It was simply something to believe in. Here was a church, an army, an orthodoxy, a discipline. He... more It was simply something to believe in. Here was a church, an army, an orthodoxy, a discipline. Here was a Fatherland and-at any rate since 1935 or thereabouts-a Fuehrer. All the loyalties and superstitions that the intellect had seemingly banished could come ...
It was simply something to believe in. Here was a church, an army, an orthodoxy, a discipline. He... more It was simply something to believe in. Here was a church, an army, an orthodoxy, a discipline. Here was a Fatherland and-at any rate since 1935 or thereabouts-a Fuehrer. All the loyalties and superstitions that the intellect had seemingly banished could come ...
The legalization of gambling is moving this once deviant sector into the mainstream of commercial... more The legalization of gambling is moving this once deviant sector into the mainstream of commercial entertainment, with the global hotel-casino increasingly adopted as a state initiative on economic redevelopment. But corporate capitalist interests do not result in universal trends since ...
The legalization of gambling is moving this once deviant sector into the mainstream of commercial... more The legalization of gambling is moving this once deviant sector into the mainstream of commercial entertainment, with the global hotel-casino increasingly adopted as a state initiative on economic redevelopment. But corporate capitalist interests do not result in universal trends since ...
ABSTRACT This article explores tensions in the study of innovation, the practice of fieldwork and... more ABSTRACT This article explores tensions in the study of innovation, the practice of fieldwork and the narratives these produce, particularly as represented in the work of Latour. It argues that Latour's ethnographic studies of science and technology parody a variety of ...
This article relates the current transformation of ethnographic practice to the emergence of new ... more This article relates the current transformation of ethnographic practice to the emergence of new media technologies. It contrasts multi-sited ethnography with actor network theory's method of following the construction of new media worlds through chains of mediators. The authors exemplify this through the extraordinary emergence of global poker and its shifting constitution across the entire spectrum of traditional and new media technologies. They argue that poker vividly illustrates how following makes sense of these emergent new worlds while at the same time it is an excellent vehicle for problematizing key issues of ethnographic practice.
ABSTRACT Abstract The Durham Miners Gala has taken place annually for over a hundred years. In it... more ABSTRACT Abstract The Durham Miners Gala has taken place annually for over a hundred years. In its heyday it was an immensely popular occasion. In the post-war period it became an established part of the British Labour calendar, being attended regularly by Prime Ministers, Cabinet Ministers and foreign ambassadors. The Gala can be understood as a ceremony which links twentieth century class politics with the more spontaneous and religious forms of political activity in the nineteenth century. This historical continuity is rooted in the culture of mining and mining villages, developed by the social isolation of miners and their particular legal status and adapted periodically by the formal structures of the mining union.
This paper draws on the biography of Sam Watson, a miners' leader in the North East of England, t... more This paper draws on the biography of Sam Watson, a miners' leader in the North East of England, to examine the ways in which power relations operated within the British labour movement in the forties and fifties. At that time the Marshall Plan and the concern by the US government to control the spread of communism in Europe provided a critical backdrop with the CIA's labor attaché programme providing links between the AFL and the CIO and the British TUC. Recent research has identified the significant role played in the development of these arrangements by Watson.
This paper compares the findings of government reviews of gambling in the United Kingdom and New ... more This paper compares the findings of government reviews of gambling in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. It focuses on the desegregation of gambling media, a process that makes possible one-stop gambling venues where different gambling media are combined in a single site. The authors argue that although this process makes large-scale casinos/gaming machine venues subject to state control in both countries, it is the way in which desegregation takes place outside of these gambling sites – with gaming machines and virtual gaming – that differs. It is these areas that are found to drive debate and ongoing attempts by the state to regulate and to secure both surveillance and revenue, as well as protection of the vulnerable (e.g. problem gamblers). The authors conclude that the technology of the networked random number generator has determined how gambling has affected society.
With gambling now part of mainstream entertainment and popular leisure, casinos have become sites... more With gambling now part of mainstream entertainment and popular leisure, casinos have become sites of legal work, combining the technical expertise and craft skills of the croupier (dealer) in table games with increasingly deskilled machineminding in simulated video games.There are parallels with other service work, but the significance of casino gaming lies in the manipulation of things, such as cards and money, rather than in interpersonal relations and self-embodiment. Moreover, surveillance is more specifically related to the particular conditions governing legalization of a formerly 'pariah' industry than to management-worker control. Drawing on fieldwork, we compare standardization in table and machine gaming and show how different forms of surveillance are crucial to the legalization of gambling as mass consumption. In highlighting the significance of materiality and regulation in service sector employment, the case of casino gaming thus takes us beyond conventional labour process paradigms. It also epitomizes a newly globalized form of work, currently promoted by industry interests but at the centre of intense public debate in the UK and elsewhere.
