** via medianthro list **
The next EASA Media Anthropology Network e-seminar will run from 20 April to 4 May 2010 on the Network’s mailing list.
Sun Sun Lim and Minu Thomas (National University of Singapore, NUS) will be presenting a working paper entitled “Migrant workers’ use of ICTs for interpersonal communication – The experience of female domestic workers in Singapore”. These seminars are free and open to anyone with a genuine interest in the anthropology of media. To participate please drop me a line explaining briefly your interest in this field.
Abstract
This paper explores ICT use by Indian and Filipino female migrant workers who are employed as live-in maids in Singapore through ethnographic interviews with twenty women. Their particular employment circumstances translate into a circumscribed and isolated living and working experience which makes their access and use of ICTs even more significant. Our findings show that these women employ a variety of technologies for everyday communication, including letters, the mobile phone and the Internet, with the mobile phone being the most crucial communication device for most of them. Mobile communications enable them to foster emotional links with their friends and family, grow their social networks and afford them greater autonomy in seeking better job opportunities and the management of their personal matters. The paper concludes by making three policy recommendations aimed at improving ICT access for migrant workers. First, upon arrival in their host countries, all migrant workers should be educated about the access, use and cost of different communication devices and services available to them. Second, contracts between employers and migrant workers should have clear provisions for the employees’ rights to communication and specifically, mobile communications. Third, governments, non-governmental organisations and the private sector should actively seek to narrow the technological divide between migrant workers’ home and host countries so that these workers’ communications with individuals and organisations in their home countries are not impeded.
EASA2010: Crisis and imagination (24/08/2010 – 27/08/2010)
Media Anthropology Network workshop: The Rewards of Media
Paper Title: Mobile rewards: a critical review of the Mobiles for Development (M4D) literature
Francisco Osorio and John Postill
Sheffield Hallam University
Abstract:
The extraordinary rate of diffusion and adoption of mobile phones across the global South over the past decade has given rise to a new interdisciplinary field known as Mobiles for Development (M4D). The key debate in the field is whether mobile phones are having any significant impact on the economic livelihoods of marginalised people living in regions such as Africa, Asia and Latin America. Positions range from those who argue that mobiles are finally enabling poor people to overcome the digital divide to those who suggest that mobiles are in fact exacerbating old inequalities, through a number of in-between positions, including that of scholars who argue that only some low-income people (e.g. micro-entrepreneurs) are reaping the economic rewards of mobile phones. This paper is a critical review of the multilingual, peer-reviewed M4D literature on this unresolved debate from 2001 to 2010. Drawing from the theory of practice, we search for novel ways of mapping the shifting rewards of mobile practices under conditions of rapid change. The two main working assumptions are that mobile phones have blurred the lines between lives and livelihoods (Donner 2009) and that the rewards of mobile practices in the global South are of many different kinds (financial, social, expressive, sensual, etc., Warde 2005) and not solely ‘for development’.
See full list of proposals here
** via MECCSA mailing list **
A Conference organised by the China Media Centre at the University of Westminster with the Department of Journalism and Mass Communication of China Renmin University
309 Regent Street, London W1 UK
April 8th and 9th 2010
The dramatic economic growth in China has meant a renewed international influence. President Obama’s recent visit, and the effective establishment of the “G2,” marked international recognition of the fact that China is, today, a central actor in the world economy. Historically, economic power has always been accompanied by increasing international cultural influence – soccer, Hollywood and karaoke are just some of the things bequeathed by other big economies to the rest of the world. It is certain that China’s economic stature will also be reflected in the diffusion of Chinese culture.
This reality is already recognised by many in China and outside. The Chinese government has a “going abroad” strategy, aiming to make the Chinese language, Chinese culture, and the Chinese media more visible internationally. At the same time, broadcasters who were once content to buy programmes and copy western models are today planning to enter the international market place as sellers of their own products. This conference will address the current and future state of China’s “soft power.”
Keynote Speakers: Professor Ni Ning, Renmin University, Professor Li Xiguang, Tsinghua University
In addition, more than forty papers will be presented, including studies on:
* Theoretical discussions of the relationships between economic power and cultural power
* Official efforts to promote Chinese language and culture abroad
* China’s international news media
* The international strategies of China’s media companies
* The competitive advantages of Chinese culture in the international market
* Is “authentic” Chinese culture under threat from the drive to sell products internationally?
* International reaction to the spread of Chinese culture
* The historical experience of the international influence of Chinese culture
* Future prospects for Chinese media and culture on the world stage
For further information and to register for the conference, please contact Helen Cohen (H dt cohen02 att westminster dt ac dt uk).
Working towards a journal article on this topic; still very sketchy and in note form but I know you’ll forgive me.
