Category: bodies

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Thresholds

Clever people at York are talking about Thresholds. Check out the website, it’s really interesting!

Based in the Science & Technology Studies Unit (SATSU) at the University of York, Threshold is a thematic programme of work that will unfold over the coming months. Taking Thresholds as a focal point, this research programme will use a range of diverse resources and perspectives to explore the liminal edges of everyday, organisational and social life. What and who reside beyond or within different types of thresholds? Who has to cross thresholds? What prevents people or things crossing? How does power operate through thresholds? How is it that thresholds articulate with limits, extremes, dangers and tipping points? These are just some of the questions we will explore.

Aimed at generating ideas and dialogue, this programme is geared toward political, conceptual and creative exchanges and contributions. Led by Joanna Latimer, Rolland Munro, Nik Brownand Dave Beer, this programme will develop a variety of perspectives on this central focal point of thresholds. This website will be used to communicate our key ideas, to promote events and to share outputs.

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Reblog> Book Launch: Playful Mapping in the Digital Age

Via Institute of Network Cultures.

Generally wary of anything with “digital age” in the title, but good to see some geographers featuring in ‘digital cultures’ type networks…

Book Launch Playful Mapping in the Digital Age

MONDAY 13TH OF MARCH, 17:00 – 18:15 @SPUI25, AMSTERDAM.

With keynote lectures by Michiel de Lange and, Emma Fraser and Clancy Wilmott.

From Mah-Jong to the introduction of Prussian war-games, through to the emergence of location-based play: maps and play share a long and diverse history. In this programme, we will launch the book Playful Mapping in The Digital Age, which shows how playing and mapping can be liberating, dangerous, subversive and, performative.

>> Sign up here.

Playful Mapping in the Digital Age shows how mapping and playing unfold in the digital age and in which ways the relations between these apparently separate tropes are increasingly woven together. Fluid networks of interaction have encouraged a proliferation of hybrid forms of mapping and playing. A rich plethora of contemporary case-studies, ranging from fieldwork, golf, activism and automotive navigation to pervasive and desktop-based games, emphasizes this trend. Examining these cases shows how mapping and playing can form productive synergies, but also encourages new ways of being, knowing and shaping our everyday lives. This afternoon, the Members of the Playful Mapping Collective explore how play can be more than just an object or practice, and instead focus on its potential as a method for understanding maps and spatiality.

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AI under feminist scrutiny

Searching for something else, I came across a 1999 book review by Tiziana Terranova of Alison Adam’s book Artifical Knowing in New Media and Society. As with much of Terranova’s incisive writing, there is a set of observations about the ontological politics of technology studies, in this case a really interesting reflection on how we might understand the issue of embodiment in relation to mediation:

…although embodiment is a foundational feminist category, it is far from being a resolved question. It is much easier to charge malestream science and technology with disembodiment than to come up with a model of embodiment which won’t stir the opposition of this or that feminist quarter. In many ways, the debate about cyberculture and technology keeps stumbling against the same block: if disembodiment is preferential bias of cybernetic technologies, how do we anser that? How do we bring back the body in cyberspace without essentializing it? Interestingly… if [we see] in Harraway’s cyborg (directly inspired by the skewed, labarynthine technologic of cybernetics) a machinic assemblage of organic and inorganics, of identity and difference, maybe [we] could have come up with a constructive, non-essentialist, embodied model of AI. Maybe it is a sad testimony of the overuse of the term ‘cyborg’ that [some are] all to ready to dismiss it as another ruse of an a-political postmodern feminism. It is a pity indeed since it seems to me that the charge of disembodiment more and more often levelled at digital culture (in all its manifestiations) has turned into the final word on the latter rather the beginning of a really different understanding of technology and subjectivity (or in this case, ‘intelligence’). Maybe we need a model of embodiment which is more about connections and partialities, more akin to cybernetics itself, to make AI work for feminists. (p. 142)

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“Irreconcilable differences?” Sharlene Mollett’s Gender, Place and Culture Jan Monk Distinguished Annual Lecture

The latest issue of Gender, Place and Culture, and first of 2017, is online. It has Sharlene Mollett’s  Jan Monk Distinguished Lecture,as well as a themed section on ‘Sexual and Gender Minorities in Disaster’. There’s also an article on ‘crazy cat ladies‘ (there is, honest).

