
Abstract: The starting point for any understanding of Jean Baudrillard's media theory is his concept of `communication'. This is heavily indebted to his theory of symbolic exchange, drawn from the Durkheimian tradition running through Durkheim, Mauss, Caillois and Bataille. Common to all these authors is s specific view of human relations, derived from their anthropology, as involving both a communication and a confrontation. Baudrillard, therefore, sees the modern semiotic order as based on the destruction of these symbolic relations, and its media accordingly as founded on a `non-communication'. In symbolic exchange, however, Baudrillard presents a complete and coherent theory of power, and his theory of communication illustrates the possibilities of transformation and reversal of established power and the system of non-communication which the reinstitution of symbolic relations can bring about.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on the recent work of Slavoj Žižek and his extensive critique of poststructuralism and deconstruction from a Lacanian perspective, and explore the potential of such an approach for an analysis of crucial themes in British political culture.
Abstract: This article focuses on the recent work of Slavoj Žižek and his extensive critique of poststructuralism and deconstruction from a Lacanian perspective In this context, it examines Žižek's provocative approach to questions of social reality, ideology and nationalism, and explores the potential of such an approach for an analysis of crucial themes in British political culture In addition, the article investigates the nature of the encounter between psychoanalysis and deconstruction — and especially where explicit referral is made to the terrain of politics — with a view to breaking the apparent deadlock that has emerged Through the development of a post-Marxist critique, it is argued that an alternative perspective can be formulated which combines the insights of both psychoanalysis and deconstruction and, at the same time, is able to transcend the limitations of each
TL;DR: Virilio's work as commentator and critic of new media forms takes its inspiration from the urgent need for an ethical dimension to our accommodation of these media in already complex social formations.
Abstract: Virilio's work as commentator and critic of new media forms takes its inspiration from the urgent need for an ethical dimension to our accommodation of these media in already complex social formations. Although Virilio relies upon a Catholic humanist liberalism and, it is argued here, a very specific mode of philosophical individualism and although these premises govern and constrain the grounding of his ethical critique in a simplistic conceptualization of representation, the article argues that certain facets of his thesis are still worthy of serious contemplation. Virilio's scenarios of disempowernment and indifferentiation can be re-read in the light of media theoretical concepts, specifically those concerned with suture, apparatus, dialogue, communication and mediation to provide an ethical aesthetics of the technologization of community.
TL;DR: In contrast to other approaches, modernity in this article is not dealt with as a historical concept but as a normative-aesthetic term and as a mythical narrative in the sense of Nietzsche's ''eternal recurrence of the same'' as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: In contrast to other approaches, `modernity' in this article is not dealt with as a historical concept but as a normative-aesthetic term and as a mythical narrative in the sense of Nietzsche's `eternal recurrence of the same'. Paradoxically, there still exists a semantic shift between different historical concepts of modernity beginning in late antiquity and the Middle Ages up to the present confusions about `postmodernity'. However, the aesthetical bias of the discourse of modernity prevents any serious interpretation which is able to refer these semantic shifts directly to some clear and incontestable socio-structural facts and developments. In its contemporary sociological form this discourse overlaps on the contrary with some main trends in aesthetic theory and practice: the exchangeability between `old' and `new' and the permanent suspension of the boundaries between `art' and `life'. Consequently, aesthetics as well as sociology are describing modernity as a cultural system which is `playing' with i...
TL;DR: The authors traces the significant links that Virilio's dromological analysis posits between the social and political impact of mechanical vehicles and communications media and explores the implications of the concept of spatio-temporal "overexposure".
Abstract: This article traces the significant links that Virilio's dromological analysis posits between the social and political impact of mechanical vehicles and communications media. Focusing on the way that the 'revolutions' of transportation and transmission have fundamentally altered contemporary experiences of space and time, the article explores the implications of Virilio s concept of spatio-temporal 'overexposure". My contention is that Virilio's work has been of critical importance in placing questions about differential spatio-temporal regimes Oin the political agenda. However, his critique of 'tele-presence. is ultimately hampered by his continued attachment to a phenomenological subject, which I argue does not provide an adequate basis from which to rethink the dominant social relations of time and space manifest in the contemporary media.
TL;DR: The authors reconstructs Virilio's thinking of and from the bunker, and identifies the major volte face in his thinking around the theme and image of pure war leading to pure communication.
Abstract: This article reconstructs Virilio's thinking of and from the bunker. Around this theme and image it identifies the major volte face in his thinking. Before and during May '68 Virilio was committed to a project for the revolutionary acceleration of human circulation through oblique cities. He abandoned this in the aftermath of May `68, theorizing the new situation as one of pure war leading to pure communication. The article contrasts Virilio's analysis with that of Baudrillard.