Showing papers in "Theory, Culture & Society in 2001"
TL;DR: The authors explores contemporary biopolitics in the light of Michel Foucault's oft quoted suggestion that contemporary politics calls ''life itself'' into question, and suggests that recent developm...
Abstract: This article explores contemporary biopolitics in the light of Michel Foucault's oft quoted suggestion that contemporary politics calls `life itself' into question. It suggests that recent developm...
1,144 citations
TL;DR: The concept of network sociality is introduced in this article, which argues for a shift from a model of sociality based on community towards a network socialite, which is particularly visible in urban spaces and in the cultural industries.
Abstract: This article explores some current transformations of the social. It argues for a shift from a model of sociality based on community towards a network sociality. This shift is particularly visible in urban spaces and in the cultural industries. However, it seems to become paradigmatic more widely of the information society. The article is to be read as a cultural hypothesis. In the first part I introduce some examples that document the rise of a network sociality. Most of these examples are drawn from a two-year ethnographic study of London's new media. The second part consists of a critique of some theoretical accounts of contemporary transformations of sociality. The third part is an attempt to outline the concept of network sociality. It is a form of sociality that is ephemeral but intense, it is informational and technological, it combines work and play, it is disembedded and generic, and it emerges in the context of individualization.
639 citations
TL;DR: This article propose an anaysis of gender that is broad enough to house the full range of feminist concerns, those central to the old socialist-feminism as well as identity-based conceptions.
Abstract: In the course of the last 30 years, feminist theories of gender have shifted from quasi-Marxist, labor-centered conceptions to putatively ‘post-Marxist’ culture-and identity-based conceptions. Reflecting a broader political move from redistribution to recognition, this shift has been double edged. On the one hand, it has broadened feminist politics to encompass legitimate issues of representation, identity and difference. Yet, in the context of an ascendant neoliberalism, feminist struggles for recognition may be serving less to enrich struggles for redistribution than to displace the latter. Thus, instead of arriving at a broader, richer paradigm that could encompass both redistribution and recognition, feminists appear to have traded one truncated paradigm for another – a truncated economism for a truncated culturalism. This article aims to resist that trend. I propose an anaysis of gender that is broad enough to house the full range of feminist concerns, those central to the old socialist-feminism as w...
570 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a tente de comprendre le changement normatif opere entre ideal de redistribution des richesses, and le besoin de reconnaissance individuel, base selon lui sur une desillusion profonde des individus.
Abstract: Dans cet article, l'A tente de comprendre le changement normatif opere entre ideal de redistribution des richesses, et le besoin de reconnaissance individuel, base selon lui sur une desillusion profonde des individus. Il tente de clarifier la notion et rapelle les theories hegeliennes de la reconnaissance reciproque
283 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present the implications, objectives and initial results of a current ethnographic research project on music lovers, focusing on gestures, objects, mediums, devices and relations engaged in a form of playing or listening, which amounts to more than the actualization of a taste ''already there''.
Abstract: This article presents the implications, objectives and initial results of a current ethnographic research project on music lovers. It looks at problems of theory and method posed by such research if it is not conceived only as the explanation of external determinisms, relating taste to the social origins of the amateur or to the aesthetic properties of the works. Our aim is, on the contrary, from long interviews and observations undertaken with music lovers, mostly in the classical field, to concentrate on gestures, objects, mediums, devices and relations engaged in a form of playing or listening, which amounts to more than the actualization of a taste `already there', for they are redefined during the action, with a result that is partly uncertain. This is why amateurs' attachments and ways of doing things can both engage and form subjectivities, rather than merely recording social labels, and have a history, irreducible to that of the taste for works.
274 citations
TL;DR: According to the anti-hybridity arguments, hybridity is inauthentic and "multiculturalism lite" as mentioned in this paper, and the real problem is not hybridity, but boundaries and the social proclivity to boundary fetishism.
Abstract: Take just about any exercise in social mapping and it is the hybrids, those that straddle categories, that are missing. Take most arrangements of multiculturalism and it is the hybrids that are not counted, not accommodated. So what? This article is about the recognition of hybridity, in-betweenness. The first section discusses the varieties of hybridity and the widening range of phenomena to which the term now applies. According to anti-hybridity arguments, hybridity is inauthentic and 'multiculturalism lite'. Examining these arguments provides an opportunity to deepen and fine-tune our perspective. What is missing in the anti-hybridity arguments is historical depth; in this treatment the third section deals with the longue duree and proposes multiple historical layers of hybridity. The fourth section concerns the politics of boundaries, for in the end the real problem is not hybridity - which is common throughout history - but boundaries and the social proclivity to boundary fetishism. Hybridity is a problem only from the point of view of essentializing boundaries. What hybridity means varies not only over time but also in different cultures and this informs different patterns of hybridity. Then we come back to the original question: so what? The importance of hybridity is that it problematizes boundaries
241 citations
TL;DR: In the last decade, as in many Southeast Asian mega-cities, the reshaping of public space through the creation of new shopping malls and recreation places as mentioned in this paper went hand in hand with the 'gentrification' of certain areas of the city of Cairo, which is continuing at the expense of pushing away the poor.