Here’s Mollett’s abstract:

Irreconcilable differences? A postcolonial intersectional reading of gender, development and Human Rights in Latin America

In 2015, the United Nations set in motion the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015–2024). While this mandate provides much to celebrate, its reliance on universal and human rights narratives collides against the reality of a persistent inferiorization of Afro-descendant communities as less–than–human. The paradoxical nature of human rights discourses notwithstanding, Afro-descendant women (ADW) leaders in Latin America embrace the opportunity provided by the UN Decade, to rethink human rights discourses and Afro-descendant inclusion in development practice. I draw insight in this article from black feminist and postcolonial thinking to contribute to a growing engagement with the concept of intersectionality in the subfield of feminist political ecology. Employing the concept of postcolonial intersectionality, I reflect on how ADW operationalize particular knowledges and their racialized gendered subjectivities to challenge regional imaginaries that limit livelihoods, access to natural resources and that cast Afro-descendants outside humanity. I connect such organized activism to that of quiet, every day and largely unrecognized acts of resistance among Afro-Antillean women situated in the growing residential tourism enclave along Panama’s Atlantic coast, in a place known as ‘Bocas’. This article draws from ethnographic and historical data collection and is supplemented with news articles, activist scholarship, government documents and secondary resources. Together, I center the intersectional logics of power in Bocas and argue that ADW lead a material and symbolic process of place-making, one that prioritizes life while struggling over carnal, gendered and racialized dispossession and the right to be recognized as human.

 

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CFP> Fear and Loathing of the Online Self, Rome, May 22-23, 2017

Via Institute of Network Cultures… looks interesting… be good to see a wider variety of folks ‘participating’…

Fear and Loathing of the Online Self–A Savage Journey into the Heart of Digital Cultures

Call for Participation
Conference, Rome, May 22-23, 2017
http://networkcultures.org/online-self/

We would like to invite artists and researchers to submit proposals to join this event hosted by  John Cabot University and Universita degli Studi RomaTre in Rome, and organized in collaboration with the Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam.

The conference aims at exploring the state of the online self by raising questions about its status as a focal point of contemporary power/networks. Is the online self merely a product of software predictability and viral marketing? Is there any space left for self-determination? Or should we search elsewhere for new forms resistance by changing our political categories and perspectives? Which contradictions are at play? How and where can we locate the spaces of performativity of the online self?

Critical political-economic readings of platform capitalism do not explain nor grasp new forms of (visual) online subjectivity. There is a growing gap between the obsessive quest for measurability, big data and algorithmic regimes (such as AI/bots),and critical investigations of an emerging variety of compulsive forms taken by the online self. We need to fill this gap and bring them back together. If a humanities approach of Internet studies nurtured by artistic and activist practices aims to survive the ‘big data’ onslaught from the social sciences, then it is vital to ask what the citizen-as-user wants. To portray the population as (innocent or guilty) victims of the data monopolies is, politically speaking, a dead-end street.

The cynical condition rules: we know we’re under surveillance, yet we continue to click, like, love and share ourselves online as usual. We are told by concerned experts and libertarians that our privacy “matters” and we want to believe it; yet it silently confers a guilty stigma upon another vital need, to engage socially and culturally with others. While some preach the offline escape as a way out, most of us are so deeply invested in the everyday social media life that it is inconceivable for most of us to  leave Facebook and the like. And this not only out of desire but necessity: networking and self-sharing has become imperative for succesfully managing the double binds of the immaterial labour economy. Instead, we’d rather deal with peculiar pathologies, such as addiction, depression and solitude generated by hyper-connection and lack of connections.

