This book addresses the complicated question of how markets and consumption create the possibilit... more This book addresses the complicated question of how markets and consumption create the possibilities for cross-cultural exchanges and the multicultural pleasures of omnivorous consumption, whilst at the same time building new boundaries and distinctions, paving the way for new exploitative relationships, and initiating novel modes of status and capital accumulation. The contributors identify that the divide between the economic and ethical dimensions of globalisation has never seemed in sharper relief. With the workings of global markets at odds with fostering cosmopolitan social change, this collection addresses the question of whether we should assume that market logics and consumptive practices conflict with cosmopolitan agendas. It also explores whether the imperatives of economic globalisation and individual consumption practices are opposed to cosmopolitan prospects for global solidarities. Cosmopolitanism, Markets and Consumption will be of interest to students and scholars with interests across a range of disciplines including in the social sciences, businesses and marketing studies.
"The Festivalisation of Culture explores the links between various local and global cultures, com... more "The Festivalisation of Culture explores the links between various local and global cultures, communities, identities and lifestyle narratives as they are both constructed and experienced in the festival context. Drawing on a wide range of case studies from Australia and Europe, festivals are examined as sites for the performance and critique of lifestyle, identity & cultural politics; as vehicles for the mobilization and cementation of local and global communities; and as spatio-temporal events that inspire and determine meaning in peoples' lives.
Investigating the manner in which festivals are no longer merely periodic, cultural, religious or historical events within communities, but rather a popular means through which citizens consume and experience culture, this book also sheds light on the increasing diversity of contemporary societies and the role played by festivals as sites of cohesion, cultural critique and social mobility. As such, this book will be of interest to those working in areas such as the sociology, consumption and commodification of culture, social and cultural geography, anthropology, cultural studies and popular music studies.
"
Recent years have seen not just a revival, but a rebirth of the analogue record. More than merely... more Recent years have seen not just a revival, but a rebirth of the analogue record. More than merely a nostalgic craze, vinyl has become a cultural icon. As music consumption migrated to digital and online, this seemingly obsolete medium became the fastest-growing format in music sales. Whilst vinyl never ceased to be the favorite amongst many music lovers and DJs, from the late 1980s the recording industry regarded it as an outdated relic, consigned to dusty domestic corners and obscure record shops. So why is vinyl now experiencing a 'rebirth of its cool'?
Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodward explore this question by combining a cultural sociological approach with insights from material culture studies. Presenting vinyl as a multifaceted cultural object, they investigate the reasons behind its persistence within our technologically accelerated culture. Informed by media analysis, urban ethnography and the authors' interviews with musicians, DJs, sound engineers, record store owners, collectors and cutting-edge label chiefs from a range of metropolitan centres renowned for thriving music scenes including London, New York, Tokyo, Melbourne, and especially Berlin, what emerges is a story of a modern icon.
A few of the nice endorsements we have received for the work:
“Vinyl demonstrates the complex ways in which material objects form a meaningful part of our everyday lives – not just through the sounds of vinyl, but by how it feels and looks. The text is beautifully written, impassioned, yet critical. Welcome to the world of the post-digital.”
- Michael Bull
“Vinyl culture is back, and it’s even more vibrant than it was in its heyday, before digitalization. Bartmanski and Woodward take us to the epicentres of this revolution, and let those who are behind it tell us about their passions for this iconic medium. This is an exemplary study of the social and sensory life of things.”
- David Howes
"The dream of a cosmopolitical utopia has been around for thousands of years. Yet the promise of ... more "The dream of a cosmopolitical utopia has been around for thousands of years. Yet the promise of being locally situated and at the same time globally connected and mobile has never seemed more possible than it is today. The question remains as to whether it is positive and realistic for us to have multiple loyalties. Can we sustain community and solidarity with our neighbours while we look beyond our nation? And if we can't - or won't – consider distant strangers as part of our own world, are there increasingly dire consequences?