CONCEPTS & IDEAS
*We must embed our theorising of new media and cultural change in world-historical events and processes; test these theories through the unfolding of historical events in specific geographical locales
* New media do not herald the end of geography (Chapman 2010): geography is as crucial as ever to understand cultural changes and continuities around the globe; culture areas are of particular importance in this regard.
* Culture areas = territorially based ‘total ways of life’ with overlapping fields of cultural practice (law, politics, journalism, academia, art…); people who are raised in these areas develop a cultural habitus that allows them to navigate them in seemingly effortless ways (most of the time!); in the current era we can distinguish two main types of culture area: (1) sovereign states such as Brazil, Ghana, Sweden or Indonesia (these are thick culture areas); these states are in turn internally differentiated into subnational regions and localities; and (2) large geographical regions such as Europe, South America or Australasia (thin culture areas) (see Postill 2006).
* Urban centres: All culture areas have both urban centres (where the concentration of economic and political power is no myth, pace Couldry 2003) and peri-urban hinterlands.
* New media technologies have diffused and become appropriated around the globe in overlapping waves: print, film, radio, TV, internet, mobile phones…; media epidemiological models could be developed to study these waves, e.g. with animated mapping techniques showing the waves over a period of several decades.
* There is no diffusion without appropriation (Postill 2006) – and vice versa: no appropriation without diffusion (something media ethnographers ignore at their own peril). In order for a new medium to spread from A to B (to C to D…) it must be appropriated into the local culture.
* Cultural appropriation entails a diachronic process of ‘domestication’ (Silverstone, Morley, and Hirsch’s 1994). Five empirically messy stages can be distinguished: 1. acquisition (why and how the locals acquired the new medium), 2. objectification (how they turned an alien artefact into a familiar thing), 3. incorporation (how they inserted the new medium into their routines), 4. conversion (how they converted it into social currency), and 5. disposal (how they eventually dispensed with the medium, if at all).
* As newer media spread to new areas they seldom replace the existing media. Instead they combine and collide and remediate (e.g. web TV) in complex and unpredictable ways (Jenkins 2006). Exactly in what ways this happens is something that ethnographic research is well-equipped to document. Over the 1980 to 2010 period we have seen in most locales around the globe a great increase in the number of different media technologies that interact with one another and with their adopters.
* There is no global cultural homogenisation in sight: each culture area (i.e. each country and region) continues along paths of cultural change that are unique. Despite the claims of technology authors excited about the near-global reach of web and mobile technologies, there are no signs that Morocco is heading for cultural convergence with South Korea, Canada, Tahiti or Zambia any time soon. Countries and regions appear to be highly resilient to global cultural homogenisation.
PROCESSES
*Decolonisation: unravelling of European (from 1940s) and Soviet (from late 1980s) empires; emergence of postcolonial order of UN member states; nation-state ideal of ‘one people, one state’ (Gellner) takes hold worldwide; everyday ‘banal nationalism’ (Billig 1995) fostered by regular cultural practices around radio, TV, film, now Web and mobiles. News of imminent coming of post-national world order greatly exaggerated.
* Rise of European super-state (from 1950s); huge common market of relatively affluent people; largest economy in the Planet; an economic giant weakened by its internal divisions (and nation-statism) and lack of a joint foreign policy
* Diffusion of Web, an internet ‘killer app’ (from mid-1990s)
* Diffusion of mobile phones (from late 1990s)
* Mediatisation: “No part of the world, no human activity, is untouched by the new media. Societies worldwide are being reshaped, for better or for worse, by changes in the global media and information environment. So too are the everyday lives of their citizens. National and subnational forms of social, political and economic inclusion and exclusion are reconfigured by the increasing reliance on information and communication technologies in mediating almost every dimension of social life.” (Livingstone 2008)
…. etc (to be continued)
EVENTS
1979 Iranian revolution: Shah ousted, audio cassettes and leaflets widely used to spread revolutionary ideas
1991 World Wide Web launched (I must confess I didn’t notice at the time)
1991 Dissolution of the Soviet Union gives rise to a host of new independent states across Eurasia and marks the end of the Cold War
2001 Terrorist attacks on the US inaugurate the ‘War on Terror’ and justifies the American invasion of Iraq and continued presence in Afghanistan
… etc. (to be continued)
** from medianthro mailing list **
Dear e-seminar participants
Our discussant, Kirsten Scheid, sends her apologies for the delay in posting her comments on Mark Westmoreland’s paper about the Lebanese artist Akram Zaatari . She’ll be doing so later today.
