Volume I: Thinking the Natural. Volume II: The Nature of 'Human Nature'. Volume III: From... more Volume I: Thinking the Natural. Volume II: The Nature of 'Human Nature'. Volume III: From 'Nature' to Natures': Contestation and Reconstruction.Volume IV: Reconfiguring the Social/Natural Interface.
The Uses of Sport: A Critical Study, despite being a clearly written and structurally well-argued... more The Uses of Sport: A Critical Study, despite being a clearly written and structurally well-argued work, is a most frustrating experience for the reader, especially one with any familiarity with the explosion of sport studies across the disciplines in the past two decades or so. Throughout the text, authors John Hughson, David Inglis, and Marcus Free make repeated arguments for the inclusion of sport in Cultural Studies and its attendant disciplines of sociology and ethnography (though, unfortunately, they have very little to say about the field of history, a discipline that has seen the emergence of sport as a viable and mainstream form of cultural enquiry) as if sport is still regarded as an invalid means of cultural enquiry. Indeed, this argument is severely compromised by the nature of The Uses of Sport, which is largely based on secondary source research, culled together to contribute to the authors' over-arching theoretical arguments. The fact that so many studies of the nature and significance of sport in culture, especially in the United Kingdom and Australia, seems to signify that the authors' decrying of the exclusion of sport is somewhat retrograde. The primary goal of Hughson and coauthors is to re-situate sport within the context of Cultural Studies; they advocate a return to the more traditional, and ultimately Marxist-infused, variety of the sort associated with Raymond Williams and Richard Hoggart and the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, in the late 1950s and 1960s. However, in so doing, the authors essentialize and engage in reductionism, not just of the varied field of Cultural Studies but, perhaps more troubling, their shibboleth: postmodernism and the postmodern culture, both of which have become so prevalent in Cultural Studies. My fundamental problem with this book centers around the essentialized, reductionist, and flat conceptualization of poststructural theory and the postmodern condition as elucidated in The Uses of Sport. In this way, Hughson and coauthors recall the vibrant debate historians may be familiar with between social and cultural historians in the late 1980s and early 1990s surrounding the rise of gender history. This poststructural version of historical enquiry was attacked owing to its reliance upon the "linguistic turn" of deconstructivist methodologies. Particularly frustrating in light of the authors' anti-postmodern stance is their discussion of the concept of the "post-fan" and "post-fandom." They discuss the advent of this concept, which can be described as a turn to the ironic among certain sets of sporting fans who view their own fandom of a particular club or sport in a disassociated fashion, separating themselves in an ironic way from the "real" or "authentic" sport fan, and ultimately leaving them detached from the team and sport. The post-fan and her or his gaze, then, can be compared with the
This article seeks to contribute to the increasing body of fashion scholarship focused on space. ... more This article seeks to contribute to the increasing body of fashion scholarship focused on space. Along with a spatial turn in human and social sciences, it is increasingly recognized by fashion researchers that spaces and places of fashion matter – but it is less discussed how a theoretical framework could be created to explore these. Thus, a Lefebvrian spatial analysis is considered here. The approach suggested recognizes that dress is fundamentally political, as is the space which it inhabits. Dressed bodies are subject to hegemonic ideologies, but individuals have the power to resist these, too. Some parameters of a spatialized fashion sociology and what benefits such an approach can bring for fashion scholarship more generally are considered. Dress should be understood as spatial practice, which in its turn creates spaces and realities, too. Such a framing allows for analysis of various spaces dressed bodies move through, and of how garments operate in these. Furthermore, it all...
As this handbook amply demonstrates, the range and variety of veiling practices across the world ... more As this handbook amply demonstrates, the range and variety of veiling practices across the world is partly matched by the number and diversity of different sorts of scholar and analyst who work on veiling matters. The field of veiling studies has grown exponentially over the last few decades, encompassing forms of analyses from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives.
The story goes that, when he was asked what he thought were the consequences of the French Revolu... more The story goes that, when he was asked what he thought were the consequences of the French Revolution, the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai replied that it was still too early to tell. The same can be said of the Covid-19 pandemic. No-one knows yet how the pandemic and its multiple and complicated effects will alter the textures of all aspects of life, human and non-human, across the planet in the coming years and decades. But it is clear that, sociologically speaking, some of the consequences are already obvious in general terms. Existing social inequalities and power imbalances have been variously reinforced, extended, and worsened. This is so in terms of all the major sociological axes: class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age, location, legal status, and suchlike. Meanwhile, new inequities are being forged. Conversely, potential novel forms of solidarity and positive social transformation may be in the making, including in terms of modes and forms of citizenship. This is the terrain t...