This book reconnects classical sociological theory and contemporary ideas on mobility, otherness, material assemblages, consumption and surveillance to render the idea of a global cosmopolitan utopia amenable to sociological investigation. The book takes a realistic approach to the development of cosmopolitical arrangements. It embraces the imaginative impulses the cosmopolitan dream provides, but takes into account the political, ethical and cultural dimensions of such cosmopolitan developments. In revisiting the relevance of classical sociological approaches in the context of contemporary theoretical challenges, the distinctive approach this book takes to understanding cosmopolitanism will be of use to scholars and students alike."
Objects have an inescapable hold over us, not just in consumer culture but increasingly in the di... more Objects have an inescapable hold over us, not just in consumer culture but increasingly in the disciplines that study social relations too. This book offers a systematic overview of the diverse ways of studying the material as culture. It surveys the field of material culture studies through an examination and synthesis of classical and contemporary scholarship on objects, commodities, consumption and symbolization.
Research on cosmopolitan practices and non-white refugee and migrant populations in Western natio... more Research on cosmopolitan practices and non-white refugee and migrant populations in Western nations often concentrates on how the mainstream 'host' culture practices openness and hospitality towards 'new' and minority populations. Reflecting the relationality at the heart of cosmopolitanism's conceptual promise, this research reverses the gaze back by exploring how minority populations who are 'locals' in ethnic hubs or enclaves practice openness towards 'non-locals' who otherwise constitute a dominant group nationally. Our article focuses on the black African Australian (AA) community in the suburb of Moorooka, known as a 'little Africa'. Moorooka's main strip is lined with various AA owned shops and restaurants, and with AAs going about their everyday lives. The suburb attracts negative news stories and is stereotyped as an undesirable ethnic enclave marred by crime, social problems and unemployment. Yet, Moorooka is also becoming a cosmopolitan destination for visitors to shop, explore and dine. We thematically analyse qualitative interviews with AAs to understand how they interact with non-AAs and why. Our research sheds new light on forms of openness and hospitality we call 'minority cosmopolitanism' that arises from the AA experience. Accordingly, we also highlight forms of Afro-cosmopolitanism that assists with a deeper understanding of the African diaspora.
This book addresses the complicated question of how markets and consumption create the possibilit... more This book addresses the complicated question of how markets and consumption create the possibilities for cross-cultural exchanges and the multicultural pleasures of omnivorous consumption, whilst at the same time building new boundaries and distinctions, paving the way for new exploitative relationships, and initiating novel modes of status and capital accumulation. The contributors identify that the divide between the economic and ethical dimensions of globalisation has never seemed in sharper relief. With the workings of global markets at odds with fostering cosmopolitan social change, this collection addresses the question of whether we should assume that market logics and consumptive practices conflict with cosmopolitan agendas. It also explores whether the imperatives of economic globalisation and individual consumption practices are opposed to cosmopolitan prospects for global solidarities. Cosmopolitanism, Markets and Consumption will be of interest to students and scholars with interests across a range of disciplines including in the social sciences, businesses and marketing studies.
"The Festivalisation of Culture explores the links between various local and global cultures, com... more "The Festivalisation of Culture explores the links between various local and global cultures, communities, identities and lifestyle narratives as they are both constructed and experienced in the festival context. Drawing on a wide range of case studies from Australia and Europe, festivals are examined as sites for the performance and critique of lifestyle, identity & cultural politics; as vehicles for the mobilization and cementation of local and global communities; and as spatio-temporal events that inspire and determine meaning in peoples' lives.
Investigating the manner in which festivals are no longer merely periodic, cultural, religious or historical events within communities, but rather a popular means through which citizens consume and experience culture, this book also sheds light on the increasing diversity of contemporary societies and the role played by festivals as sites of cohesion, cultural critique and social mobility. As such, this book will be of interest to those working in areas such as the sociology, consumption and commodification of culture, social and cultural geography, anthropology, cultural studies and popular music studies.
"
Recent years have seen not just a revival, but a rebirth of the analogue record. More than merely... more Recent years have seen not just a revival, but a rebirth of the analogue record. More than merely a nostalgic craze, vinyl has become a cultural icon. As music consumption migrated to digital and online, this seemingly obsolete medium became the fastest-growing format in music sales. Whilst vinyl never ceased to be the favorite amongst many music lovers and DJs, from the late 1980s the recording industry regarded it as an outdated relic, consigned to dusty domestic corners and obscure record shops. So why is vinyl now experiencing a 'rebirth of its cool'?
Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodward explore this question by combining a cultural sociological approach with insights from material culture studies. Presenting vinyl as a multifaceted cultural object, they investigate the reasons behind its persistence within our technologically accelerated culture. Informed by media analysis, urban ethnography and the authors' interviews with musicians, DJs, sound engineers, record store owners, collectors and cutting-edge label chiefs from a range of metropolitan centres renowned for thriving music scenes including London, New York, Tokyo, Melbourne, and especially Berlin, what emerges is a story of a modern icon.
A few of the nice endorsements we have received for the work:
“Vinyl demonstrates the complex ways in which material objects form a meaningful part of our everyday lives – not just through the sounds of vinyl, but by how it feels and looks. The text is beautifully written, impassioned, yet critical. Welcome to the world of the post-digital.”
- Michael Bull
“Vinyl culture is back, and it’s even more vibrant than it was in its heyday, before digitalization. Bartmanski and Woodward take us to the epicentres of this revolution, and let those who are behind it tell us about their passions for this iconic medium. This is an exemplary study of the social and sensory life of things.”
- David Howes
"The dream of a cosmopolitical utopia has been around for thousands of years. Yet the promise of ... more "The dream of a cosmopolitical utopia has been around for thousands of years. Yet the promise of being locally situated and at the same time globally connected and mobile has never seemed more possible than it is today. The question remains as to whether it is positive and realistic for us to have multiple loyalties. Can we sustain community and solidarity with our neighbours while we look beyond our nation? And if we can't - or won't – consider distant strangers as part of our own world, are there increasingly dire consequences?
This book reconnects classical sociological theory and contemporary ideas on mobility, otherness, material assemblages, consumption and surveillance to render the idea of a global cosmopolitan utopia amenable to sociological investigation. The book takes a realistic approach to the development of cosmopolitical arrangements. It embraces the imaginative impulses the cosmopolitan dream provides, but takes into account the political, ethical and cultural dimensions of such cosmopolitan developments. In revisiting the relevance of classical sociological approaches in the context of contemporary theoretical challenges, the distinctive approach this book takes to understanding cosmopolitanism will be of use to scholars and students alike."
Objects have an inescapable hold over us, not just in consumer culture but increasingly in the di... more Objects have an inescapable hold over us, not just in consumer culture but increasingly in the disciplines that study social relations too. This book offers a systematic overview of the diverse ways of studying the material as culture. It surveys the field of material culture studies through an examination and synthesis of classical and contemporary scholarship on objects, commodities, consumption and symbolization.
Research on cosmopolitan practices and non-white refugee and migrant populations in Western natio... more Research on cosmopolitan practices and non-white refugee and migrant populations in Western nations often concentrates on how the mainstream 'host' culture practices openness and hospitality towards 'new' and minority populations. Reflecting the relationality at the heart of cosmopolitanism's conceptual promise, this research reverses the gaze back by exploring how minority populations who are 'locals' in ethnic hubs or enclaves practice openness towards 'non-locals' who otherwise constitute a dominant group nationally. Our article focuses on the black African Australian (AA) community in the suburb of Moorooka, known as a 'little Africa'. Moorooka's main strip is lined with various AA owned shops and restaurants, and with AAs going about their everyday lives. The suburb attracts negative news stories and is stereotyped as an undesirable ethnic enclave marred by crime, social problems and unemployment. Yet, Moorooka is also becoming a cosmopolitan destination for visitors to shop, explore and dine. We thematically analyse qualitative interviews with AAs to understand how they interact with non-AAs and why. Our research sheds new light on forms of openness and hospitality we call 'minority cosmopolitanism' that arises from the AA experience. Accordingly, we also highlight forms of Afro-cosmopolitanism that assists with a deeper understanding of the African diaspora.