The good news is that those of you who haven’t yet read Mark’s paper still have time to do so today!! Meanwhile some of you may want to follow these links about Akram Zaatari recommended by Mark:
Zaatari’s presentation of Earth of Endless Secrets:
KM Artist talk: http://www.kunstverein-muenchen.de/2008/gallery_akram_zaatari_interview.php
In addition, Gabi Aguero has kindly forwarded the following Zaatari links:
http://www.videosurf.com/video/akram-zaatari-at-kunstverein-muenchen-63928080?vlt=ffext
A video of Akram Zaatari speaking about his work and a tour of his show in Germany.
http://www.videosurf.com/video/the-8th-fea-student-conference-akram-zaatari-earth-of-endless-secrets-86286820
Earth of Endless Secrets a lecture by the artist. Fast forward the first part while they are giving him an award if you like.
http://www.vdb.org/smackn.acgi$artistdetail?ZAATARIA
Some of his video work
All the best
John
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I have thoroughly enjoyed the BBC’s brand new mini-series, The Virtual Revolution (subtitled: How 20 Years of the Web has Reshaped Our Lives), a series I intend to use in future teaching. It is informative, educational, visually striking, and thought-provoking. However, this would hardly be a blog if I merely sang its praises, would it?
I’m normally quite good at switching off my critical faculties when watching television – years of practice growing up in a televisual culture have seen to that. In this case, though, I couldn’t but notice one or two things:
1. This was a familiar heroic tale of technological progress told by some of its more famous protagonists (Tim Berners-Lee, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg…) with an equally familiar open end: who knows where we’re going with the Web? It’s up to us – and our visionaries – to meet the many challenges that lie ahead and chart the right course. Missing from this Great Web Tradition, though, were the numerous little web traditions of ordinary people around the globe.
2. Some countries (notably South Korea) were presented as being ahead of the rest of us, offering us a glimpse of our collective Web future, e.g. of the dangers (Web addiction) and opportunities (a universal mind) of the Web. This portrayal had me troubled, not because I reject the notion of relative technological advancement (I don’t) but because it seems to overlook the huge cultural differences that exist between countries. It seems highly probable that South Korea (like Brazil, Finland, Ghana, etc.) will continue along its own paths of socio-technological change shaped by its unique history, geopolitics and culture. I can see no signs of South Korea heading for cultural convergence with Senegal, Belize or Taiwan any time soon.
But perhaps I’m falling into the Avatar trap: expecting too much from an audiovisual text whose rationale and aims are not my own. This was, after all, a television programme, not a media anthropological study.
See part 1 here
Introduction
What Rafael Nadal and I have in common
…and where we differ
What is practice theory?
Theoretical approach centred on practices (not on interactions, individuals, structures, systems…)
Bourdieu, Giddens, de Certeau, Schatzki… search for theoretical middle path between extremes of holism and individualism
Practices = sets of regular embodied activities that people carry out with varying degrees of skill, commitment and flair
In sum, practice theory is a body of work about the work of the body
Fields of practice = social domains with their own unique logics, laws and games in which variously positioned human agents compete and cooperate over field-specific rewards (symbolic, financial, social, physical…)
Academics are practitioners
Conventional terminological distinction in higher education between ‘theorists’ and ‘practitioners’ is unhelpful: both scholars and non-scholars working teaching in academic settings are practitioners – albeit in different fields of practice (art, sociology, journalism, biochemistry…)
Both learn how to operate within their specialist fields after long years of practice and secondary socialisation
Like other field practitioners, academics are invested in the ‘illusio’ of their field, the belief that learning how to play the game well is worth the long-term effort (Bourdieu)
They practice their craft both in regular time-geographical ’stations’ (Giddens 1984, e.g. seminars, journals, libraries, mailing lists) as well as in irregular ‘arenas’ (Turner 1974, often stations that have temporarily morphed into sites of conflict) where a prevailing paradigm is challenged and eventually replaced (Kuhn).
Like any other embodied practice, scholarship can be performed with more or less skill, commitment, and flair. Sometimes scholars may even experience ‘flow’, that ‘mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity’ (Csíkszentmihályi)
Implications for theory teaching and learning
If academics are practitioners of a particular kind – what are the implications for the process of learning and teaching theory? A thought experiment: Let us imagine an organisational blank slate – the freedom to reinvent our degree courses and modules from scratch.
* Students would be taught academic skills not in a field void but through an understanding and recreation of the academic field and its ‘games’ (this could be fun, come to think of it); students as junior scholars. (Yes, we already do this to an extent; what I’m suggesting is a more explicit, game-based approach).
* To attain such an understanding, students would start by learning about the specific history, struggles, collaborations, logics and games that have constituted their field of study, e.g. media studies, sociology, art.
* They would then simulate the operations of the field, e.g. by embodying and practising the positions of various field agents with differing amounts and kinds of capital (symbolic, epistemic, social, financial…), e.g. aspiring author, journal editor, research blogger, academic publisher, funding committee, etc, playing different academic ‘games’.
Conclusion
Summary and recap.
Rafael Nadal and I.
Q & A
