What’s ‘home’ Got to do with it? Contradictory Dynamics in the Domestication of Technology and the Dislocation of Domesticity
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors focus on how we can understand the contradictory dynamic through which communications technologies have been domesticated at the same time that domesticity itself has been dislocated.
Abstract: This article focuses on how we can understand the contradictory dynamicsthrough which communications technologies have been domesticated at the same time that domesticity itself has been dislocated. The article addresses questions of historical periodization and the need for a more developed historical perspective on the futurological debates about the new technologies with which so much of media and cultural studies is concerned today.
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TL;DR: A review of the contributions that the discipline of geography is making to gender and migration research can be found in this paper, where gender differences are examined most centrally in relation to specific spatialities of power.
Abstract: This article provides a review of the contributions that the discipline of geography is making to gender and migration research. In geographic analyses of migration, gender differences are examined most centrally in relation to specific spatialities of power. In particular, feminist geographers have developed insight into the gender dimensions of the social construction of scale, the politics of interlinkages between place and identity, and the socio-spatial production of borders. Supplementing recent reviews of the gender and migration literature in geography, this article examines the potential for continued cross-fertilization between feminist geography and migration research in other disciplines. The advances made by feminist geographers to migration studies are illustrated through analysis of the findings and debates tied to the subfield's central recent conceptual interventions.
201 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it is acknowledged that communication researchers need to develop more sophisticated and nuanced accounts of the social and individual dynamics of the internet in everyday life, based on a househol...
Abstract: It is acknowledged that communication researchers need to develop more sophisticated and nuanced accounts of the social and individual dynamics of the internet in everyday life. Based on a househol...
164 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the changing character of housing assets, owned homes, and perhaps owner-occupiers themselves, drawing from two studies of UK homebuyers, whose lives are entangled in the materiality of housing, the meaning of home, and the mobilisation of money.
Abstract: This paper is about the changing character of housing assets, owned homes, and perhaps owner-occupiers themselves. It draws from two studies of UK homebuyers, whose lives are entangled in the materiality of housing, the meaning of home, and the mobilisation of money. This melange is facilitated by a new generation of financial services that render housing wealth interchangeable with the cash economy, turning owned homes into a hybrid of money and materials. In total 150 qualitative narratives are interrogated to document three key trends. First, a shift of households' disposition, from opting for ownership by chance to banking on housing by design. Second, a change of financial orientation as property-holding citizens illapse into asset-accumulating investors. Third, an ethically charged encounter between the governance of housing and the micropolitics of home, which is prompted by the growing tangibility of housing wealth as it inspires new styles of, and imperatives for, consumption.
158 citations
Cites background from "What’s ‘home’ Got to do with it? Co..."
...Foucault (1980) wrote of the importance of attending to the `little tactics of habitat' as well as the `grand strategies of geopolitics', and David Morley (2003) has argued for the pertinence of this in work on housing and home. These small tactics, moreover, have effects. Alex Preda (2004) argues that `figures' are not just dispositions to act but have an actancy of their own, which might exceed the field that contains them. White (2005), similarly, is sympathetic to `̀ character's potential for social and political transformation'' (page 490). So while Bourdieu (2005) suspects that home purchase is an elaborate trap set by governments to provide the construction industry with a market, it is equally important to recognise that homebuyers have agency of their own....
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...Foucault (1980) wrote of the importance of attending to the `little tactics of habitat' as well as the `grand strategies of geopolitics', and David Morley (2003) has argued for the pertinence of this in work on housing and home. These small tactics, moreover, have effects. Alex Preda (2004) argues that `figures' are not just dispositions to act but have an actancy of their own, which might exceed the field that contains them. White (2005), similarly, is sympathetic to `̀ character's potential for social and political transformation'' (page 490)....
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...Foucault (1980) wrote of the importance of attending to the `little tactics of habitat' as well as the `grand strategies of geopolitics', and David Morley (2003) has argued for the pertinence of this in work on housing and home. These small tactics, moreover, have effects. Alex Preda (2004) argues that `figures' are not just dispositions to act but have an actancy of their own, which might exceed the field that contains them....