This chapter examines the significance of contemporary music festivals as a means through which y... more This chapter examines the significance of contemporary music festivals as a means through which young people gain knowledge of eco-political issues. Beginning with a brief overview of how eco-politics has developed as an aspect of the contemporary music festival, early examples being Woodstock and Glastonbury, the chapter goes on to examine the increasing emphasis on eco- logical issues at festivals and the various means through which this is enacted. Drawing on aspects of music scene theory, it considers whether greenism within the festival scene is created through the boundary work of the organ- izers or manifests a developing, translocally dispersed, green ethos centred around alternative, indie and other fringe musics that feature at contemporary music festivals. It considers the possibility that festivals may function as a component of the cultural public sphere: as nodal points for the articulation of a series of developing youth sensibilities and practices centred around environmental awareness and neo-greenist ideology and practice. The chapter concludes by viewing the broader significance of the 'green' festival for youth as a type of cosmopolitan experience pertaining to the construction of sustainable lifestyles and a cosmopolitan outlook grounded in notions of responsible global citizenship
This article provides an account of interwoven and often competing repertoires of cosmopolitanism... more This article provides an account of interwoven and often competing repertoires of cosmopolitanism and nationalism on which Australians draw when encountering diversity. Using interview and focus group data the article first explores how the notion of Australianness grounded in civic virtues such as fairness, openness and egalitarianism effectively enhances cosmopolitan outlooks. It identifies the mechanisms through which these same virtues are mobilized to rationalize the failure to actualize cosmopolitanism in everyday practice. We argue that Australianness understood as the popular ‘fair-go’ principle at times conceptually overlaps with cosmopolitan ethics. However, it also bears the potential to hinder cosmopolitan practices. Ultimately national and cosmopolitan ethical frameworks have to be interrogated simultaneously when applied to micro-level interactions.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this p... more The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
International Symposium
29th and 30th September 2016
Salerno, Campus of Fisciano, Italy
The Inter... more International Symposium 29th and 30th September 2016 Salerno, Campus of Fisciano, Italy The International Symposium discusses cosmopolitanism and its limits in a period characterized by strong currents of neo-liberalism, increasing inequalities, the sharp decline of the European political project, the upsurge of new challenges to democracy and peace (including terrorism and war), the return of nationalism and the rejection of the Other, involving xenophobia, anti-semitism and islamophobia, ethnic divides, and so on. To put it in a nutshell, it aims at finding answers to these questions which are not debated enough: Is cosmopolitanism still a sustainable perspective on the globalised world of today? To what extent is it still relevant for understanding the dramatic challenges societies are facing? And if so, how far can we go in defending it? What kind of adaptation do we need in order to improve or amend it? These are only some examples of topics that the International Symposium will debate in order to publish an edited book on the theme of Cosmopolitanism in Hard Times.
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.
In this paper, we use the case of the vinyl record to show that iconic objects become meaningful ... more In this paper, we use the case of the vinyl record to show that iconic objects become meaningful via a dual process. First, they offer immersive engagements which structure user interpretations through various material experiences of handling, use, and extension. Second, they always work via entanglements with related material ecologies such as turntables, speakers, mixers, and rituals of object care. Additionally, these engagements are complimented by a mediation process which emplaces the vinyl historically, culturally, spatially, and also politically, especially in the context of digitalization. This relational process means that both the material affordances and entanglements of vinyl allow us to feel, handle, experience, project, and share its iconicity. The materially mediated meanings of vinyl enabled it to retain currency in independent and collector’s markets and thus resist the planned obsolescence and eventually attain the status of celebrity commodity with totemic power in music communities. This performative aspect of vinyl markets also means that consumers read closely the signals and symbols regarding vinyl’s status, as its various user groups and champions try to interpret its future, protect, or challenge its current position. Vinyl’s future, and the larger expansion of pressing plants and innovative turntable production around it, largely depend on processes of cultural and status mobility. In the current phase of market expansion, vinyl’s status might be challenged by its own success. Neither a fashion cycle phenomenon, nor simple market conditions explain vinyl’s longevity. Rather, cultural contextualization of vinyl as thing and commodity is crucial for avoiding symbolic pollution and retaining sacred aura.