Calls for “global sociology” are nowadays commonplace. Sometimes they are framed in a positive wa... more Calls for “global sociology” are nowadays commonplace. Sometimes they are framed in a positive way, but more often are presented in a negative register, suggesting that sociology’s evident institutional inequalities and related analytical failings are so great that the discipline risks losing any claims to relevance as the world changes around it. Such demands suggest the need for partial or total “intellectual overhaul” of sociology, to render it fit for purpose today, epistemically, institutionally, and ethically. Sociology is seen to be overwhelmingly located in metropolitan locations in the Developed World and Global North. This institutional imbalance is widely understood to reproduce chronically Euro-American-centred analytical orientations. There is much to be gained today by taking a position on “global sociology”, forwarding one’s own preferred position while simultaneously criticising the positions of others. Sociological careers can be forged and intellectual kudos and re...
Provisional table of contents SECTION 1: The Globalization of Food Production Introduction Chapte... more Provisional table of contents SECTION 1: The Globalization of Food Production Introduction Chapter 2: Delocalising Salmon: 'Tasmanian Atlantic Salmon' and the Emergence of a Universal Artefact Chapter 3: Localization and Globalization in the Livestock Industry (Rhoda Wilkie, University of Aberdeen) SECTION 2: Connecting Globalized Production and Globalized Consumption Editors' Introduction Chapter 4: Fair Trade Food: Connecting Producers and Consumers (Caroline Wright, University of Warwick) Chapter 5: Between Brand and Place: The Global Wine Market, Pedagogies of Tasting and the Tyranny of Parker's Scores (Stefano Ponte, Danish Institute for International Studies) Chapter 6: Globalization and Obesity (Jeffery Sobal, Cornell University and Wm. Alex McIntosh, Texas A&M University) SECTION 3: Globalization, Localization, Contestation, Politics Editors' Introduction Chapter 7: Virtue and Valorisation: 'Local Food' in the United States and France (Michaela DeSoucey, Northwestern University Isabelle Techoueyres, University of Bordeaux) Chapter 8: Reign of the Terroir: the Cult of the Artisan in the French Gastronomic Field (Rick Fantasia, Smith College) Chapter 9: Unpacking the Localist Response to the Globalization of Food (Julie Guthman, University of California, Santa Cruz) Chapter 10: Gastronomic Revolutionaries: Slow food and the Politics of 'Virtuous Globalization' (Alison Leitch, Macquarie University) Chapter 11: Eating Your Way to Global Citizenship (Danielle Gallegos, Murdoch University) SECTION 4: Food, Selfhood, Identity and Globalization Editors' Introduction Chapter 12: Food Nationalism and American Identity (Shyon Baumann and Josee Johnston, University of Toronto) Chapter 13: Contemporary Hispanic Foodways in the San Luis Valley of Colorado: The Local, the Global, the Hybrid and the Processed (Carole Counihan, Millersville University) Chapter 14: Culinary Discourses: A Comparison of Four Ethnographic Settings (Pat Caplan, Goldsmiths College) SECTION 5: The Globalized Menu Editors' Introduction Chapter 15: Feeding Modern Desires: Exotic Restaurants and Expatriate Home Cooking (Krishnendu Ray, New York University) Chapter 16: Completely Unique but Appealing to Everyone: Managing Difference on the Globalized Menu of National and Ethnic Foods (Richard Wilk, Indiana University) Chapter 17: Convergent Tendencies in Global Context: A Comparison of Britain and France (Alan Warde, University of Manchester)
Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change, 2022
Wine from grapes is both ancient and highly modern, increasingly widespread across vast swathes o... more Wine from grapes is both ancient and highly modern, increasingly widespread across vast swathes of the planet, and made, marketed and distributed by a huge industry that directly and indirectly employs millions of people and generates huge profits, at least for some. Yet despite wine's social and cultural importance, sociology and sociologists have remained remarkably quiet about wine, unlike those in other academic disciplines. There is today no such thing as a scholarly field called the sociology of wine. This introductory paper to the special issue on wine and sociology considers this state of affairs, and what might be done about overcoming the relative silence of sociology on wine matters. It offers an extensive literature review covering what international sociological work there is on the wine/sociology interface, considering this relatively modest body of literature in relation to the more voluminous amounts of wine-related analysis offered by anthropologists, geographers, economists, and others. These scholarly domains are represented in the paper by reference to classic works and indicative readings. The paper poses a series of questions as to what a sociological field of wine analysis could look like, and what it would take to build such a thing. It also illustrates how the papers published in the special issue contribute to posing and answering some of these questions.