Abstract: Egypt witnessed in the last decade, as in many Southeast Asian mega-cities, the reshaping of public space through the creation of new shopping malls and recreation places. This went hand in hand with the `gentrification' of certain areas of the city of Cairo, which is continuing at the expense of pushing away the poor. The 1980s and 1990s also witnessed increasing prosperity among certain classes and the appropriation of new consumer lifestyles. This article attempts to look at the variations of shopping malls in Cairo and the new phenomenon of hybridization of tastes. One can observe the creation of `chic' shopping malls functioning parallel to popular and working-class malls which are frequented by different classes, depending on the various districts of Cairo. These newly created public spaces are gendered. The malls provide new outlets for deprived youth to experience mingling and flirting, in other words, these spaces offer new forms of `mixity' between sexes. A glimpse at the `grands magasins' is br...
167 citations
TL;DR: The Nuestra America American Century as discussed by the authors is a counter-hegemonic 20th century, which is defined as a set of transnational alliances and struggles focused on the dynamic equilibrium between the principle of equality and the principles of difference.
Abstract: According to Hegel, universal history goes from the East to the West. This idea underlies the dominant conception of the 20th century as the European American Century. In this article, I submit that there has been another, subaltern 20th century, the Nuestra America American Century. The European American Century carries into the new millennium its empirical arrogance in the form of neoliberal globalization; the Nuestra America American Century, to be reinvented, bears the seeds of counter-hegemonic globalization. Counter-hegemonic globalization is understood as a set of transnational alliances and struggles focused on the dynamic equilibrium between the principle of equality and the principle of difference. The article identifies five main themes in which the clash between the two alternative globalizations will occur in the next decades.
116 citations
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TL;DR: According to anti-hybridity arguments, hybridity is inauthentic and "multiculturalism lite" as discussed by the authors, and it is the hybrids that are not counted, not accommodated.
Abstract: Take just about any exercise in social mapping and it is the hybrids, those that straddle categories, that are missing. Take most arrangements of multiculturalism and it is the hybrids that are not counted, not accommodated. So what? This article is about the recognition of hybridity, in-betweenness. The first section discusses the varieties of hybridity and the widening range of phenomena to which the term now applies. According to anti-hybridity arguments, hybridity is inauthentic and ‘multiculturalism lite’. Examining these arguments provides an opportunity to deepen and fine-tune our perspective. What is missing in the antihybridity arguments is historical depth; in this treatment the third section deals with the longue durEeand proposes multiple historical layers of hybridity. The fourth section concerns the politics of boundaries, for in the end the real problem is not hybridity – which is common throughout history – but boundaries and the social proclivity to boundary fetishism. Hybridity is a prob...
109 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the idea of "technological forms of life" is introduced, which is a mode of conceiving of culture that arose at the turn of the 20th century in conjunction with phenomenology.
Abstract: This article attempts to gain purchase on the information society via the notion of `technological forms of life'. It first addresses the idea of `forms of life'. Forms of life are a mode of conceiving of culture that arose at the turn of the 20th century in conjunction with phenomenology. Previously, in early modernity, culture was conceived very much on a representational model. The rest of the essay explores the possibility that a new paradigm of culture, i.e. technological forms of life is emerging at the turn of the 21st century. Technological forms of life are understood as `culture-at-a-distance'. They are the flattening, stretch-out, speed-up and lift-out of forms of life. They are forms of life become non-linear. They involve the exteriorization of inferiority and reflexivity.
103 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines questions of politics and identity in the age of multicultures and draws together the contribution of outstanding contributors such as Fraser, Honneth, O'Neill, Bauman, Lister, Gilroy and De Swann to explore how difference and multiculturalism take on the arguments of universalist humanism.
Abstract: Are there any cultural universals left? Does multiculturalism inevitably involve a slide into moral relativism? This timely and insightful book examines questions of politics and identity in the age of multicultures. It draws together the contribution of outstanding contributors such as Fraser, Honneth, O'Neill, Bauman, Lister, Gilroy and De Swann to explore how difference and multiculturalism take on the arguments of universalist humanism. The approach taken derives from the traditions of cultural sociology and cultural studies rather than political science and philosophy.