Abstracts and proposals are welcome to contribute to the following sections:

1. ONLINE SUBJECTIVITY THEORY

How much free room do we have to design new identities? What aesthetic and philosophic paths and patterns does meme distribution hint at? What is the role of theory and criticism, if any, in the ever changing yet endless production of the latest user affordances, from dating sites, Tinder swipes and Snapchat lenses, to Pokemon-Go? Can we still attempt to design new modes of subjectivity, or has our role withdrawn to a mere Cassandra-like gloom and doom prediction of digital catastrophes, while start-ups (read: future monopolies) have all taken over the cool business of designing and shaping the online self?

2. BEHIND AND BEYOND SELFIES

It is easy to diagnose the selfie as a symptom of a growing narcissism of our daily digital obsessions. But how do we get beyond the predictable split between the politically correct assessment of empowerment (of young girls) against the nihilist reading of self-promotion and despair? Does criticism of today’s photography of the everyday life always have to end up giving medical prescriptions and recipes of wellbeing? What could a materialist reading of large databases and facial recognition techniques (including protection) that goes beyond media archaeology (the historical approach) and the ever-changing pop gestures involve and say? Can we still talk about the liberation of the self in the age of digital self-generation of the images?

3. ARTISTIC PRACTICES OF THE ONLINE SELF

Artists play an important role in the anticipation, and critique, of new modes of the self. What role does the artistic imagination play beyond the creative industries paradigm? How can artistic and creative avant garde practices help disrupt the trite quantitative approach and the dogma of the algorithm in defining modes and moods of the onlife self? What separates a (properly) artistic imagination and the aesthetic imagination of the online curators of selfie-constructed personas and are contemporary critical paradigms merely reproducing an understanding of online practices that are aligned with the requirements of corporation?

4. POLITICS AND AESTHETICS OF MASK DESIGN

Masks and selfies should not be seen as opposites as they both represent different modes (and moods) of being of the self. Masks create spaces of performance; they are playful and seductive (or scary) forms of self-representation that ultimately do not protect us against the computational repression of the security apparatus. What are the lessons learned from the Anonymous movement? We should come to a new social contract between the individuals, groups and the cybernetic machine. In the meanwhile, how can we make sure to protect us, and what premises are hidden in the numerous crypto-design projects that circulate?

Confirmed speakers: Wendy Chun, Ana Peraica, Jodi Dean, Marco Deseriis, Gabriella Coleman, Daniel de Zeeuw, Rebecca Stein, Vito Campanelli, Franco Berardi.

Editorial Team: Donatella Della Ratta (John Cabot University), Geert Lovink (Institute of Network Cultures/HvA), Teresa Numerico (Universita degli Studi RomaTre), Peter Sarram (John Cabot University).

Please send your proposal (max 500 words in word/pdf format), a short bio and any other material that could support your idea visually  (artwork, film links, etc) to selfieconference@johncabot.edu.  Deadline: March 1, 2017.

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“Masterclass with Melissa Gregg” at University of Bristol in Feb.

This looks really interesting. Mel Gregg has done some excellent work and is a good communicator so I’m sure this is a great opportunity…

Masterclass with Dr Melissa Gregg 

27th February 2017, 9:30–17:00

Dr Gregg is a leading world scholar in the field of gender, technology and critical management studies. She is best known for her ethnographic research of information professionals in the book Work’s Intimacy (Polity 2011), and as co-editor of the influential collection The Affect Theory Reader (with Gregory Seigworth, Duke 2010). Dr Gregg is currently working as a Principal Engineer at Intel Corporation and is exceptionally well placed to address the challenges in bridging the gap between organisational scholarship and practice.

This Masterclass is aimed at postgraduate students, academic staff and the wider community and will engage the participants in a critical, interdisciplinary debate on gender, subjectivity, organisations and organising. The day will be organised around recent themes in Dr Gregg’s work that explore technology, gender and culture in Silicon Valley; and methodologies for studying work and society.