Volume I: Thinking the Natural. Volume II: The Nature of 'Human Nature'. Volume III: From... more Volume I: Thinking the Natural. Volume II: The Nature of 'Human Nature'. Volume III: From 'Nature' to Natures': Contestation and Reconstruction.Volume IV: Reconfiguring the Social/Natural Interface.
The Uses of Sport: A Critical Study, despite being a clearly written and structurally well-argued... more The Uses of Sport: A Critical Study, despite being a clearly written and structurally well-argued work, is a most frustrating experience for the reader, especially one with any familiarity with the explosion of sport studies across the disciplines in the past two decades or so. Throughout the text, authors John Hughson, David Inglis, and Marcus Free make repeated arguments for the inclusion of sport in Cultural Studies and its attendant disciplines of sociology and ethnography (though, unfortunately, they have very little to say about the field of history, a discipline that has seen the emergence of sport as a viable and mainstream form of cultural enquiry) as if sport is still regarded as an invalid means of cultural enquiry. Indeed, this argument is severely compromised by the nature of The Uses of Sport, which is largely based on secondary source research, culled together to contribute to the authors' over-arching theoretical arguments. The fact that so many studies of the nature and significance of sport in culture, especially in the United Kingdom and Australia, seems to signify that the authors' decrying of the exclusion of sport is somewhat retrograde. The primary goal of Hughson and coauthors is to re-situate sport within the context of Cultural Studies; they advocate a return to the more traditional, and ultimately Marxist-infused, variety of the sort associated with Raymond Williams and Richard Hoggart and the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham, in the late 1950s and 1960s. However, in so doing, the authors essentialize and engage in reductionism, not just of the varied field of Cultural Studies but, perhaps more troubling, their shibboleth: postmodernism and the postmodern culture, both of which have become so prevalent in Cultural Studies. My fundamental problem with this book centers around the essentialized, reductionist, and flat conceptualization of poststructural theory and the postmodern condition as elucidated in The Uses of Sport. In this way, Hughson and coauthors recall the vibrant debate historians may be familiar with between social and cultural historians in the late 1980s and early 1990s surrounding the rise of gender history. This poststructural version of historical enquiry was attacked owing to its reliance upon the "linguistic turn" of deconstructivist methodologies. Particularly frustrating in light of the authors' anti-postmodern stance is their discussion of the concept of the "post-fan" and "post-fandom." They discuss the advent of this concept, which can be described as a turn to the ironic among certain sets of sporting fans who view their own fandom of a particular club or sport in a disassociated fashion, separating themselves in an ironic way from the "real" or "authentic" sport fan, and ultimately leaving them detached from the team and sport. The post-fan and her or his gaze, then, can be compared with the
This article seeks to contribute to the increasing body of fashion scholarship focused on space. ... more This article seeks to contribute to the increasing body of fashion scholarship focused on space. Along with a spatial turn in human and social sciences, it is increasingly recognized by fashion researchers that spaces and places of fashion matter – but it is less discussed how a theoretical framework could be created to explore these. Thus, a Lefebvrian spatial analysis is considered here. The approach suggested recognizes that dress is fundamentally political, as is the space which it inhabits. Dressed bodies are subject to hegemonic ideologies, but individuals have the power to resist these, too. Some parameters of a spatialized fashion sociology and what benefits such an approach can bring for fashion scholarship more generally are considered. Dress should be understood as spatial practice, which in its turn creates spaces and realities, too. Such a framing allows for analysis of various spaces dressed bodies move through, and of how garments operate in these. Furthermore, it all...
As this handbook amply demonstrates, the range and variety of veiling practices across the world ... more As this handbook amply demonstrates, the range and variety of veiling practices across the world is partly matched by the number and diversity of different sorts of scholar and analyst who work on veiling matters. The field of veiling studies has grown exponentially over the last few decades, encompassing forms of analyses from a broad range of disciplinary perspectives.