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...Foucault (1980) wrote of the importance of attending to the `little tactics of habitat' as well as the `grand strategies of geopolitics', and David Morley (2003) has argued for the pertinence of this in work on housing and home....
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TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce the domestication approach, its origins, its key elements, and its general contributions and limitations, and examine ways in which the approach could be developed.
Abstract: The article first introduces the domestication approach, its origins, its key elements, and its general contributions and limitations. It then examines ways in which the domestication analysis could be developed. One issue concerns contemporary objects of study and research questions given developments in information and communication technologies since the earliest domestication studies. Other issues include developing the analysis of the centrality of ICTs in our lives. Where appropriate, these issues are illustrated by considering examples of the computer, the Internet, and the mobile phone. To illustrate how the domestication framework can inform wider academic and policy fields, the final section considers its contribution to debates about the digital divide. RESUME Cet article porte sur la domestication en tant que theorie sur la maniere dont l’individu integre de nouveaux objets dans son quotidien. Il decrit les grandes lignes de cette approche, ses origines, ses elements cles et ses contributions et limitations generales. Il examine ensuite certaines manieres dont on pourrait faire avancer cette theorie aujourd’hui. Une possibilite concernerait le developpement des technologies de l’information et de la communication (TIC) depuis les premieres etudes en domestication, et l’impact des TIC sur les objets d’etude et les questions de recherche contemporains. Une autre possibilite consisterait a approfondir l’analyse de la centralite des TIC dans la vie quotidienne. Cet article, quand cela s’avere pertinent, a recours aux exemples de l’ordinateur, de l’Internet et du telephone mobile. La section finale considere la contribution de la domestication aux debats sur le fosse numerique, afin de montrer comment cette theorie peut jeter de la lumiere sur des questions academiques et politiques plus vastes.
146 citations
Cites background from "What’s ‘home’ Got to do with it? Co..."
...…at other times working out how exactly to fit them into their everyday routines. this is the micro-level of domestication discussed in the rest of this article, although some other authors explore the processes of domestication in society: Sørensen (2005) on the car, Morley (2005) on tV....
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TL;DR: The authors explored a number of unanswered questions and outstanding issues in contemporary audience research, such as the role of cultural power, the essentialism in the conceptualization of categories of audience members, the strengths and limitations of the encoding/decoding model, models of intellectual progress in the field, and the new media and technologies of newness.
Abstract: As its title implies, this article explores a number of unanswered questions and outstanding issues in contemporary audience research These include: models of the “active audience”; questions of cultural power; global media and transnational audiences; methodologies in audience research; problems of essentialism in the conceptualization of categories of audience members; the strengths and limitations of the encoding/decoding model; models of intellectual progress in the field; the new media and technologies of “newness” My title is derived from Bertolt Brecht's “Anecdotes of Mr Keuner” in which he extols the virtue of thinking up questions to which we do not have answers (Brecht, 1966) Working from this principle, rather than trying to formulate solutions to the problems of our field, my contribution here is based on questions in media audience research to which I, at least, do not have the answers, as a way of taking stock of what exactly it is that we think we now know about the field
123 citations
Cites background from "What’s ‘home’ Got to do with it? Co..."
...…of the mobile phone and the fully wired `smart home`, the familiar story of the domestication of the media will have to be complemented by the new narrative of their de-domestication – but to regard this whole arena as somehow ‘non-political’ seems a very gendered miscalculation (cf Morley 2003)....
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TL;DR: The authors examine how things are sold and traded in a variety of social and cultural settings, both present and past, focusing on culturally defined aspects of exchange and socially regulated processes of circulation, illuminate the ways in which people find value in things and things give value to social relations.