Schedule for the Day

9.30-10.00am – Refreshments

10.00-11.30am – Counterproductive: The history of time management from a feminist perspective

11.30-12.00pm – Refreshments

12.00-1.30pm – Technology and the future of work

1.30-2.30pm – Lunch

2.30-4.30pm – Group Discussion: Gender, Culture and Methods

4.30-5.00pm – Refreshments Registration

The Masterclass is free and participants should register by emailing one of the organisers. Refreshments and lunch will be provided. Please also state any dietary requirements. Spaces are limited to 30 participants.

For further information, please contact one of the organisers.

 

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In the best possible taste? or the intimate geographies of training the mouth as a technology

Someone clutching their neck because of the bad taste of a cup of coffee

I’m undertaking some new research, for which I have received a small pot of funding from the University of Exeter. So, exciting stuff! This combines my theoretical work on understandings of technology and mediation and my near-obsession with ‘speciality’ coffee. I hope that I will be able to say something interesting about the kinds of intimate geography of taste (of aesthetics, of gustatory experience) that are performed through ‘speciality coffee’. Please find below a brief outline. Of course – I’d very much welcome any comments, suggestions or opportunities to chat about the themes here and things you think I’m missing or getting wrong, so please do get in touch!

In the best possible taste?, or the intimate geographies of training the mouth as a technology

Taste is something we pay for. We can pay more for food and drink we think are ‘delicious’. In turn, this creates ways food and drink we find pleasurable comes to market. This project will explore the growth in ‘speciality coffee’ and its contingency on particular kinds of taste, which I posit have a range of subsequent economic and cultural consequences. I will explore the central role of techniques of tasting, known in the coffee trade as “cupping”, in the commodity chains of ‘speciality’ coffee. Claims have been made within the coffee trade and in the popular press (in particular by Jay Rayner in The Observer, 8th June 2014) that a shift in tasting practices and thus how coffee gets roasted and prepared has created a very specific taste experience. The hypothesis of this project is that an increasingly technical and quantitative approach to measuring what we call taste is affecting the gustatory experience of coffee.

The aim of this project is to investigate how this particular taste experience has been constituted: to ask how do professional coffee tasters reflect upon the training of their sense of taste? And: do specific technical gustatory practices of tasting create orthodoxies in judgments about taste? – if so, how?

The methods for this pilot project involve undertaking two empirical activities: (1) undergoing tasting training with the London School of Coffee and documenting this ethnographically; and, (2) interviewing and tasting coffee with key speciality coffee roasters to examine how tasting techniques are used in practice.

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Reblog> Body & Society 22.4 – Special Issue on The New Biologies

via TCS.

Body & Society 22.4 – Out Now! Special Issue on The New Biologies

new-biologiesThe December 2016 issue of Body & Society – 22 (4) – is now available.

This Special Issue, ‘The New Biologies: Epigenetics, the Microbiome and Immunities’, is edited by Lisa Blackman, and features articles on Antibiotic Resistance, Epigenetics & Obesity, Placental Biologies, Pandemics, and the MRSA Epidemic, among others.

The issue is available here: http://bod.sagepub.com/content/22/4.toc

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Reblog> New article in EPD on geography & matter – @AngelaLast

This article looks really interesting!

New article in EPD on geography & matter


Image: ‘Crowd, Isolated on White’ (Leontura/Getty Images)

This morning, my latest article on geography and matter was published by Environment & Planning D: Society and Space. There are two kinds of discomforts that I am processing in this article: the lack of dialogue on the role of matter between followers of historical and new materialism, and my conflicted relationship with the work of Hannah Arendt. I had the feeling that the two problems were related, so I went ahead to see where it took me, starting with channelling the many animated conversation that I have had with people at workshops and conferences. I ended up somewhere different than expected, but with one thing I was right: it had to do with the way we make cuts between the material and supposedly non-material world. The result is called ‘Re-reading Worldliness: Hannah Arendt and the Question of Matter‘. If you do not have access to the journal, please send me an email. It is also available for free on the journal website until 12 September.

