Parody of political correctness or allegory of “Immaterial Labour”? A second look at Francis Veber’s Le Placard (2001)

This article questions whether readings of Francis Veber’s Le Placard (2001) as simply a parody of political correctness have tended to overlook the allegorical significance of its depiction of a middle-aged executive forced to pretend to be gay, simulating libidinal investments he does not in fact possess, in order to protect his job. It argues that the film merits re-interpretation as being not only a parody of political correctness but also a powerful allegory for the increasing demands placed on employees to invest their most personal affects and aptitudes in their work. Drawing on the work of Yann Moulier Boutang, the article interprets such demands as symptomatic of a regime of ‘cognitive capitalism’, in which ‘immaterial’ forms of labour represent the primary source of surplus value. The article thus offers an alternative reading of the film’s treatment of questions of work, gender, sexuality, family, and nation, before situating Le Placard in the context of a broader range of recent French filmic representations of the contemporary workplace

They can't do nothin' to us today

Just as with the riots of 1981, the riots of summer 2012 will play a key role in the reshaping of British society. Most analyses frame these events as pathologies of the poor or as contemporary expressions of Mertonian anomie. Drawing on the work of Randall Collins, this article explores the riot as a form of collective action, considers the role of looting and arson within it, and the extent to which the actors involved find themselves part of multiple logics that mutually undermine each other. The analysis highlights the importance of the embodied, mobile, temporal and visual dimensions of the riot, and argues that the social sciences need to develop conceptual tools and methods to both engage with such embodied events and to be part of the social debate about their meaning

Cidade e práticas urbanas: nas fronteiras incertas entre o ilegal, o informal e o ilícito The city and urban practices: in the uncertain frontiers between the illegal, the informal and the illicit

Neste artigo, pretende-se abordar o tráfico de drogas a partir de suas capilaridades no mundo social e nas tramas urbanas, tomando como "posto de observação" alguns de seus pontos de ancoramento na periferia da cidade de São Paulo. Essa é uma perspectiva descritiva (e analítica) que permite situar as práticas criminosas nas suas relações com o que poderíamos definir como a gestão das ilegalidades inscritas nos agenciamentos concretos da vida cotidiana. A rigor, esse é o foco da discussão a ser desenvolvida: as evidências de uma crescente e expansiva trama de ilegalidades (nova e velhas) entrelaçadas nas práticas urbanas, seus circuitos e redes sociais, e que são urdidas nas relações hoje redefinidas (e a serem bem compreendidas) entre o ilegal, o informal e o ilícito. Com base em resultados de pesquisa recente, o artigo pretende o exercício de "etnografia experimental" para tentar flagrar as mediações e conexões pelas quais esses deslocamentos das fronteiras do legal e do ilegal vêm se processando. São essas conexões e mediações que precisam ser bem compreendidas: é nelas que se tem uma chave para identificar e compreender a porosidade entre o legal e ilegal, e as fronteiras borradas entre o trabalho, expedientes de sobrevivência e práticas ilícitas; é nelas que se podem identificar e compreender as capilaridades do tráfico de drogas no mundo social, capilaridades urdidas nessas formas de junção e conjugação da trama urbana.<br>This article intends to approach the drug trade from the perspective of its capillary network in the social world and in urban weaves, using one of its trafficking points in São Paulo’s periphery as an "observation station". This is a descriptive (and analytic) perspective that allows us to consider criminal practices in relation to what could be defined as the illegality management, which is present in concrete every-day life administration practices. This is, indeed, the focus of the discussion: evidences of a growing and expansive mesh of illegalities (both old and new ones), their circuits and social networks, which are woven in urban practices and warped in the redefined relations among the illegal, the informal and the illicit. Based on the results of a recent research, the article aims to put an "experimental ethnography" into practice, in an attempt to find out the mediations and connections through which the movements of the boundaries between the legal and the illegal have been taking place. These connections and mediations must be well understood for they contain the key to identifying and understanding the porosity existent between the legal and the illegal, and the blurry boundaries among work, survival expedients and illicit practices. In them, one may identify and comprehend the capillary network of the drug trade in the social world, which is warped in the junctions and conjunctions of the urban weave