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1 – 10 of 479Commodification doubles self and work, life and object, uniqueness and standardization and art and management. For the artist, the unicity, beauty, inspiration and creativity of…
Abstract
Purpose
Commodification doubles self and work, life and object, uniqueness and standardization and art and management. For the artist, the unicity, beauty, inspiration and creativity of art is doubled in the sale, marketing, display, distribution and mass production of “art works”. Making art is intimate, personal and individual; selling art requires public display, pleasing the all important customer(s) and dealing with many sorts of in-betweens. What commodification is on the artist/art work level is doubling on the I/me, self/persona, private/public and in-group/out-group level. This paper aims to examine the commodification and doubling in the case of the Gee’s Bend quilt makers. The quilts foreshadowed the modernist aesthetic and are of the highest aesthetic quality. But, they were made in a traditional rural society by very poor, uneducated black women. The quilts were not made to be sold but were dedicated to familial remembrance and to immediate aesthetic pleasure. But now that they are on display: is escape from commodification possible?
Design/methodology/approach
Reprint for special issue.
Findings
Doubling, in the original article below, was tendentious but artistically and politically to be overcome; doubling currently seems much more ominous, omnipresent and out of control. Signifyin(g) has become bomb throwing. Present day doubling apparently produces terror and not just commodification.
Originality/value
Invited for publication.
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The purpose of this paper is to pursue the themes of feminine identity, doubling and (in)visibility; first in terms of “signifyin(g)” as a cultural and literary strategy, and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to pursue the themes of feminine identity, doubling and (in)visibility; first in terms of “signifyin(g)” as a cultural and literary strategy, and second, in terms of quilting seen from the fiction of Alice Walker to the quilting of Gee's Bend. In the background, there plays the relationship between art and commodification.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines “commodification” and “doubling” in the case of the Gee's Bend quilt makers. The quilts foreshadow the modernist aesthetic and are of the highest aesthetic quality. They were made in a traditional rural society by very poor uneducated black women. The quilts were not made to be sold, but were dedicated to familial remembrance and to immediate aesthetic pleasure.
Findings
Commodification doubles self and work, life and object, uniqueness and standardization, art and management. For the artist, the unicity, beauty, inspiration and creativity of art is doubled in the sale, marketing, display, distribution and mass production of “art works.” Making art is intimate, personal and individual; selling art requires public display, pleasing the all‐important customer(s) and dealing with many sorts of in‐betweens. What “commodification” is on the artist/art work level, is “doubling” on the I/me, self/persona, private/public, and in‐group/out‐group level.
Originality/value
The author proposes, from the example of quilt‐making, a wide‐ranging interrogation: “Is escape from commodification possible?”
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The entry into tourism markets by international development practitioners aligns goals of economic development and cultural preservation in indigenous communities. The purpose of…
Abstract
Purpose
The entry into tourism markets by international development practitioners aligns goals of economic development and cultural preservation in indigenous communities. The purpose of this paper is to look into ways that community‐level participation can simultaneously contribute to both economic and cultural sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
It takes a qualitative interdisciplinary approach to the literature on cultural tourism and commodification to develop a discussion of the implication and the application of interrelated policy measures since the early 1990s. Analysis then proposes a set of key variables challenging the capacity of both policy makers and marginal indigenous entrepreneurs to achieve potential benefits.
Findings
Ideological tensions arise with the effort to balance the preservation of cultural integrity with the selling of marketable wares. The ongoing issues of market realities, political will, and tourism demographics create new questions that require further interdisciplinary research to develop an understanding that supports the long‐term sustainability of indigenous communities. A community‐based approach has potential to be very effective in negotiating the balance and undeniable trade‐offs between economic reward and cultural preservation.
Practical implications
Socio‐economic statistical data does not always exist for marginalized indigenous/ethnic minority communities that are not recognized by their own governments. This makes comparative case research and future monitoring very difficult to achieve. Also, existing discourse is currently dominated by non‐indigenous voices and Western tourism motivations, which need amelioration to better support the community‐based approach.
