Pricing Bodies: A Feminist New Materialist Approach to the Relations Between the Economic and Socio-Cultural

Arguments that the economic and socio-cultural should be understood as relational and intertwined, and that price involves a reciprocal relationship between the economic and socio-cultural, are increasingly prevalent in the social sciences. I develop these notions of relationality and reciprocation through a feminist new materialist perspective, which emphasises the entanglement of and intra-action between what might usually be seen as independent and autonomous entities. To do this, I focus on a range of recent body-image initiatives, led by government, corporate and non-profit organisations, which aim to improve girls’ and young women’s levels of confidence and self-esteem. I explore how feminist theory tends to see such initiatives in terms of the expansion of the economic sphere into the socio-cultural, which involves a tainting or contamination of embodiment and feeling. Rather than dispute these arguments, I take seriously theories and practices from cultural economy that see the economic and socio-cultural as co-constitutive. I augment these ideas with a feminist new materialist approach and argue that the economic and socio-cultural are in intra-active relations: they do not precede or exist apart from each other. In doing so, I consider how body-image initiatives can be understood as phenomena produced through these entangled intra-active relations, and offer an understanding of pricing as a simultaneously socio-cultural and economic process, where value and values become. I also raise questions regarding how, ethically and politically, boundary making and unmaking can be conceived, and how despite being in entangled relations, asymmetries between economic and socio-cultural relations may be approached

The moral economy of security

In this article we draw upon our recent research into security consumption to answer two questions: first, under what conditions do people experience the buying and selling of security goods and services as morally troubling? Second, what are the theoretical implications of understanding private security as, in certain respects, tainted trade? We begin by drawing on two bodies of work on morality and markets (one found in political theory, the other in cultural sociology) in order to develop what we call a moral economy of security. We then use this theoretical resource to conduct an anatomy of the modes of ambivalence and unease that the trade in security generates. Three categories organize the analysis: blocked exchange; corrosive exchange; and intangible exchange. In conclusion, we briefly spell out the wider significance of our claim that the buying and selling of security is a morally charged and contested practice of governance

Renewing Criminalized and Hegemonic Cultural Landscapes

The Mafia's long historical pedigree in Mezzogiorno, Southern Italy, has empowered the Mafioso as a notorious, uncontested, and hegemonic figure. The counter-cultural resistance against the mafiosi culture began to be institutionalized in the early 1990s. Today, Libera Terra is the largest civil society organization in the country that uses the lands confiscated from the Mafia as a space of cultural repertoire to realize its ideals. Deploying labor force through volunteer participation, producing biological fruits and vegetables, and providing information to the students on the fields are the principal cultural practices of this struggle. The confiscated lands make the Italian experience of anti-Mafia resistance a unique example by connecting the land with the ideals of cultural change. The sociocultural resistance of Libera Terra conveys a political message through these practices and utters that the Mafia is not invincible. This study draws the complex panorama of the Mafia and anti-Mafia movement that uses the ‘confiscated lands’ as cultural and public spaces for resistance and socio-cultural change. In doing so, this article sheds new light on the relationship between rural criminology and crime prevention policies in Southern Italy by demonstrating how community development practice of Libera Terra changes the meaning of landscape through iconographic symbolism and ethnographic performance

Grudge spending:The interplay between markets and culture in the purchase of security

In the paper, we use data from an English study of security consumption, and recent work in the cultural sociology of markets, to illustrate the way in which moral and social commitments shape and often constrain decisions about how, or indeed whether, individuals and organizations enter markets for protection. Three main claims are proffered. We suggest, firstly, that the purchase of security commodities is a mundane, non-conspicuous mode of consumption that typically exists outside of the paraphernalia of consumer culture - a form of grudge spending. Secondly, we demonstrate that security consumption is weighed against other commitments that individuals and organizations have and is often kept in check by these competing considerations. We find, thirdly, that the prospect of consuming security prompts people to consider the relations that obtain between security objects and other things that they morally or aesthetically value, and to reflect on what the buying and selling of security signals about the condition and likely futures of their society. These points are illustrated using the examples of organizational consumption and gated communities. In respect of each case, we tease out the evaluative judgements that condition and constrain the purchase of security among organizations and individuals and argue that they open up some important but neglected questions to do with the moral economy of security