The book takes seriously the argument that the social bond and recognition are in danger through globalization and deterritorialization. It is a major contribution to the emerging debate on the form of post-national forms of civil society.
TL;DR: The politics of recognition, though, tends to be viewed and practiced, wrongly, as an alternative rather than complement of distributive justice, thereby inflaming rather than mollifying the intensity of recognition wars as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: With the removal of the ‘final state’ vision from the perception of historical process recasts the coexistence of (proliferating) differences as a perpetual condition of modernity. Given that ‘difference’ masks all too often inequality, perpetuity of the ‘wars of recognition’ is therefore a likely prospect, since the instability of all extant and emerging power settings triggers reconnaissance-through-battle. The politics of recognition, though, tends to be viewed and practiced, wrongly, as an alternative rather than complement of distributive justice, thereby inflaming rather than mollifying the intensity of ‘recognition wars’.
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that the role of ridicule in embarrassment is overlooked and that the embarrassment of others is often a matter of laughter and enjoyment, which is crucial for the socialization of embarrassment, which depends on the possibility of ridicule.
Abstract: This article suggests that there are intrinsic links between humour and embarrassment and that both are crucial for the maintenance of social life. Goffman and others have claimed that embarrassment plays a key role in the maintenance of social order. However, it is argued that Goffman overlooked the role of ridicule in embarrassment. In consequence, he formulated a `nice-guy' theory of embarrassment, suggesting that onlookers empathize with the embarrassment of others and seek to diminish that embarrassment. By contrast, it is suggested that the embarrassment of others is often a matter of laughter and enjoyment. Such a link between embarrassment and humour is crucial for the socialization of embarrassment, which depends on the possibility of ridicule. This is illustrated by an incident in Freud's classic case-history of Little Hans. The transformation of embarrassing incidents into humorous narrations is also discussed. It is suggested that the link between humour and embarrassment is theoretically sign...
TL;DR: The concept of technology inhabits anything, it most emphatically inhabits our ways of speaking about ourselves, reifying many different projects as the extensions of one - an enchantment with creativity.
Abstract: How do we inhabit technology? This theme for a conference on the way in which technology (apparently mobile, rootless, individualistic) at once surrounds us and becomes part of our very bodies (becomes `inhabited', with connotations of identity, community, locality) prompts reflections from Melanesia. If the concept of technology inhabits anything, it most emphatically inhabits our ways of speaking about ourselves, reifying many different projects as the extensions of one - an enchantment with creativity. The same language imagines `nature' existing apart from human creations. It is clear that the life of these old Euro-American divisions is not over yet. Intellectual property protocols, notably patenting, foster the divide between `technology' and `nature' while presaging its collapse. This article points to some alternatives, incidentally offering a candidate for `habitation' that has nothing to do with community or locality.
TL;DR: In this paper, Luhmann and Derrida start with a common assumption in their analyses of the law and the economy -the foundational paradox of social institutions. But then autopoiesis and deconstruc...
Abstract: Niklas Luhmann and Jacques Derrida start with a common assumption in their analyses of the law and the economy - the foundational paradox of social institutions. But then autopoiesis and deconstruc...
TL;DR: This paper propose an anaysis of gender that is broad enough to house the full range of feminist concerns, those central to the old socialistfeminism as well as those rooted in the cultural turn.
Abstract: In the course of the last 30 years, feminist theories of gender have shifted from quasi-Marxist, labor-centered conceptions to putatively ‘post-Marxist’ cultureand identity-based conceptions. Reflecting a broader political move from redistribution to recognition, this shift has been double edged. On the one hand, it has broadened feminist politics to encompass legitimate issues of representation, identity and difference. Yet, in the context of an ascendant neoliberalism, feminist struggles for recognition may be serving less to enrich struggles for redistribution than to displace the latter. Thus, instead of arriving at a broader, richer paradigm that could encompass both redistribution and recognition, feminists appear to have traded one truncated paradigm for another – a truncated economism for a truncated culturalism. This article aims to resist that trend. I propose an anaysis of gender that is broad enough to house the full range of feminist concerns, those central to the old socialistfeminism as well as those rooted in the cultural turn. I also propose a correspondingly broad conception of justice, capable of encompassing both distribution and recognition, and a non-identitarian account of recognition, capable of synergizing with redistribution. I conclude by examining some practical problems that arise when we try to envision institutional reforms that could redress gender maldistribution and gender misrecognition simultaneously.