This article addresses the enduring cultural appeal of the analogue record at the time of the dig... more This article addresses the enduring cultural appeal of the analogue record at the time of the digital revolution in music consumption and production. Our interest in this phenomenon stems from the observation that not only did the vinyl record manage to survive and persist through the first sweeping wave of digitalisation symbolised by the compact disc, but that nowadays it is also experiencing a renaissance of sorts. Interestingly, the current commercial comeback of the vinyl record occurs precisely when computer-based technologies have profoundly transformed the music industry and rendered our economic and cultural systems irreversibly digital. How could an old and apparently obsolete medium possibly withstand the tide of technological revolution that effectively transforms the music file from cumbersome physical object to weightless electronic information? The story of this unlikely survival is complex and the complexity resides not only in the specificity of the vinyl and its rich history but also in the relational construction of such meanings as old, obsolete, object, information and musical experience. Using the frameworks of cultural sociology, combined with insights from material culture studies and cultural approaches to consumption within business studies and economic sociology, we explore the reasons why vinyl records have once again become highly valued objects of cultural consumption. Resisting explanations which focus solely on matters of nostalgia or fetish, we look to the concepts of iconicity, ritual, aura and the sensibility of coolness to explain the paradoxical resurgence of vinyl at the time of the digital revolution. Along the way we revise the canonical thesis of Walter Benjamin about the putative loss of aura in the modern market societies.
Edited by Vincenzo Cicchelli and Stéphane Dufoix
The "global turn" can be defined as the globaliz... more Edited by Vincenzo Cicchelli and Stéphane Dufoix The "global turn" can be defined as the globalization of social science, i.e. of the various disciplinary and inter-disciplinary appropriations of the concept of the global. These appropriations have transformed the scope, the lexicon, the methods of disciplines. Broader transnational processes impact on the social scientists’ craft. As this transformation is hardly ever taken into consideration per se, this new Series wants to make this issue its main foundation. The scope of the series can be summarized by the three words composing its title. The books published should at least fit into one, and ideally more than one, of the three topics: Doing: empirical dimension. How to study globalization and the global? It has long been considered that globalization was mostly a theoretical matter. Yet the empirical question is one of the most pressing ones since it addresses the very issue of "how?". Global: theoretical dimension. What is globalization? How is it to be understood? With which concepts? What are the theories in competition? How global is social science? Studies: epistemological dimension. How do social sciences react to the rise of the concept of globalization? What impact did the new interest in this topic have onto the disciplinary logic? Authors are cordially invited to submit proposals and/or full manuscripts by email to either the series editor Vincenzo Cicchelli or the publisher Jason Prevost or by mail to BRILL, Attn: Rosanna Woensdregt, P.O. Box 9000, 2300 PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
CALL FOR CHAPTERS
EXTENDED ABSTRACT (750 WORDS)
DEADLINE NOVEMBER 1ST, 2015
This edited collect... more CALL FOR CHAPTERS EXTENDED ABSTRACT (750 WORDS) DEADLINE NOVEMBER 1ST, 2015
If you are interested in contributing to this collection, please submit a document containing chapter title, author details and a 750-word extended abstract to [email protected]
• Notification of Acceptance: December 20th, 2015 • Submission of full Chapters (max. 9000 words per chapter, incl. references): June 1st, 2016 • Submission of final (revised) chapters: September 15th, 2016
Cosmopolitanism has been a topic of intense research interest across disciplines in the social sciences and humanities in the last 15 years. Most contemporary commentators have concurred that cosmopolitanism as a form of ethical practice is associated with a conscious openness to the world and the potential for a relational dialogue with people and things that are culturally different (Delanty, 2009; Hannerz, 1990; Thompson and Tambyah, 1999). The cosmopolitanism question is essentially whether or not people develop feelings of solidarity and responsibility for widening circles of strangers, seek to understand and be changed by incorporating others’ viewpoints and practices which are apparently unlike their own, and feel responsible for environments far away from them (Appiah, 2007; Cheah, 2006; Stevenson, 2002).