Originality/value
This paper provides policy makers, practitioners, researchers and indigenous communities with a multidisciplinary perspective on areas requiring further consideration and research. The analysis of current discourse when undertaken across disciplines confirms that policy directives cannot be broadly generalized.
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The purpose of this paper is to find out if there is any convergence between the Third Way in Europe and the Conservative Democracy in Turkey in their politico‐economic strategies…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to find out if there is any convergence between the Third Way in Europe and the Conservative Democracy in Turkey in their politico‐economic strategies for dealing with the social question with the thought that both the political identities have come into existence as a consequence of a similar initiative to reformulate their egalitarian cores according to the realpolitik of contemporary capitalism, and uncover the consequences of the so‐called strategies specifically in the realm of welfare and labour policies.
Design/methodology/approach
This inquiry has been contextualised into the evolutionary cycles of the socialism → social democracy → the Third Way in Europe and the Just Order → Conservative Democracy in the Ottoman‐Turkish territory. Initially focusing on the first cycle, the paper then turns to examine the second cycle in a comparative and synchorised perspective with the first.
Findings
It is concluded that the Conservative Democracy and the Third way have an unmistakable convergence in terms not only of their evolution but also of their strategic policy options to deal with the social question. Their convergence originates in the initiative to find a middle ground between the contemporary capitalism and their egalitarian cores. Such a reconciliative attempt by the both models ends up in a stalemate that triggers recurring conciliative initiatives rather than yield to stable and sustainable policy options which enable their practitioners to deal with the social question in an efficient way.
Research limitations/implications
The paper touches on the general points of convergence between the Conservative Democracy and the Third Way in the political economy of social question. The next step should, hence, be to further this argument by means of specifically dealing with the welfare and labour policies in separate in‐depth research.
Originality/value
This paper is the first in its inquiry as stated above in the purpose and its comparative methodology to deal with this inquiry.
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Brigitte Aulenbacher, Fabienne Décieux and Birgit Riegraf
The starting point of the paper is the meteoric rise of care and care work upon the societal and sociological agenda. Referring to Polanyi, the authors argue that this is the…
Abstract
Purpose
The starting point of the paper is the meteoric rise of care and care work upon the societal and sociological agenda. Referring to Polanyi, the authors argue that this is the manifestation of a new phase of capitalist societalisation (Vergesellschaftung) of social reproduction in the form of an economic shift. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the societal organisation of care and care work and questions of inequality and justice.
Design/methodology/approach
The first part of the paper illustrates some facets of the economic shift in the field of care and care work. The second part reconstructs the societal organisation of care and care work in the private sector, state, third sector and private households from the mid-twentieth century in the context of questions of inequality and justice. The third part draws on the institutional logics perspective and French pragmatic sociology and the own case studies on home care agencies (HCA), residential care communities (RCC) and early child care (ECC) in Austria and Germany and shows how conflicting demands give rise to new questions of justice. The paper ends with a short conclusion.
Findings
The paper shows how the commodification and de-commodification of care and care work have changed over time and how the economic shift – illustrated in the case of HCA, RCC and ECC – is accompanied by conflicting demands and questions of justice.
Originality/value
A Polanyian perspective on the relation between market and society is combined with the neo-institutionalist and pragmatic idea that orientations rooted in the “logics” of the market, the state, the family and the profession influence how conflicting demands in elder and child care are dealt with and how questions of inequality and justice arise.
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Eric Fimbel, Anne-Sophie Binninger and Catherine Karyotis
The purpose of this article is to analyze the symbolic and practical impacts of demateriality in two areas that are emblematic of the way the modern world operates. Firstly…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to analyze the symbolic and practical impacts of demateriality in two areas that are emblematic of the way the modern world operates. Firstly, finance via currency, and secondly, trade via the relationship between trading firms and their customers. The article also addresses the current role played by so-called “information” technologies, exploring the double embedding of society within trade and trade within finance.
Design/methodology/approach
A multidisciplinary approach which mobilizes available knowledge in finance, technology, marketing and sociology.