TL;DR: In this article, it is argued that there is a need to ground analysis in a presumption of social networks and coalitions, rather than in the concept of recognition, and a wider range of sociological concepts to capture the nature of the social including, among many others, coalition, network and reference groups.
Abstract: This article considers how to go beyond the polarities of individualism and communitarianism in the analysis of contemporary political cultures in a global era. It is argued that there is a need to ground analysis in a presumption of social networks and coalitions, rather than in the concept of recognition. Political cultures are always already riddled with complexity and cross-cutting relations with other political cultures, coalitions and alliances. Within the politics of recognition, the conventional operationalization of the concept of the ‘social’ via the concept of ‘community’ misleadingly narrows the analysis of key aspects of social relations. Rather, we should invoke a wider range of sociological concepts to capture the nature of the social including, among many others, coalition, network and reference groups. In particular, the selection of the ‘other’ against whom aspirational comparisons are made is a complex social process, much previously analysed by reference group theory. The contemporary ...
TL;DR: A special section in TCS on the work of Niklas Luhmann is described in this article, with an introduction to a general introduction to the work with an emphasis on the bas...
Abstract: The article is an introduction to a special section in TCS on the work of Niklas Luhmann. The first part of the article provides a general introduction to Luhmann's work with an emphasis on the bas...
TL;DR: Notions of recognition and difference do not inform the mainstream debate about welfare reform, which is, instead, dominated by a dichotomous discourse of active modernization vs passive welfare reform as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Notions of recognition and difference do not inform the mainstream debate about welfare reform, which is, instead, dominated by a dichotomous discourse of active modernization vs passive ‘welfare d...
TL;DR: The authors argue that massive violence and destruction is a manifestation of modernity, even its very essence, or rather its total opposite: "a breakdown of civilization" or "the end of civilization".
Abstract: Are massive violence and destruction a manifestation of ‘modernity’, even its very essence, or rather its total opposite: ‘a breakdown of civilization’? Although ostensibly Norbert Elias mainly occ...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the cultural dimension in democratic struggle from the vantage point of the public sphere and propose that in the public domain there take place competing and changing interpretations over the ''public'' through continuous articulation of two analytically distinct representations of public interest - democratic and communal discourses.
Abstract: This article explores the cultural dimension in democratic struggle from the vantage point of the public sphere. It proposes that in the public sphere there take place competing and changing interpretations over the `public' through continuous articulation of two analytically distinct representations of public interest - democratic and communal discourses. In an empirical study of the recent credibility crisis in Hong Kong, the author demonstrates first, how the governing coalition sought to maintain its authority through a discourse of `administrative efficiency' embedded in the hegemonic narrative of success, and second, how the challenging discourse of democracy regained momentum through de-mystification of the hegemonic narrative in the event of governing crises. The case study of the recent bird flu crisis offers a specific account of political and cultural challenge to bureaucratic paternalism in the postcolonial context. It is argued that the challenge was powerfully presented as the crisis became ...
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TL;DR: In this article, a theory of tropes that emphasizes their historical production and political effects is developed. But it is limited to a single genre: the "Sixties" trope of the 1960s.
Abstract: Combining insights from narrative analysis in sociology and trope theory in anthropology, this article develops a theory of tropes that emphasizes their historical production and political effects. Tropes function politically to enable some narratives, identities and resolutions while foreclosing others. As a powerful tool for socio-historical analysis, a consideration of tropes is crucial for deconstructing the taken-for-granted predicates and the `dangerous' consequences of political narratives. To illustrate the argument, the trope of `the Sixties' is analyzed as a case study.
TL;DR: This paper explored the politics and culture of Creole cosmopolitanism, which emerged in the French post-slavery colonies and offered a framework to imagine oneself in the world, as a form of resistance to the French assimilative project, to absolutist ethnicisms and to abstract universalism.
Abstract: This article explores the politics and culture of Creole cosmopolitanism, which emerged in the French post-slavery colonies. It argues that Creole cosmopolitanism offers a framework to imagine oneself in the world. As a form of resistance to the French assimilative project, to absolutist ethnicisms and to abstract universalism, Creole cosmopolitanism imagines a world of trans-local solidarities, a way of being-in-the-world that acknowledges difference and diversity.
TL;DR: An exploration of the broad parameters of the post-nation-state sociology which is called for by a powerful and inter-related set of political, economic and cultural factors which are extending glo... as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: An exploration of the broad parameters of the post-nation-state sociology which is called for by a powerful and inter-related set of political, economic and cultural factors which are extending glo...