Abstract

Both new and historical materialisms have attracted a reputation for leading to ‘bad politics’. Historical materialisms have been accused of reducing too much to material relations and their production, whereas new materialisms have been accused of avoiding politics completely. This article reads the critique directed at materialisms against Hannah Arendt’s exceptional distrust of matter. Focusing on her concept of ‘worldliness’, it grapples with the question ‘why do we need an attention to matter in the first place?’ The attempted re-reading takes place through a feminist and postcolonial lens that draws out the contributions and failures of Arendt’s (anti)materialist framework in its banishing of matter from politics. Arendt’s focus on the prevention of dehumanisation further serves as a means to discuss materialism’s risk in negotiating the tension between deindividuation and dehumanisation.

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Reflecting on a great paper on care-ful education by @JenniferJLea ~ self-discipline, devotion and the negotiation of authority

In between the marking I’ve been (at least) trying to catch up on all of the great work by colleagues in Geography at Exeter. One paper I’ve enjoyed reading is this by Jen Lea and Louise Cadman:

“It’s a fine line between “¦ self-discipline, devotion and dedication”: negotiating authority in the teaching and learning of Ashtanga yoga.

The article is for Cultural Geographies. Using empirical work on the learning and teaching of Ashtanga yoga Jen and Louise reflect on the kinds of (non-traditional?) authority that are practised in the re-shaping of selves that takes place.

Jen and Louise use Foucault’s later lectures at the Collège de France and the History of Sexuality to position understandings of authority in a few ways (they also draw on work produced by the Authority Research Network, which is worth checking out). The folding of ‘internal’ and ‘external’ authorities, that somewhat relate to logos and tekne, in the learning and teaching of yoga is a really interesting trope. Cultivating inner authority as forms of techniques of the self is negotiated with the formal positions and gestures that are a form of discipline. This is not (or does not have to be) a relation of ‘domination’. The negotiation of different forms of authority, in a pedagogical praxis, can be a form of care [in the vein of epimeleia]. Of course, and as Jen and Louise point out, there is potential that

[t]he application here of the self on the self is a potentially problematic process, as the self is not necessarily malleable and compliant, and the possibility of  failing  to become an expert of the self, and the consequences of this failure, are interesting future questions to ask (p. 14).
I think the most striking element of the paper for me, having recently returned to reading Stiegler again, is the resonance between Jen and Louise’s interpretation of Foucault, through their empirical case study, and Stiegler’s reading of Foucault in relation to care. This comes through most forcefully in Jen and Louise’s conclusion and I think this is great:
‘Regardless of the expense, let’s seek out new teachers.’ (Foucault, p.151)
Towards the close of his very last lecture course, Foucault urged the value of teachers, not necessarily because of special authority lodged in the figure of any one individual teacher, but because of the external authority residing in the
logos which the (good) teacher will teach. It is a Socratic move, passing beyond ‘a teacher of tekne who can pass on his teaching to students’ (Foucault, p.152) – as in the educator who goes through the motions of transmitting ‘technical’, repeated, rote knowledge – towards the model of a teacher who communicates the logos (‘the missing teacher’) as arguably deeper truths about the care of the self. Such a teacher ‘will have to take care of himself [sic] by listening to the language of mastery (maîtrise) that comes from the logos itself’ (Foucault, p.152). In short, both teacher and taught are here positioned in relation to the external authority of a broader accumulated, guiding wisdom, and as such we vacate the more conventional (top-down) picturing of authority’s educational geographies […]. Yet, we perhaps shift even further from Heelas’s self-absorbed account of authority, with its individualistic (bottom-up) picturing of authority’s new-spiritual geographies […]. The key relation – of how educators educate, or how maybe they ought best to educate – becomes more firmly about a negotiated stance with respect to an overall ‘armature for life’ (Foucault, p.152), externally anchored and derived. (Lea & Cadman, 2016 p. 14)
Care is thus mnemotechnical, folding logos and tekne. Anyway – read the full paper! It’s good stuff.
The Foucault refs in the second extended quote are from The Courage of Truth.