While researchers currently grapple with the abstract philosophical dimensions of the concept, they also seek to understand how everyday, vernacular forms of cosmopolitanism work, and how people acquire and learn cosmopolitan competencies and habits (Woodward and Skrbis, 2013). In this context, it is not an exaggeration to observe that consumption opportunities and practices constitute a large part of people’s engagements with diversity and cultural difference (Germann Molz, 2011). But, in what ways does this consumption matter to diffusing cosmopolitan cultures, and in what ways might it complicate them, or even deform them? And, in what ways can scholarship from diverse disciplinary perspectives work with each other to shed light on these questions?
The purpose of this book is to examine the consequences of cosmopolitan ideals and cosmopolitanisation processes for consumption and market practices on a global scale. By discussing not only the positive side of cosmopolitanism but also the problems and challenges related to it, this book takes an informed, critical look at issues and practices of cosmopolitan consumption and markets. The goals of the book are to: • produce a collected work of high scholarly quality that has an enduring impact on the way researchers understand and conceptualise the cosmopolitan possibilities of consumption • be the first major collection to frame and directly address controversies and questions around the relationship between consumption and cosmopolitan ethics • develop a cross-disciplinary research conversation for understanding how consumption practices and processes relate to cosmopolitanism, in what ways they might or might not contribute to cosmopolitan processes and through what symbolic, cultural and economic processes this occurs
The “Global Culture and Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism” International Conference will discuss the mean... more The “Global Culture and Aesthetic Cosmopolitanism” International Conference will discuss the meanings of cultural globalization, its mechanical and hybridizing effects, and its cosmopolitan consequences, from the perspective of global culture and its injunctions through various mediums and objects of cultural consumption (music, TV, books, video games, movies, series, newspapers, comics, blogs, social media, festivals, national heritage). In particular, the conference intends to explore and specify the aesthetic features and foundations of cosmopolitan and translocal cultures. How and under what conditions do the aesthetic conditions of production and reception matter for building cosmopolitan cultures?
Cosmopolitanism, Markets and Consumption: A Critical Global Perspective, 2018
The idea of cosmopolitanism describes a social, cultural and political process whereby people can... more The idea of cosmopolitanism describes a social, cultural and political process whereby people can feel connection not only to local and national others and territories of belonging, but to the world as a whole. While the processes described by the concept are in large part enabled by transnational mobilities and aesthetic-consumptive mixing of people and things, making it an idea apparently well suited to a super-diverse, global age, the ethical demands associated with cosmopolitanism are complex and not necessarily directly tied to or based in such processes. This introductory chapter provides an overview of the usage of the concept and problematises linkages between consumption and cosmopolitan ethics. We begin by discussing these processes as they are based in research literatures within the fields of sociology and business and marketing studies, offering an overview of existing research linking cosmopolitanism and consumption. Additionally, we further delineate current challenges and questions emerging from the cosmopolitan agenda in studies of global marketplaces.
In contemporary social theory the shopping mall is a potent symbol for debates on postmodernity, ... more In contemporary social theory the shopping mall is a potent symbol for debates on postmodernity, changing spatial forms and consumerism. Using the shopping mall as an exemplar of postmodern space, this paper constitutes an empirical investigation of the claim that postmodern space is unique in terms of form and intent. The design discourses of Australian shopping centre architects, over the period 1958-1995, are analysed to chart changes in spatial discourses. Analysis reveals that while some changes in shopping centre design over the period may be consistent with a theoretically given postmodern form of social space, modernist sentiments remain an integral part of architectural practice.
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Books by Ian Woodward
Investigating the manner in which festivals are no longer merely periodic, cultural, religious or historical events within communities, but rather a popular means through which citizens consume and experience culture, this book also sheds light on the increasing diversity of contemporary societies and the role played by festivals as sites of cohesion, cultural critique and social mobility. As such, this book will be of interest to those working in areas such as the sociology, consumption and commodification of culture, social and cultural geography, anthropology, cultural studies and popular music studies.
"
Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodward explore this question by combining a cultural sociological approach with insights from material culture studies. Presenting vinyl as a multifaceted cultural object, they investigate the reasons behind its persistence within our technologically accelerated culture. Informed by media analysis, urban ethnography and the authors' interviews with musicians, DJs, sound engineers, record store owners, collectors and cutting-edge label chiefs from a range of metropolitan centres renowned for thriving music scenes including London, New York, Tokyo, Melbourne, and especially Berlin, what emerges is a story of a modern icon.
