Authenticity, Non-Places and the Neoliberal Self

Authenticity, Non-Places and the Neoliberal Self PDF Author: Diana Gold
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668813930
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Sociology - Culture, Technology, Nations, grade: 1, University of Vienna, language: English, abstract: When does something start to be authentic and when does it end? Why is authenticity a very positively connotated word? Why do tourists seek real, authentic places and people (individuals and ethnic groups)? And what do they declare or accept as authentic? Can something be authentic as soon as it gets commodified? In my work, I would like to answer these questions by drawing on the concepts of authenticity, ethnicity, as well as, the dimensions and the paradoxes of globalization. In my opinion, authenticity is a term which suggests that something /somebody is/ has “real” culture, history and social life, although authenticity doesn’t have to be something historical. Therefore, the opposite must be something with no history and no vital social life, no individual, personal or historical relation to the place. I think these are the so called “non-places”. According to Marc Augé these places (Non-Lieux) are producing solitude and are following the capitalistic, rationalist thinking, which leads me to the neoliberal self. Neoliberalism is not only manifested in economic terms, but also in social and cultural ones. That means that the economic changes through neoliberalistic governance, like the retreat from the welfare state, the enhancing of privatization etc. also impact individuals in their social and cultural life. Or, in other words, the macro- and micro structures are entangled and can’t be divided. My questions regarding the neoliberal-self and authenticity are the following: How does neoliberalism affect the personal identity? How do authenticity, ethnicity and tradition get mobilized for the neoliberal self or for city branding? In this paper, I’m going to start with the explanation of authenticity and its opposite, the non-places, as contrasting concept and finally I will explain the connection of authenticity and anthropological places, as well as, non-places and the neoliberal self.

Authenticity, Non-Places and the Neoliberal Self

Authenticity, Non-Places and the Neoliberal Self PDF Author: Diana Gold
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668813930
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 20

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2017 in the subject Sociology - Culture, Technology, Nations, grade: 1, University of Vienna, language: English, abstract: When does something start to be authentic and when does it end? Why is authenticity a very positively connotated word? Why do tourists seek real, authentic places and people (individuals and ethnic groups)? And what do they declare or accept as authentic? Can something be authentic as soon as it gets commodified? In my work, I would like to answer these questions by drawing on the concepts of authenticity, ethnicity, as well as, the dimensions and the paradoxes of globalization. In my opinion, authenticity is a term which suggests that something /somebody is/ has “real” culture, history and social life, although authenticity doesn’t have to be something historical. Therefore, the opposite must be something with no history and no vital social life, no individual, personal or historical relation to the place. I think these are the so called “non-places”. According to Marc Augé these places (Non-Lieux) are producing solitude and are following the capitalistic, rationalist thinking, which leads me to the neoliberal self. Neoliberalism is not only manifested in economic terms, but also in social and cultural ones. That means that the economic changes through neoliberalistic governance, like the retreat from the welfare state, the enhancing of privatization etc. also impact individuals in their social and cultural life. Or, in other words, the macro- and micro structures are entangled and can’t be divided. My questions regarding the neoliberal-self and authenticity are the following: How does neoliberalism affect the personal identity? How do authenticity, ethnicity and tradition get mobilized for the neoliberal self or for city branding? In this paper, I’m going to start with the explanation of authenticity and its opposite, the non-places, as contrasting concept and finally I will explain the connection of authenticity and anthropological places, as well as, non-places and the neoliberal self.

