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Monsters and Morals
No full textFrom the editorial:
We are being urged, it seems, to imagine ourselves as living in a world and in an age of monsters. For George W. Bush they are everywhere: in Iraq, in an axis of evil, in the 'terrorists' lurking under every bed, in al-Qaida (and what makes this last one worse is that it is everywhere, yet seemingly hard to find).
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It is appropriate, then, that this issue of Soundings addresses the question of 'monsters'. The theme of this issue, 'Monsters and Morals', explores one way of interpreting the production of these figures, through construction of 'the other'. It points, too, to the operation of such structures in so many, less planetary, milder and more quotidian, parts of our lives. It is not just within George W's imagining of the world that the language of monsters is spoken: it can be found within the housing estate, as a means of identifying oneself as part of a more desirable in-group; and in our daily press it helps to fuel the every-day demonisation of asylum-seekers and other migrants. One contributor explores the intricate links between the public operation of 'race' - one of the most powerful current means of categorising the other - and its effects on people's personal and emotional lives. Today's rhetorics of terror and evil, then, draw on modes of differentiation which are very deeply embedded.
Other contributors in this section draw attention to the crucial importance of the question of the place from which we stand and look at the world, in reflecting on different memories of 11 September in Chile and the USA. There is also discussion of the ethical and philosophical resources which might help us to respond to a dangerous world.
The feature articles also make reference to monsters, sometimes old ones, as when from Serbia Richard Minns asks 'what now?', after 'humanitarian bombing'. (A question which echoes too around the blasted mountains of Afghanistan.) From Palestine, Tom Kay's diaries vividly describe the violence of Israel's attempt to annihilate the 'enemy within'.
We also offer two very different pieces looking at left political writing, one on the contribution of David Widgery to a left poetics, and one on the legacy of the WEA's Highway in the 1930s. Our opening article, in contrast, was prompted by the publication of Charlie Leadbeater's recent book Up the Down Escalator, and analyses the economic and technological determinism of so many New Labour thinkers. This technocratic/administrative approach to politics stifles conflict almost as effectively as Bush's moral crusade in the US: neither approach leaves much room for adversarial politics. Our aim is that Soundings will continue to maintain a modest critical space for a different political trajectory
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Materials and morals: Families and technologies in everyday life
No full textAbout the book: At the beginning of the twenty-first century the everyday lives of people in the industrialized western world are being changed by shifts in traditional assumptions about gender roles, power dynamics, sexualities, styles of work, personal relationships and life trajectories. The circumstances of individuals in their homes, communities and work are being transformed through the development of increasingly flexible arrangements, personal wants, and new ways of talking about these. The boundaries of 'right' and 'wrong' have been debated in new experiments of daily living, while a unique degree of choice is exerted. But the complexity of these changes is often masked in the normal daily routines of the everyday. As a result, the category of everyday life is enjoying something of a renaissance in contemporary social thought, and the theme of the everyday provides a particularly useful 'contact zone' between feminist perspectives, sociology and cultural studies. Drawing on these strands of inquiry, this book focuses on the changing practices and meanings of daily living, particularly in order to understand how the current fluidity of everyday life practices relates to performing gender, sexuality, caring, 'racializing', ageing, work and other significant axes of everyday situations. The chapters consider these issues in the context of the intermeshing of technologies with daily life, the unstable and globalizing nature of work, and the shifting meanings of identity and place. Are there new 'everyday cultures' emerging? Social theory has talked about a new culture of intimacy, of work, of caring, or of gender. What are these new cultures and what is 'contemporary culture'? "Contemporary Culture and Everyday Life" contributes a range of rich and detailed studies, focused on specific aspects of the everyday, which address these emerging cultures and consider the significance of the category of the everyday in both earlier and contemporary social theory
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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Epilogue: Bourdieu's legacy?
No full textAssessing the main points of impact of the work of Bourdieu in contemporary academic scholarship
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Introduction: the importance of Bourdieu
No full textAn overview of the development of Bourdieu's work and of how it has been taken up in France and elsewhere. The importance of his work in vast areas of academic knowledge is assessed and the contributions in the book are outlined in terms of the legacy of his work
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Everyday life and contemporary culture
No full textAbout the book: At the beginning of the twenty-first century the everyday lives of people in the industrialized western world are being changed by shifts in traditional assumptions about gender roles, power dynamics, sexualities, styles of work, personal relationships and life trajectories. The circumstances of individuals in their homes, communities and work are being transformed through the development of increasingly flexible arrangements, personal wants, and new ways of talking about these.
The boundaries of 'right' and 'wrong' have been debated in new experiments of daily living, while a unique degree of choice is exerted. But the complexity of these changes is often masked in the normal daily routines of the everyday. As a result, the category of everyday life is enjoying something of a renaissance in contemporary social thought, and the theme of the everyday provides a particularly useful 'contact zone' between feminist perspectives, sociology and cultural studies. Drawing on these strands of inquiry, this book focuses on the changing practices and meanings of daily living, particularly in order to understand how the current fluidity of everyday life practices relates to performing gender, sexuality, caring, 'racializing', ageing, work and other significant axes of everyday situations.
The chapters consider these issues in the context of the intermeshing of technologies with daily life, the unstable and globalizing nature of work, and the shifting meanings of identity and place. Are there new 'everyday cultures' emerging? Social theory has talked about a new culture of intimacy, of work, of caring, or of gender. What are these new cultures and what is 'contemporary culture'? Contemporary Culture and Everyday Life contributes a range of rich and detailed studies, focused on specific aspects of the everyday, which address these emerging cultures and consider the significance of the category of the everyday in both earlier and contemporary social theory
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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