A few of the nice endorsements we have received for the work:
“Vinyl demonstrates the complex ways in which material objects form a meaningful part of our everyday lives – not just through the sounds of vinyl, but by how it feels and looks. The text is beautifully written, impassioned, yet critical. Welcome to the world of the post-digital.”
- Michael Bull
“Vinyl culture is back, and it’s even more vibrant than it was in its heyday, before digitalization. Bartmanski and Woodward take us to the epicentres of this revolution, and let those who are behind it tell us about their passions for this iconic medium. This is an exemplary study of the social and sensory life of things.”
- David Howes
This book reconnects classical sociological theory and contemporary ideas on mobility, otherness, material assemblages, consumption and surveillance to render the idea of a global cosmopolitan utopia amenable to sociological investigation. The book takes a realistic approach to the development of cosmopolitical arrangements. It embraces the imaginative impulses the cosmopolitan dream provides, but takes into account the political, ethical and cultural dimensions of such cosmopolitan developments. In revisiting the relevance of classical sociological approaches in the context of contemporary theoretical challenges, the distinctive approach this book takes to understanding cosmopolitanism will be of use to scholars and students alike."
Papers by Ian Woodward
Investigating the manner in which festivals are no longer merely periodic, cultural, religious or historical events within communities, but rather a popular means through which citizens consume and experience culture, this book also sheds light on the increasing diversity of contemporary societies and the role played by festivals as sites of cohesion, cultural critique and social mobility. As such, this book will be of interest to those working in areas such as the sociology, consumption and commodification of culture, social and cultural geography, anthropology, cultural studies and popular music studies.
"
Dominik Bartmanski and Ian Woodward explore this question by combining a cultural sociological approach with insights from material culture studies. Presenting vinyl as a multifaceted cultural object, they investigate the reasons behind its persistence within our technologically accelerated culture. Informed by media analysis, urban ethnography and the authors' interviews with musicians, DJs, sound engineers, record store owners, collectors and cutting-edge label chiefs from a range of metropolitan centres renowned for thriving music scenes including London, New York, Tokyo, Melbourne, and especially Berlin, what emerges is a story of a modern icon.
A few of the nice endorsements we have received for the work:
“Vinyl demonstrates the complex ways in which material objects form a meaningful part of our everyday lives – not just through the sounds of vinyl, but by how it feels and looks. The text is beautifully written, impassioned, yet critical. Welcome to the world of the post-digital.”
- Michael Bull
“Vinyl culture is back, and it’s even more vibrant than it was in its heyday, before digitalization. Bartmanski and Woodward take us to the epicentres of this revolution, and let those who are behind it tell us about their passions for this iconic medium. This is an exemplary study of the social and sensory life of things.”
- David Howes
This book reconnects classical sociological theory and contemporary ideas on mobility, otherness, material assemblages, consumption and surveillance to render the idea of a global cosmopolitan utopia amenable to sociological investigation. The book takes a realistic approach to the development of cosmopolitical arrangements. It embraces the imaginative impulses the cosmopolitan dream provides, but takes into account the political, ethical and cultural dimensions of such cosmopolitan developments. In revisiting the relevance of classical sociological approaches in the context of contemporary theoretical challenges, the distinctive approach this book takes to understanding cosmopolitanism will be of use to scholars and students alike."
29th and 30th September 2016
Salerno, Campus of Fisciano, Italy
The International Symposium discusses cosmopolitanism and its limits in a period characterized by strong currents of neo-liberalism, increasing inequalities, the sharp decline of the European political project, the upsurge of new challenges to democracy and peace (including terrorism and war), the return of nationalism and the rejection of the Other, involving xenophobia, anti-semitism and islamophobia, ethnic divides, and so on. To put it in a nutshell, it aims at finding answers to these questions which are not debated enough: Is cosmopolitanism still a sustainable perspective on the globalised world of today? To what extent is it still relevant for understanding the dramatic challenges societies are facing? And if so, how far can we go in defending it? What kind of adaptation do we need in order to improve or amend it? These are only some examples of topics that the International Symposium will debate in order to publish an edited book on the theme of Cosmopolitanism in Hard Times.