Spaces for Consumption

Spaces for Consumption PDF Author: Steven Miles
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 144624511X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
In Spaces for Consumption Steven Miles develops a penetrating critique of a key shift characterising the contemporary city. Theoretically informed, the other strength of the volume lies in the wealth of examples that are drawn upon to show how cities are becoming spaces for consumption, which has itself rapidly become a global phenomenon." - Ronan Paddison, University of Glasgow "This is a great book. Powerfully written and lucid, it provides a thorough introduction to concepts of consumption as they relate to the spaces of cities. The spaces themselves - the airports, the shopping malls, the museums and cultural quarters - are analysed in marvellous detail, and with a keen sense of historical precedent. And, refreshingly, Miles doesn′t simply dismiss cultures of consumption out of hand, but shows how as consumers we are complicit in, and help define those cultures. His book makes a major contribution to our understanding of contemporary cities, but is accessible enough to appeal to any reader with an interest in this important area." - Richard Williams, Edinburgh University Spaces for Consumption offers an in-depth and sophisticated analysis of the processes that underpin the commodification of the city and explains the physical manifestation of consumerism as a way of life. Engaging directly with the social, economic and cultural processes that have resulted in our cities being defined through consumption this vibrant book clearly demonstrates the ways in which consumption has come to play a key role in the re-invention of the post-industrial city The book provides a critical understanding of how consumption redefines the consumers′ relationship to place using empirical examples and case studies to bring the issues to life. It discusses many of the key spaces and arenas in which this redefinition occurs including: shopping themed space mega-events architecture Developing the notion of ′contrived communality′ Steven Miles outlines the ways in which consumption, alongside the emergence of an increasingly individualized society, constructs a new kind of relationship with the public realm. Clear, sophisticated and dynamic this book will be essential reading for students and researchers alike in sociology, human geography, architecture, planning, marketing, leisure and tourism, cultural studies and urban studies.

The End of Illusions

The End of Illusions PDF Author: Andreas Reckwitz
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1509545719
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
We live in a time of great uncertainty about the future. Those heady days of the late twentieth century, when the end of the Cold War seemed to be ushering in a new and more optimistic age, now seem like a distant memory. During the last couple of decades, we’ve been battered by one crisis after another and the idea that humanity is on a progressive path to a better future seems like an illusion. It is only now that we can see clearly the real scope and structure of the profound shifts that Western societies have undergone over the last 30 years. Classical industrial society has been transformed into a late-modern society that is molded by polarization and paradoxes. The pervasive singularization of the social, the orientation toward the unique and exceptional, generates systematic asymmetries and disparities, and hence progress and unease go hand in hand. Reckwitz examines this dual structure of singularization and polarization as it plays itself out in the different sectors of our societies and, in so doing, he outlines the central structural features of the present: the new class society, the characteristics of a postindustrial economy, the conflict about culture and identity, the exhaustion of the self resulting from the imperative to seek authentic fulfillment, and the political crisis of liberalism. Building on his path-breaking work The Society of Singularities, this new book will be of great interest to students and scholars in sociology, politics, and the social sciences generally, and to anyone concerned with the great social and political issues of our time.

Ethnographies of Neoliberalism

Ethnographies of Neoliberalism PDF Author: Carol J. Greenhouse
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 0812200012
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Since 2008, the global economic crisis has exposed and deepened the tensions between austerity and social security—not just as competing paradigms of recovery but also as fundamentally different visions of governmental and personal responsibility. In this sense, the core premise of neoliberalism—the dominant approach to government around the world since the 1980s—may by now have reached a certain political limit. Based on the premise that markets are more efficient than government, neoliberal reforms were pushed by powerful national and transnational organizations as conditions of investment, lending, and trade, often in the name of freedom. In the same spirit, governments increasingly turned to the private sector for what were formerly state functions. While it has become a commonplace to observe that neoliberalism refashioned citizenship around consumption, the essays in this volume demonstrate the incompleteness of that image—as the social limits of neoliberalism are inherent in its very practice. Ethnographies of Neoliberalism collects original ethnographic case studies of the effects of neoliberal reform on the conditions of social participation, such as new understandings of community, family, and gender roles, the commodification of learning, new forms of protest against corporate power, and the restructuring of local political institutions. Carol J. Greenhouse has brought together scholars in anthropology, communications, education, English, music, political science, religion, and sociology to focus on the emergent conditions of political agency under neoliberal regimes. This is the first volume to address the effects of neoliberal reform on people's self-understandings as social and political actors. The essayists consider both the positive and negative unintended results of neoliberal reform, and the theoretical contradictions within neoliberalism, as illuminated by circumstances on the ground in Africa, Europe, South America, Japan, Russia, and the United States. With an emphasis on the value of ethnographic methods for understanding neoliberalism's effects around the world in our own times, Ethnographies of Neoliberalism uncovers how people realize for themselves the limits of the market and act accordingly from their own understandings of partnership and solidarity.