The story goes that, when he was asked what he thought were the consequences of the French Revolu... more The story goes that, when he was asked what he thought were the consequences of the French Revolution, the Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai replied that it was still too early to tell. The same can be said of the Covid-19 pandemic. No-one knows yet how the pandemic and its multiple and complicated effects will alter the textures of all aspects of life, human and non-human, across the planet in the coming years and decades. But it is clear that, sociologically speaking, some of the consequences are already obvious in general terms. Existing social inequalities and power imbalances have been variously reinforced, extended, and worsened. This is so in terms of all the major sociological axes: class, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age, location, legal status, and suchlike. Meanwhile, new inequities are being forged. Conversely, potential novel forms of solidarity and positive social transformation may be in the making, including in terms of modes and forms of citizenship. This is the terrain t...
Calls for “global sociology” are nowadays commonplace. Sometimes they are framed in a positive wa... more Calls for “global sociology” are nowadays commonplace. Sometimes they are framed in a positive way, but more often are presented in a negative register, suggesting that sociology’s evident institutional inequalities and related analytical failings are so great that the discipline risks losing any claims to relevance as the world changes around it. Such demands suggest the need for partial or total “intellectual overhaul” of sociology, to render it fit for purpose today, epistemically, institutionally, and ethically. Sociology is seen to be overwhelmingly located in metropolitan locations in the Developed World and Global North. This institutional imbalance is widely understood to reproduce chronically Euro-American-centred analytical orientations. There is much to be gained today by taking a position on “global sociology”, forwarding one’s own preferred position while simultaneously criticising the positions of others. Sociological careers can be forged and intellectual kudos and re...
Provisional table of contents SECTION 1: The Globalization of Food Production Introduction Chapte... more Provisional table of contents SECTION 1: The Globalization of Food Production Introduction Chapter 2: Delocalising Salmon: 'Tasmanian Atlantic Salmon' and the Emergence of a Universal Artefact Chapter 3: Localization and Globalization in the Livestock Industry (Rhoda Wilkie, University of Aberdeen) SECTION 2: Connecting Globalized Production and Globalized Consumption Editors' Introduction Chapter 4: Fair Trade Food: Connecting Producers and Consumers (Caroline Wright, University of Warwick) Chapter 5: Between Brand and Place: The Global Wine Market, Pedagogies of Tasting and the Tyranny of Parker's Scores (Stefano Ponte, Danish Institute for International Studies) Chapter 6: Globalization and Obesity (Jeffery Sobal, Cornell University and Wm. Alex McIntosh, Texas A&M University) SECTION 3: Globalization, Localization, Contestation, Politics Editors' Introduction Chapter 7: Virtue and Valorisation: 'Local Food' in the United States and France (Michaela DeSoucey, Northwestern University Isabelle Techoueyres, University of Bordeaux) Chapter 8: Reign of the Terroir: the Cult of the Artisan in the French Gastronomic Field (Rick Fantasia, Smith College) Chapter 9: Unpacking the Localist Response to the Globalization of Food (Julie Guthman, University of California, Santa Cruz) Chapter 10: Gastronomic Revolutionaries: Slow food and the Politics of 'Virtuous Globalization' (Alison Leitch, Macquarie University) Chapter 11: Eating Your Way to Global Citizenship (Danielle Gallegos, Murdoch University) SECTION 4: Food, Selfhood, Identity and Globalization Editors' Introduction Chapter 12: Food Nationalism and American Identity (Shyon Baumann and Josee Johnston, University of Toronto) Chapter 13: Contemporary Hispanic Foodways in the San Luis Valley of Colorado: The Local, the Global, the Hybrid and the Processed (Carole Counihan, Millersville University) Chapter 14: Culinary Discourses: A Comparison of Four Ethnographic Settings (Pat Caplan, Goldsmiths College) SECTION 5: The Globalized Menu Editors' Introduction Chapter 15: Feeding Modern Desires: Exotic Restaurants and Expatriate Home Cooking (Krishnendu Ray, New York University) Chapter 16: Completely Unique but Appealing to Everyone: Managing Difference on the Globalized Menu of National and Ethnic Foods (Richard Wilk, Indiana University) Chapter 17: Convergent Tendencies in Global Context: A Comparison of Britain and France (Alan Warde, University of Manchester)
Journal of Cultural Analysis and Social Change, 2022
Wine from grapes is both ancient and highly modern, increasingly widespread across vast swathes o... more Wine from grapes is both ancient and highly modern, increasingly widespread across vast swathes of the planet, and made, marketed and distributed by a huge industry that directly and indirectly employs millions of people and generates huge profits, at least for some. Yet despite wine's social and cultural importance, sociology and sociologists have remained remarkably quiet about wine, unlike those in other academic disciplines. There is today no such thing as a scholarly field called the sociology of wine. This introductory paper to the special issue on wine and sociology considers this state of affairs, and what might be done about overcoming the relative silence of sociology on wine matters. It offers an extensive literature review covering what international sociological work there is on the wine/sociology interface, considering this relatively modest body of literature in relation to the more voluminous amounts of wine-related analysis offered by anthropologists, geographers, economists, and others. These scholarly domains are represented in the paper by reference to classic works and indicative readings. The paper poses a series of questions as to what a sociological field of wine analysis could look like, and what it would take to build such a thing. It also illustrates how the papers published in the special issue contribute to posing and answering some of these questions.