TL;DR: The authors take the suggestions by Jameson and Žižek that Hardt and Negri's recent Empire is an important ''new theoretical synthesis'' and a challenge to a politically complacent Cultural Studies.
Abstract: This article takes the suggestions by Jameson and Žižek that Hardt and Negri's recent Empire is an important `new theoretical synthesis' and a challenge to a politically complacent Cultural Studies...
TL;DR: This paper argued that the polemics accompanying the valuation of Islamist social movements occur because studies of political Islam are often oriented towards the debate over the relative worth of Western and Islamist routes to modernity and the civilizing process.
Abstract: This article argues that the polemics accompanying the valuation of Islamist social movements occur because studies of political Islam are often oriented towards the debate over the relative worth of Western and Islamist routes to modernity and the civilizing process. The method pursued by Weber to delineate the Christian activism of The Protestant Ethic - minus its debilitating Eurocentrism - is suggested as a helpful model for analyzing the complexity of Islamist interventions. These theoretical remarks are grounded in a study of the transformation of public space effected by the Turkish Islamist party Refah upon its winning the Greater Istanbul Municipality in the 1994 local elections. The construction of Islamist tea gardens/restaurants reveals the conflicting civilizing practices of Islamists themselves as well as the plurality of interests and ethical commitments seeking shelter under the universal ethic of the Islamic ummet.
TL;DR: For a place that is so familiar, home is peculiarly difficult to define and to research as discussed by the authors, because people construct their image of home in memory and imagination, and people rarely think about home at this level unless reappraisal is forced upon them by a significant life event like migration between cultures or because of cultural invasion from without.
Abstract: For a place that is so familiar, home is peculiarly difficult to define and to research. Based on an extended review of recent literature on home, the article shows that there is no place like `home' because people construct its image in memory and imagination. Home, it is argued, is imaged on many different levels. At a surface level, home is known in terms of its location, fabric, decoration, furnishing and amenity - it is a place that is known intimately. At a deeper level, home is defined in terms of the kinds of relationships people have, or would like to have, with others inside and outside of the home. Deeper still, home is a representation of cultural identity and provides a collective sense of social permanency and security. People rarely think about home at this level, it is argued, unless reappraisal is forced upon them by a significant life event like migration between cultures or because of cultural invasion from without. The article argues for an intensification of research that starts from ...
TL;DR: In a first retrospective of Niklas Luhmann's work, it was surprising to see that concepts regarding time and temporality received comparatively little attention as discussed by the authors, and the answer lies in our contemporary tendency to see the future as a field of risk-calculation.
Abstract: In a first retrospective of Niklas Luhmann's work, it is surprising to see that concepts regarding time and temporality received comparatively little attention. This article starts with the hypothesis that, over the years, Luhmann tended to subsume and deal with topics regarding time under the notion of `contingency'. Identified as the central `Eigenwert' of modern societies, Luhmann seems to suggest that contingency (that is, a view on phenomena as `neither necessary nor impossible') ended up modifying the three classical time dimensions. In the case of the future dimension (which has always been associated with contingency), the question arises of what effect a modification of contingency through contingency as social Eigenwert might yield. The answer proposed is that this effect lies in our contemporary tendency to see the future as a field of risk-calculation.
TL;DR: The spread of evangelical Christianity across the globe is characterized by both a high degree of similarity in liturgy, symbolism and methods of organization and communication, and at the same time a remarkable ability to plug in to local indigenous rituals, symbols and practices related to possession and magic, to disease and healing as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The spread of evangelical Christianity across the globe is characterized by both a high degree of similarity in liturgy, symbolism and methods of organization and communication, and at the same time a remarkable ability to plug in to local indigenous rituals, symbols and practices related to possession and magic, to disease and healing. This poses complex questions for understanding ethnicity and also cultural globalization, which are explored using contemporary and historical sources relating to South and West Africa and to Brazil. The ability of those evangelical churches which advertise their ability to transmit healing powers most insistently, to transpose healing from individual to community, to replace mystery with transparency, is set against their opportunistic and clientelistic political involvements and lack of transparency in their organization.
TL;DR: The article as mentioned in this paper is an edited version of a set of notes written by Luhmann on poetry and social theory, mainly exploring notions of incommunicability, silence and latency.
Abstract: The article is an edited version of a set of notes written by Luhmann on poetry and social theory. It is a series of reflections on different paradoxical forms of communication, mainly exploring notions of incommunicability, silence and latency. The article also deals with poetry, religion and the relationship between consciousness and communication. Luhmann's notes have appeared in their original form in German in the journal Soziale Systeme (Vol. 5, 1999).