Bodies in the Streets: The Somaesthetics of City Life

Bodies in the Streets: The Somaesthetics of City Life PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004411135
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 333

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Book Description
Cities are defined by their complex network of busy streets and the multitudes of people that animate them through physical presence and bodily actions that often differ dramatically: elegant window-shoppers and homeless beggars, protesting crowds and patrolling police. As bodies shape city life, so the city’s spaces, structures, economies, politics, rhythms, and atmospheres reciprocally shape the urban soma. This collection of original essays explores the somaesthetic qualities and challenges of city life (in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas) from a variety of perspectives ranging from philosophy, urban theory, political theory, and gender studies to visual art, criminology, and the interdisciplinary field of somaesthetics. Together these essays illustrate the aesthetic, cultural, and political roles and trials of bodies in the city streets.

In the Ruins of Neoliberalism

In the Ruins of Neoliberalism PDF Author: Wendy Brown
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231550537
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 181

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Book Description
Across the West, hard-right leaders are surging to power on platforms of ethno-economic nationalism, Christianity, and traditional family values. Is this phenomenon the end of neoliberalism or its monstrous offspring? In the Ruins of Neoliberalism casts the hard-right turn as animated by socioeconomically aggrieved white working- and middle-class populations but contoured by neoliberalism’s multipronged assault on democratic values. From its inception, neoliberalism flirted with authoritarian liberalism as it warred against robust democracy. It repelled social-justice claims through appeals to market freedom and morality. It sought to de-democratize the state, economy, and society and re-secure the patriarchal family. In key works of the founding neoliberal intellectuals, Wendy Brown traces the ambition to replace democratic orders with ones disciplined by markets and traditional morality and democratic states with technocratic ones. Yet plutocracy, white supremacy, politicized mass affect, indifference to truth, and extreme social disinhibition were no part of the neoliberal vision. Brown theorizes their unintentional spurring by neoliberal reason, from its attack on the value of society and its fetish of individual freedom to its legitimation of inequality. Above all, she argues, neoliberalism’s intensification of nihilism coupled with its accidental wounding of white male supremacy generates an apocalyptic populism willing to destroy the world rather than endure a future in which this supremacy disappears.

Why Liberalism Failed

Why Liberalism Failed PDF Author: Patrick J. Deneen
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300240023
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 263

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Book Description
"One of the most important political books of 2018."—Rod Dreher, American Conservative Of the three dominant ideologies of the twentieth century—fascism, communism, and liberalism—only the last remains. This has created a peculiar situation in which liberalism’s proponents tend to forget that it is an ideology and not the natural end-state of human political evolution. As Patrick Deneen argues in this provocative book, liberalism is built on a foundation of contradictions: it trumpets equal rights while fostering incomparable material inequality; its legitimacy rests on consent, yet it discourages civic commitments in favor of privatism; and in its pursuit of individual autonomy, it has given rise to the most far-reaching, comprehensive state system in human history. Here, Deneen offers an astringent warning that the centripetal forces now at work on our political culture are not superficial flaws but inherent features of a system whose success is generating its own failure.

