Lifestyle Politics and Radical Activism

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Attempts by people to enact their political beliefs in their daily lives have become commonplace in contemporary US culture, in spheres ranging from shopping habits to romantic attachments. This groundbreaking book examines how collective social movements have cultivated individual practices of "lifestyle politics" as part of their strategies of resistance, and the tensions they must navigate in doing so. Drawing on feminism and other movements that claim that “the personal is political,” the book explores how radical anarchist activists position their own lifestyles within projects of resistance. Various lifestyle practices, from consumption to personal style to sexual relationships, are studied to address how identity and cultural practices can be used as tools of political dissent. An accessible and provocative text, Lifestyle Politics and Radical Activism blends theory with empirical materials to highlight issues that are important not only to anarchists, but also to anyone struggling for social change. This unique analysis will contribute to the development of anarchist theory and practice and will appeal to anyone interested in political activism and social movements

Lifestyle Politics and Radical Activism

This volume in the Contemporary Anarchist Studies series offers a critical study of the phenomenon of "lifestyle politics.

Lifestyle Politics and Radical Activism

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Attempts by people to enact their political beliefs in their daily lives have become commonplace in contemporary US culture, in spheres ranging from shopping habits to romantic attachments. This groundbreaking book examines how collective social movements have cultivated individual practices of "lifestyle politics" as part of their strategies of resistance, and the tensions they must navigate in doing so. Drawing on feminism and other movements that claim that “the personal is political,” the book explores how radical anarchist activists position their own lifestyles within projects of resistance. Various lifestyle practices, from consumption to personal style to sexual relationships, are studied to address how identity and cultural practices can be used as tools of political dissent. An accessible and provocative text, Lifestyle Politics and Radical Activism blends theory with empirical materials to highlight issues that are important not only to anarchists, but also to anyone struggling for social change. This unique analysis will contribute to the development of anarchist theory and practice and will appeal to anyone interested in political activism and social movements

‘I just want to be me again!’ Beauty pageants, reality television and post-feminism

This essay examines the connections between the Miss America pageant and reality makeover television shows. We argue that televised performances of gender have shifted focus from the intensely scripted, out-of-touch Miss America to reality makeover shows that normalize cosmetic surgery as a means to become the ‘ideal’ woman. While both spectacles offer their viewers performances of femininity, these performances need to be understood as emerging from the cultural and political conditions in which they are produced. This difference in presentation of the subjects of beauty pageants and makeover programmes speaks respectively to the changing role of media in the normalization of performances of femininity, as well as to the affiliation of many young women with post-feminist politics in the United States

Introduction:Sound and Vision

Feminist analysis of media is a field that has arguably been dominated by the visual. From selfies to music videos to films, feminist media scholars have done important work to unpack the way representations of gender look. But how does gender sound in contemporary media? How are femininity, masculinity, and other expressions of gender represented sonically across media platforms?This issue of Commentary and Criticism brings together essays that consider feminist approaches to sound in relation to a range of media. Shenila Khoja-Moolji’s essay explores the role of sound in the production of racialized masculinities through an analysis of the use, and presentation of, “Allahu Akbar” across different media. Considering the “affective intensities” of the association with violence given to this sound in some Western contexts, Khoja-Moolji argues that further interrogation is needed of the way this phrase has been “reduced” in order to function as a “stand-in” for racialized, violent masculinities. Heather Warren-Crow’s essay similarly examines the role of sound in the production of gender, looking this time at femininity through an analysis of the aural phenomenon of “screaming like a girl” in online reaction videos, making broader connections with participatory media and feminized labor. Also examining the role of women’s voices, Manuel Garin and Amanda Villavieja’s essay discusses the use of asynchrony in the sound design of Chantal Akerman’s self-portrait films, arguing that it opens up opportunities for feminist scholars to think about sound strategies that resist the misogynistic associations of women’s voices and bodies in much mainstream narrative cinema. Finally, engaging with interdisciplinary approaches to the voice, Jennifer O’Meara’s essay asserts that despite the recent interest in gender inequalities in cinematic representations brought about by the introduction of “The Bechdel Test,” there has been very little attention paid to the vocal and verbal representation of women in contemporary cinema and in audio-visual media more broadly. The essay calls for a more nuanced analysis of the ways in which other markers such as age, race, and accent inflect the voice and are perceived by audiences