What about money?:Earnings, household financial organization, and housework

Objective: This research investigates the role played by household financial organization in configuring the housework participation of women and men and in moderating the influence of earnings on housework. Background: Existing research has focused on the ways in which earnings shape gendered power and housework performance in couple relationships. However, no research has examined how household financial organization intervenes between the receipt of earnings in the labor market and the performance of housework at home. Method: Two-stage least squares regressions were used to analyze data from Waves 2 and 4 of the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study (N = 6,070 couples). Results: Management of household finances is associated with an increase in housework time for both men and women, whereas control of household financial decisions reduces men’s but not women’s housework time. Women’s individual earnings reduce their housework time only when they can access these earnings. Supporting both resource bargaining theory and gendered resources theory, men’s relative earnings reduce their housework time when they or their partners manage the couple’s earnings, but not when partners manage their earnings independently. Women’s individual earnings and men’s relative earnings reduce their housework time only when they have partial or full control of household financial decisions. Conclusion: The management and control of household finances influence the time spent by women and men on housework in ways distinct from yet equally as important as those of earnings. Household financial organization is a key premise moderating when and how gender equality in the public sphere helps promulgate gender equality at home

The Voicing Hidden Histories Project: Participatory Video in Development, Soft Power and Film Language

In this article, we wish to reflect upon some of the findings of a recent Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded Global Challenges Research Fund Participatory Video (PV) project ‘Voicing Hidden Histories’. Working in South Africa, India and Brazil, this project has been using PV to support specific marginalised communities in each country to challenge the way their nations present themselves – and in particular their national history – to the world via ‘nation branding’ and other ‘soft power’ initiatives. Specifically, we ask: why use filmmaking as an international development tool? What are the enablers of – and barriers to – successful PV initiatives and what does ‘success’ mean in this context? Moreover, while such projects invariably make claims for PV as a particularly effective method for ‘giving’ communities ‘voice’ – however such potentially patronising terms might be defined – very little space is usually dedicated to the exploration of the films produced in such projects, that is to the specific articulation of this ‘voice’. Thus, we also wish to challenge a trend in the analysis of such projects that focuses entirely on questions of methodology and an understanding of PV as a process, largely ignoring the products made

Childhood Labor in India: issues and complexities

It is estimated that more than 12 million children in India under the age of 14 engage in paid labor at least part time, due mostly to economic reasons. Dominant discourses about childhood however conceptualize childhood labor not only as unethical but as exploitation. This article explored will the tensions between Western notions of childhood (within which paid labor is considered taboo) and the realities of children's lives in India, arguing that childhood labor must be contextualized and understood not only as a colonial legacy but also as part of its socio-cultural context. The author argues that separating children from the world of work fosters a culture of childhood that emphasizes entitlement over participation and privileges the rights of the consumer over children's rights as citizens

The Productivity of Care: Contextualizing Care in Situated Interaction and Shedding Light on its Latent Purposes

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Ethics and Social Welfare on 27th May 2011, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/17496535.2011.571063Care work may be connected with emotional and psychological exhaustion but also gratification, reward, and self-empowerment. Caregivers experience both positive and negative emotional states in caring situations, and further studies on the rewarding and energizing aspects of care may help us to broaden our understanding of how we can reduce the degree of burden while increasing the sense of satisfaction. This article shows how the focus on emotion is a necessary step to show the ambivalences and the grey areas connected with the concept of care as well as to challenge the not fully explored assumption that care is often associated with burden and stress and viewed as a result of circumstances. It reports the findings of a micro-situated study of daily care activities among 80 caregivers. Care is seen as a strategic site to grasp deeper insights into the interactional mechanisms through which the emotional dynamics revolving around care produce unanticipated outcomes in terms of symbolic and practical productivity