politics

Consumption of work and the work of consumption

submission deadline  
30 Sep 2014
call for papers pdf  
PDF icon CfPConsumption of work.pdf

Issue Editors: Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, Rashné Limki and Bernadette Loacker

Work and consumption have always been intertwined, their interaction shaped by social and historical circumstances. The ‘consumer society’ (Baudrillard, 1998/1970) that we arguably live in is often associated with a fading interest in work. On this view, wage labour is seen simply as a way of funding consumption during leisure time (Berger, 1964; Gorz, 1985). However, the boundaries between consumption and work have become increasingly blurred. Consumption is no longer confined to leisure, having become central to the employment relationship (Korczynski, 2007; Dale, 2012), but also transcending it. At the same time, some consumption has become productive in the circuits of capital (Arvidsson, 2005). While both the themes of work and consumption have been discussed separately (including in ephemera, e.g. Beverungen et al., 2011; Dunne et al., 2013; Egan-Wyer et al., 2014), this special issue aims to bring them together by... more

Keywords  
consumption
branding
marketing
work
labour
politics
organization

The politics of consumption

If Politics, following Aristotle (1984), is a matter of analysing, comparing and ultimately creating practices of human association, we will do well to regard consumption practices as inherently political. Such a regard requires us to take a comparative-prospective disposition towards the roles and practices that underpin the production and distribution of subsistence and luxury.

The politics of consumption

This age of austerity comes on the back of a lengthened period of apparently rampant consumer excess: that was a party for which we are all now having to pay. A spectacular period of unsustainably funded over-indulgence, it seems, has now given rise to a sobering period of barely fundable mere-subsistence. Consumption, narrated along such lines, is a sin which has to be paid for. Beyond the deceptive theology of consumption, however, lies actual politics.

Between the event and democratic materialism

Bruno Bosteels, Professor of Romance Studies at the University of Cornell, has translated into English Theory of the subject (Badiou, 2009a) and Wittgenstein's anti-philosophy (Badiou, 2011). Additionally, he has written a number of significant articles and essays on Alain Badiou, including ‘Post-Maoism: Badiou and Politics’ (2005), Badiou or the restarting of dialectical materialism (2007), Alain Badiou: A polemical trajectory (2009a). He is therefore one of the best specialists of Badiou within the Anglophone academy.

The effect of affect: Desire and politics in modern organizations

This open issue consists of a number of contributions, which at first glance do not seem to be linked by any particular theme. Examining the different approaches to theory & politics in organization that are taken by the eclectic collection of papers featured here, however, it appears that the theoretical notion of the affective emerges again and again, as central to the politics of organization. The notion of affect is as such nothing new to ephemera.

conference

The politics of consumption

9 May 2012 to 11 May 2012
Banner depicting scenes from middle ages - king versus peasants.

 

 

This conference explores the relationships between consumption, accumulation, production, reproduction and politics today. Taking the apparent generalisation of conditions of austerity as an opportunity to re-visit longer ongoing debates surrounding the extra-economic nature of commodity consumption, and its complex relationship to commodity production, the conference asks whether traditional conceptualisations of the politics of consumption require revision.... more

Keywords  
politics
consumption
production
capital
austerity

From... to...

It has become clear that many of the traditional places of politics have become ineffective and sometimes simply corrupt. Today the political is on the move again: from Seattle to Prague, from Genoa to Evian, from Porto Allegre to Florence, as well as from and to many other places. We live in potentially exciting times. In many places difference seems to be possible again. But this movement does not simply move, because everything is moving and becoming. There are questions of organisation and strategy that need to be asked.

Writing politics

What more can we say today about the relations between writing and politics? ‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ goes the old slogan, but is it mightier than the traditional forms of direct action, political protest and insistent recalcitrance?

Bites of organization

Let us begin as we mean to go on – perversely – and start with the words on the back cover of this edited book. It proclaims that organization studies is made up of diverse methods and theories which ‘collide and compete, gathered together only in the broken net of a name. This book assembles some of the bits that break off in the process of this collision’. The authors are a group of ‘the most exciting, innovative and original thinkers and writers working in the field of organization studies today.

Indier than thou – On creative professions, chefs, and the sacralization of margins

Soundly situated in obscurityland,
famous in inverse proportion to how cool I am,
and should I ever garner triple-digit fans
you can tell me then there’s someone I ain’t indier than

MC Frontalot, ‘Indier Than Thou’

 

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