J.M. Coetzee and Neoliberal Culture

J.M. Coetzee and Neoliberal Culture PDF Author: Andrew Gibson
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192599798
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
This book presents J. M. Coetzee's work as a complex, nuanced counterblast to contemporary, global, neoliberal economics and its societies. Not surprisingly, given his many years in South Africa and Australia, Coetzee writes from a `global-Southern' perspective. Drawing on a wealth of literature, philosophy, and theory, the book reads Coetzee's writings as a discreet, oblique but devastating engagement with neoliberal presumptions. It identifies and focuses on various key features of neoliberal culture: its obsession with self-enrichment, mastery, growth; its belief in plenitude, endless resources; its hubris and obsession with (self)-promotion; its desire for ease and easiness, `well-being', euphoria; its fetishization of managerial reason and the culture of security; its unrelenting positivity, its belief in illusory goods and trivial progressivisms. By contrast, Coetzee's writings explore the virtues of irony and self-reduction. He commits himself to difficulty, discomfort, patient and austere, if bleak, inquiry, rigorous questioning, and radical doubt. Destitution and failure come to look like a serious, dignified form of life and thought. The very tones of Coetzee's books run counter to those of our neoliberal democracies. They point in a different direction to an age that has gone astray.

AuthenticTM

AuthenticTM PDF Author: Sarah Banet-Weiser
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814787150
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 282

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Book Description
A stimulating, smart book on what it means to live in a brand culture Brands are everywhere. Branding is central to political campaigns and political protest movements; the alchemy of social media and self-branding creates overnight celebrities; the self-proclaimed “greening” of institutions and merchant goods is nearly universal. But while the practice of branding is typically understood as a tool of marketing, a method of attaching social meaning to a commodity as a way to make it more personally resonant with consumers, Sarah Banet-Weiser argues that in the contemporary era, brands are about culture as much as they are about economics. That, in fact, we live in a brand culture. AuthenticTM maintains that branding has extended beyond a business model to become both reliant on, and reflective of, our most basic social and cultural relations. Further, these types of brand relationships have become cultural contexts for everyday living, individual identity, and personal relationships—what Banet-Weiser refers to as “brand cultures.” Distinct brand cultures, that at times overlap and compete with each other, are taken up in each chapter: the normalization of a feminized “self-brand” in social media, the brand culture of street art in urban spaces, religious brand cultures such as “New Age Spirituality” and “Prosperity Christianity,”and the culture of green branding and “shopping for change.” In a culture where graffiti artists loan their visions to both subway walls and department stores, buying a cup of “fair-trade” coffee is a political statement, and religion is mass-marketed on t-shirts, Banet-Weiser questions the distinction between what we understand as the “authentic” and branding practices. But brand cultures are also contradictory and potentially rife with unexpected possibilities, leading AuthenticTM to articulate a politics of ambivalence, creating a lens through which we can see potential political possibilities within the new consumerism.

The Political Theory of Neoliberalism

The Political Theory of Neoliberalism PDF Author: Thomas Biebricher
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503607836
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
Neoliberalism has become a dirty word. In political discourse, it stigmatizes a political opponent as a market fundamentalist; in academia, the concept is also mainly wielded by its critics, while those who might be seen as actual neoliberals deny its very existence. Yet the term remains necessary for understanding the varieties of capitalism across space and time. Arguing that neoliberalism is widely misunderstood when reduced to a doctrine of markets and economics alone, this book shows that it has a political dimension that we can reconstruct and critique. Recognizing the heterogeneities within and between both neoliberal theory and practice, The Political Theory of Neoliberalism looks to distinguish between the two as well as to theorize their relationship. By examining the views of state, democracy, science, and politics in the work of six major figures—Eucken, Röpke, Rüstow, Hayek, Friedman, and Buchanan—it offers the first comprehensive account of the varieties of neoliberal political thought. Ordoliberal perspectives, in particular, emerge in a new light. Turning from abstract to concrete, the book also interprets recent neoliberal reforms of the European Union to offer a diagnosis of contemporary capitalism more generally. The latest economic crises hardly brought the neoliberal era to an end. Instead, as Thomas Biebricher shows, we are witnessing an authoritarian liberalism whose reign has only just begun.