Abstract: The meaning that people attribute to things necessarily derives from human transactions and motivations, particularly from how those things are used and circulated. The contributors to this volume examine how things are sold and traded in a variety of social and cultural settings, both present and past. Focusing on culturally defined aspects of exchange and socially regulated processes of circulation, the essays illuminate the ways in which people find value in things and things give value to social relations. By looking at things as if they lead social lives, the authors provide a new way to understand how value is externalized and sought after. They discuss a wide range of goods - from oriental carpets to human relics - to reveal both that the underlying logic of everyday economic life is not so far removed from that which explains the circulation of exotica, and that the distinction between contemporary economics and simpler, more distant ones is less obvious than has been thought. As the editor argues in his introduction, beneath the seeming infinitude of human wants, and the apparent multiplicity of material forms, there in fact lie complex, but specific, social and political mechanisms that regulate taste, trade, and desire. Containing contributions from American and British social anthropologists and historians, the volume bridges the disciplines of social history, cultural anthropology, and economics, and marks a major step in our understanding of the cultural basis of economic life and the sociology of culture. It will appeal to anthropologists, social historians, economists, archaeologists, and historians of art.
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Book•
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01 Jan 1958
TL;DR: In this paper, Bachelard examines the places in which we place our conscious and unconscious thoughts and guides us through a stream of cerebral meditations on poetry, art, and the blooming of consciousness itself.
Abstract: Beloved and contemplated by philosophers, architects, writers, and literary theorists alike, Bachelard's lyrical, landmark work examines the places in which we place our conscious and unconscious thoughts and guides us through a stream of cerebral meditations on poetry, art, and the blooming of consciousness itself. Houses and rooms; cellars and attics; drawers, chests and wardrobes; nests and shells; nooks and corners: no space is too vast or too small to be filled by our thoughts and our reveries. With an introduction by acclaimed philosopher Richard Kearney and a foreword by author Mark Z. Danielewski.
2,936 citations
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01 Jan 1999
TL;DR: Friedman's From Beirut to Jerusalem as mentioned in this paper is a powerful and accessible account of globalization, the new world order that has replaced the cold war, by the award-winning author.
Abstract: A powerful and accessible account of globalization - the new world order that has replaced the cold war - by the award-winning author of From Beirut to Jerusalem. More than anything else, globalization is shaping world affairs today. We cannot interpret the day's news, or know where to invest our money, unless we understand this new system - the defining force in international relations and domestic policies worldwide. The unprecedented integration of finance, markets, nation states and technology is driving change accross the globe at an ever-increasing speed. And while much of the world is intent on building a better Lexus, on streamlining their societies and economies for the global marketplace, many people feel their traditional identities threatened and are reverting to elemental struggles over who owns which olive tree, which strip of land. Thomas Friedman has a unique vantage point on this worldwide phenomenon. The New York Times foreign affairs columnist has travelled the globe, interviewing everyone from Brazilian peasants to new entrepreneurs in Indonesia, to Islamic students, to the financial wizards on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley, to find out what globalization means for them, and for all of us. This ground-breaking book is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how the world really works today.
2,086 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1974TL;DR: Television: Technology and Cultural Form was first published in 1974, long before the dawn of multi-channel TV, or the reality and celebrity shows that now pack the schedules as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Television: Technology and Cultural Form was first published in 1974, long before the dawn of multi-channel TV, or the reality and celebrity shows that now pack the schedules. Yet Williams' analysis of television's history, its institutions, programmes and practices, and its future prospects, remains remarkably prescient. Williams stresses the importance of technology in shaping the cultural form of television, while always resisting the determinism of McLuhan's dictum that 'the medium is the message'. If the medium really is the message, Williams asks, what is left for us to do or say? Williams argues that, on the contrary, we as viewers have the power to disturb, disrupt and to distract the otherwise cold logic of history and technology - not just because television is part of the fabric of our daily lives, but because new technologies continue to offer opportunities, momentarily outside the sway of transnational corporations or the grasp of media moguls, for new forms of self and political expression.
1,950 citations