Introduction:Gendered Voices and Audio Media

Following our previous Commentary and Criticism on Sound and Vision, this section continues on the sonic theme, focusing on gendered voices across a range of media examples. Salam Al-Mahadin considers gendered soundscapes on Jordanian nationalist radio stations, investigating cultural and political constructions of national identity through a focus on gendered dialects. Also looking at radio, Miranda Iossifidis explores feminised voicing and soft sounds in Claire Tolan’s sound art practice and her engagement with ASMR, relating this practice to gendered notions of care. The feminisation of vocality is also interrogated by Melody Hoffmann and Raechel Tiffe in their essay on the feminist implications of their own woman-hosted podcast, which questions what it means for women’s voices to take up sonic space. The feminist potential of the podcast as a form of public scholarship is the subject of the following essay by Bethany Doane, Kaitlin McCormick, and Giuliana Sorce, with a particular focus on Sarah Koenig’s Serial. Claire Coleman examines public feminism in another context, looking at several contemporary examples of female indie musicians publicly speaking out against the sexism and misogyny they have experienced from fans and members of the music industry. Lauren Jackson explores a different genre of music, namely hip hop, examining how gender is manifest in Nicki Minaj’s work with a particular focus on her laughter. With reference to diverse media examples, the essays collected here highlight the relationship between gendered voices and power and emphasise the importance of feminist media scholars engaging not just with the visual, but with the sonic too

Navigating Media Ambivalence: Strategies of Resistance, Avoidance, and Engagement with Media Technology in Everyday Life

As media technologies continue to infiltrate the domestic sphere with interactive opportunities, an increased interest in time and content management has surfaced. Social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter have been commonly associated with “wasted time” and the accessibility of unchecked content has placed a strain on the preservation of family ethics and values. On the other hand, media technologies continue to offer spaces of both meaningful and necessary communication, as well as enjoyment, education, creativity, and political action. Based on this cultural conundrum, important questions about social practice and media resistance follow: Under what logics are individuals and families using deciding to resist media technologies? What are the everyday practices of media ambivalence and resistance and how do they operate in the domestic sphere? In most research and popular discussion of media texts and platforms, the focus is understandably on current or potential users of media. This panel aims to provide space for discussing an important, though perhaps under-attended to, phenomenon within media consumption: the active non-use or negotiation of media by subjects who hold ambivalent attitudes toward communication technologies. Using empirical evidence and discourse analysis, each of the papers on this panel draws attention to the strategies employed by people who want to actively manage their own media use, as well as that of their families. The papers collected here consider a variety of communication technologies (email, television, smart phones, and social network sites) and focus on a range of factors (including gender, religion, and national context) that shape the attitudes taken and the tactics deployed in regulating media use. The first paper in this panel explores and analyzes technological and discursive “tactics” (i.e., “screen time”) that users employ to negotiate and limit media use for themselves and their families. Drawing upon qualitative interviews conducted in households in Israel, the authors try to make sense of these different practices through comparisons with research conducted about parents and children. The second paper looks at the role of gender, as a social practice, in the regulation of domestic media consumption—including the gender identification of the primary policing parent and resistance toward gendered symbols in media culture—in order to identify how gender norms are perpetuated through practices of media regulation. The third paper in this panel explores how Muslims in the United States devise evasive tactics that both engage and resist the proliferation of media technologies in the household. In particular, the author argues that given their media deficit in American society, Muslims often feel they cannot afford to resist media technologies, particularly smart phones and social media because of their connective qualities and their interventionist affordances. Finally, the last paper examines the practice of refusal of social media platforms, for example, the active resistance by potential users to participation on sites like Facebook. The author argues that this works against the potential for media refusal to function as effective strategy of collective action. Practices of social media refusal and the discourses around it serve as sites of symbolic and material struggle within the contemporary commercial media context. As a panel, the papers converse with each other to examine the ways that individuals and families confront their usage of new technologies in a media saturated age. In particular, the nuances of media resistance are analyzed at the discursive and textual level in order to understand the productive ways in which media technology is managed. In an age where individuals and families increasingly use technology to restrict their technology use, scholarship on media ambivalence becomes essential to understanding the contemporary media landscape