Findings
The overall social power of the state of demateriality is that it reinforces the double-embedding.
Originality/value
A multidisciplinary approach which mobilizes available knowledge in finance, technology, marketing and sociology to comprehend the role of a state, beyond the process creating that state.
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The purpose of this paper is to seek to apply Polanyi's theory of the double movement as a response to the effects of economic liberalization and globalization to the pre‐2007…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to seek to apply Polanyi's theory of the double movement as a response to the effects of economic liberalization and globalization to the pre‐2007 American economy. In so doing, it seeks to ascertain the reasons why this assumed double movement did not materialize until after the post‐2007 global economic crisis.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is structured as a theoretical and historical analysis, building upon Polanyi's nineteenth century observations and applying them to contemporary policy economic and social experience in the USA in the late twentieth century. The argument proposes a correlation between the missing and/or delayed movement and the role of access to debt and participation in equity markets.
Findings
This paper argues that Polanyi's concept of a societal countermovement has been absent from the post‐1970 period of economic liberalism and globalization until just recently due to an explicit attempt by the forces of capital to circumvent its role in lessening the harmful effects of American capitalism. In particular, the double movement that should have sought to lessen income inequality, unemployment and wage stagnation was instead replaced by access to cheap credit and the democratization of market investments that spurred consumer purchases and a false belief that what was good for the markets was good for working class Americans.
Research limitations/implications
This paper highlights the need for ongoing research into the sociotropic nature of trade and of economic policy, and its evolution throughout the contemporary period of economic uncertainty and economic transition.
Practical implications
The paper proposes several policy implications arising from the contemporary application of Polanyi's double movement, notably related to international trade and public and political support for ongoing trade liberalization.
Social implications
This paper highlights important connections in the relationship between economic policy and the day‐to‐day lives of those who are governed by it. Building on “everyday political economy”, it provides a foundation for arguments that a new balance must be found between economic globalization and transnational capital interests and domestic stability.
Originality/value
This paper promotes a novel approach to understanding the political economy of pre‐2007 America, in particular the reflexive nature of economic policy and societal perceptions.
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Lee Parker, James Guthrie and Rob Gray
This study explores academic activities with particular reference to research in the accounting and management disciplines. It explores emerging social constructions of the role…
Abstract
This study explores academic activities with particular reference to research in the accounting and management disciplines. It explores emerging social constructions of the role of research in academic work and the concept of what is deemed to constitute “quality” research. To this end it presents the results of an exploratory set of interviews with a sample of “gatekeepers”, namely professors and heads of accounting and management departments in British and Australian universities. They offer insights into the factors determining their construction of what constitutes quality in an academic’s research and publishing record, their ranking of various publication types and of publication activity generally, and their assessment of the influence of government policy priorities on the social construction of research quality.
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The aim of the research is to emphasise the role of material culture, and especially the role of objects related to physical activities, in children's socialization. It involves…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the research is to emphasise the role of material culture, and especially the role of objects related to physical activities, in children's socialization. It involves children's bodies but also symbolic meanings and values which introduce children to the universe of sport's consumption.
Design/methodology/approach
The research is grounded on the construction of a system of objects related to children's physical activities in France. The production of a corpus of objects involves a methodological circle where the choice of the objects goes together with a reflexive analysis about the operations of categorization of objects. The analysis of objects require both technological and semiotical approaches.
Findings
In the context of globalization and commodification of childhood, but also of the globalization and mediatization of sports, the research shows that objects for children's physical activities are inscribed in a double transformation: sportification of children's games and childification of sports.
Research limitations/implications
The research focuses on material culture and does not investigate children's uses of the objects for physical activity and does not determine the process of their conception and design.
Practical implications
The paper emphasises the difference between two faces of children's physical activities: spending calories and the development of motor skills and interpretative competences linked to sports' culture and children's mass culture.
Originality Value
In contrast to the work done on food and digital culture, the field of children's physical activities and sports is not as well researched. This is especially the case for the objects designed for children and this research is one of the first in the field in international literature. It constitutes also the first attempt for including this topic in the worlds of children's consumption.
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