It was simply something to believe in. Here was a church, an army, an orthodoxy, a discipline. He... more It was simply something to believe in. Here was a church, an army, an orthodoxy, a discipline. Here was a Fatherland and-at any rate since 1935 or thereabouts-a Fuehrer. All the loyalties and superstitions that the intellect had seemingly banished could come ...
It was simply something to believe in. Here was a church, an army, an orthodoxy, a discipline. He... more It was simply something to believe in. Here was a church, an army, an orthodoxy, a discipline. Here was a Fatherland and-at any rate since 1935 or thereabouts-a Fuehrer. All the loyalties and superstitions that the intellect had seemingly banished could come ...
The legalization of gambling is moving this once deviant sector into the mainstream of commercial... more The legalization of gambling is moving this once deviant sector into the mainstream of commercial entertainment, with the global hotel-casino increasingly adopted as a state initiative on economic redevelopment. But corporate capitalist interests do not result in universal trends since ...
The legalization of gambling is moving this once deviant sector into the mainstream of commercial... more The legalization of gambling is moving this once deviant sector into the mainstream of commercial entertainment, with the global hotel-casino increasingly adopted as a state initiative on economic redevelopment. But corporate capitalist interests do not result in universal trends since ...
ABSTRACT This article explores tensions in the study of innovation, the practice of fieldwork and... more ABSTRACT This article explores tensions in the study of innovation, the practice of fieldwork and the narratives these produce, particularly as represented in the work of Latour. It argues that Latour's ethnographic studies of science and technology parody a variety of ...
This article relates the current transformation of ethnographic practice to the emergence of new ... more This article relates the current transformation of ethnographic practice to the emergence of new media technologies. It contrasts multi-sited ethnography with actor network theory's method of following the construction of new media worlds through chains of mediators. The authors exemplify this through the extraordinary emergence of global poker and its shifting constitution across the entire spectrum of traditional and new media technologies. They argue that poker vividly illustrates how following makes sense of these emergent new worlds while at the same time it is an excellent vehicle for problematizing key issues of ethnographic practice.
ABSTRACT Abstract The Durham Miners Gala has taken place annually for over a hundred years. In it... more ABSTRACT Abstract The Durham Miners Gala has taken place annually for over a hundred years. In its heyday it was an immensely popular occasion. In the post-war period it became an established part of the British Labour calendar, being attended regularly by Prime Ministers, Cabinet Ministers and foreign ambassadors. The Gala can be understood as a ceremony which links twentieth century class politics with the more spontaneous and religious forms of political activity in the nineteenth century. This historical continuity is rooted in the culture of mining and mining villages, developed by the social isolation of miners and their particular legal status and adapted periodically by the formal structures of the mining union.
This paper draws on the biography of Sam Watson, a miners' leader in the North East of England, t... more This paper draws on the biography of Sam Watson, a miners' leader in the North East of England, to examine the ways in which power relations operated within the British labour movement in the forties and fifties. At that time the Marshall Plan and the concern by the US government to control the spread of communism in Europe provided a critical backdrop with the CIA's labor attaché programme providing links between the AFL and the CIO and the British TUC. Recent research has identified the significant role played in the development of these arrangements by Watson.
This paper compares the findings of government reviews of gambling in the United Kingdom and New ... more This paper compares the findings of government reviews of gambling in the United Kingdom and New Zealand. It focuses on the desegregation of gambling media, a process that makes possible one-stop gambling venues where different gambling media are combined in a single site. The authors argue that although this process makes large-scale casinos/gaming machine venues subject to state control in both countries, it is the way in which desegregation takes place outside of these gambling sites – with gaming machines and virtual gaming – that differs. It is these areas that are found to drive debate and ongoing attempts by the state to regulate and to secure both surveillance and revenue, as well as protection of the vulnerable (e.g. problem gamblers). The authors conclude that the technology of the networked random number generator has determined how gambling has affected society.
With gambling now part of mainstream entertainment and popular leisure, casinos have become sites... more With gambling now part of mainstream entertainment and popular leisure, casinos have become sites of legal work, combining the technical expertise and craft skills of the croupier (dealer) in table games with increasingly deskilled machineminding in simulated video games.There are parallels with other service work, but the significance of casino gaming lies in the manipulation of things, such as cards and money, rather than in interpersonal relations and self-embodiment. Moreover, surveillance is more specifically related to the particular conditions governing legalization of a formerly 'pariah' industry than to management-worker control. Drawing on fieldwork, we compare standardization in table and machine gaming and show how different forms of surveillance are crucial to the legalization of gambling as mass consumption. In highlighting the significance of materiality and regulation in service sector employment, the case of casino gaming thus takes us beyond conventional labour process paradigms. It also epitomizes a newly globalized form of work, currently promoted by industry interests but at the centre of intense public debate in the UK and elsewhere.
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Papers by Terry Austrin