The question addressed in this conference is both general and specific. It is general because it ... more The question addressed in this conference is both general and specific. It is general because it inevitably covers a number of commonalities that are shared by authors who are actively engaged in promoting cosmopolitanism. It is specific because we are concerned with the operationalization of the cosmopolitan perspective that has become widely popular in social sciences and has known an upsurge of interest over the last two decades. Cosmopolitanism is not only a philosophy of perpetual peace, a moral stand, a societal aspiration. Scholars agree that it may also be expressed by a diverse array of practices spread around the world.
Drawing on both theoretical and empirical research, the aim of our meeting is to show there is some credence to the view that the cosmopolitan sociology is a heuristic way to understand how human communities, individuals, and institutions relate to globality and its outcomes. With an unprecedented rapidity, global media exposes us to an uninterrupted flow of cultural contents of diverse origins (Castells, 2001; Urry, 2006), which create and maintain what John Tomlinson (2007) calls “a condition of immediacy” at the very heart of daily life. Whilst one might argue that the human story is one of migration, the overwhelming interconnectedness of the world today has resulted in increased flows of people on a hitherto unforeseen scale (Appadurai, 1996)
As a result of these transnational processes, in their daily lives individuals frequently encounter alterity (Cicchelli, 2012). Far from being exceptional, difference is now regarded as a central feature of our increasingly diverse ‘multicultural’ and ‘plural’ societies. Thanks to the participation of leading scholars engaged in rethinking what cosmopolitanism is or should be, the purpose of this conference is to explore in a comprehensive way the usefulness of a cosmopolitan outlook. The idea is to take advantage of the global interconnectedness, and to go beyond global studies, by approaching it in a specific way. As "the ‘global other’ is in our midst” (Beck and Grande, 2010: 417), it is consequently crucial a cosmopolitan approach be based on how otherness and plurality are handled by individuals, human groups and institutions. Exploring the role played by the multifarious contacts with otherness that occur in the global society is an issue frequently ignored in empirical research on cosmopolitanism, even though it should be at its very heart.
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Papers by David Inglis
Drawing on both theoretical and empirical research, the aim of our meeting is to show there is some credence to the view that the cosmopolitan sociology is a heuristic way to understand how human communities, individuals, and institutions relate to globality and its outcomes. With an unprecedented rapidity, global media exposes us to an uninterrupted flow of cultural contents of diverse origins (Castells, 2001; Urry, 2006), which create and maintain what John Tomlinson (2007) calls “a condition of immediacy” at the very heart of daily life. Whilst one might argue that the human story is one of migration, the overwhelming interconnectedness of the world today has resulted in increased flows of people on a hitherto unforeseen scale (Appadurai, 1996)
As a result of these transnational processes, in their daily lives individuals frequently encounter alterity (Cicchelli, 2012). Far from being exceptional, difference is now regarded as a central feature of our increasingly diverse ‘multicultural’ and ‘plural’ societies. Thanks to the participation of leading scholars engaged in rethinking what cosmopolitanism is or should be, the purpose of this conference is to explore in a comprehensive way the usefulness of a cosmopolitan outlook. The idea is to take advantage of the global interconnectedness, and to go beyond global studies, by approaching it in a specific way. As "the ‘global other’ is in our midst” (Beck and Grande, 2010: 417), it is consequently crucial a cosmopolitan approach be based on how otherness and plurality are handled by individuals, human groups and institutions. Exploring the role played by the multifarious contacts with otherness that occur in the global society is an issue frequently ignored in empirical research on cosmopolitanism, even though it should be at its very heart.