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.
The "global turn" can be defined as the globalization of social science, i.e. of the various disciplinary and inter-disciplinary appropriations of the concept of the global. These appropriations have transformed the scope, the lexicon, the methods of disciplines. Broader transnational processes impact on the social scientists’ craft. As this transformation is hardly ever taken into consideration per se, this new Series wants to make this issue its main foundation.
The scope of the series can be summarized by the three words composing its title. The books published should at least fit into one, and ideally more than one, of the three topics:
Doing: empirical dimension. How to study globalization and the global? It has long been considered that globalization was mostly a theoretical matter. Yet the empirical question is one of the most pressing ones since it addresses the very issue of "how?".
Global: theoretical dimension. What is globalization? How is it to be understood? With which concepts? What are the theories in competition? How global is social science?
Studies: epistemological dimension. How do social sciences react to the rise of the concept of globalization? What impact did the new interest in this topic have onto the disciplinary logic?
Authors are cordially invited to submit proposals and/or full manuscripts by email to either the series editor Vincenzo Cicchelli or the publisher Jason Prevost or by mail to BRILL, Attn: Rosanna Woensdregt, P.O. Box 9000, 2300 PA Leiden, The Netherlands.
EXTENDED ABSTRACT (750 WORDS)
DEADLINE NOVEMBER 1ST, 2015
This edited collection will be published by Palgrave MacMillan (final acceptance subject to submission of chapter details and peer review) in the series Consumption and Public Life. More details about the publisher and the series: http://www.palgrave.com/series/Consumption-and-Public-Life/CUCO/
Editors
Julie Emontspool and Ian Woodward, University of Southern Denmark
Details:
If you are interested in contributing to this collection, please submit a document containing chapter title, author details and a 750-word extended abstract to [email protected]
• Notification of Acceptance: December 20th, 2015
• Submission of full Chapters (max. 9000 words per chapter, incl. references): June 1st, 2016
• Submission of final (revised) chapters: September 15th, 2016
Cosmopolitanism has been a topic of intense research interest across disciplines in the social sciences and humanities in the last 15 years. Most contemporary commentators have concurred that cosmopolitanism as a form of ethical practice is associated with a conscious openness to the world and the potential for a relational dialogue with people and things that are culturally different (Delanty, 2009; Hannerz, 1990; Thompson and Tambyah, 1999). The cosmopolitanism question is essentially whether or not people develop feelings of solidarity and responsibility for widening circles of strangers, seek to understand and be changed by incorporating others’ viewpoints and practices which are apparently unlike their own, and feel responsible for environments far away from them (Appiah, 2007; Cheah, 2006; Stevenson, 2002).
While researchers currently grapple with the abstract philosophical dimensions of the concept, they also seek to understand how everyday, vernacular forms of cosmopolitanism work, and how people acquire and learn cosmopolitan competencies and habits (Woodward and Skrbis, 2013). In this context, it is not an exaggeration to observe that consumption opportunities and practices constitute a large part of people’s engagements with diversity and cultural difference (Germann Molz, 2011). But, in what ways does this consumption matter to diffusing cosmopolitan cultures, and in what ways might it complicate them, or even deform them? And, in what ways can scholarship from diverse disciplinary perspectives work with each other to shed light on these questions?
The purpose of this book is to examine the consequences of cosmopolitan ideals and cosmopolitanisation processes for consumption and market practices on a global scale. By discussing not only the positive side of cosmopolitanism but also the problems and challenges related to it, this book takes an informed, critical look at issues and practices of cosmopolitan consumption and markets. The goals of the book are to:
• produce a collected work of high scholarly quality that has an enduring impact on the way researchers understand and conceptualise the cosmopolitan possibilities of consumption
• be the first major collection to frame and directly address controversies and questions around the relationship between consumption and cosmopolitan ethics
• develop a cross-disciplinary research conversation for understanding how consumption practices and processes relate to cosmopolitanism, in what ways they might or might not contribute to cosmopolitan processes and through what symbolic, cultural and economic processes this occurs