Journal articles: 'The Boston magazine' – Grafiati (2024)

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Nineteenth-century American culinary and gastronomic magazines are an important resource for interested scholars. Unfortunately most are little known and somewhat elusive. In this article, we introduce and briefly describe ten such journals: Berney's Mystery of Living (1868); The Table (1873); American Cookery (1876); The Caterer (Philadelphia 1882); The Cooking Club (1895); Table Talk (1886); Hotel Monthly (1893); What To Eat (1896); Boston Cooking-School Magazine (1896); and The Caterer (San Francisco 1891).

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Por meio da articulação entre história social da cultura e do trabalho, o artigo discute o processo de fortalecimento da "cultura mulata" promovido por intelectuais afro-americanos das classes alta e média no período pós-emancipação. Ao analisar o "problema da liberdade" com base nos referenciais de beleza construídos por esses "novos negros", trago à cena textos e fotografias coletados das revistas The Half Century Magazine, de Boston, e The Crisis: a record of the darker races, de Nova York. Os magazines e outros títulos evidenciam que, entre 1900 e 1930, o sistema de segregação intrarracial baseado na tonalidade da pele ("colorismo") trouxe como consequência a "pigmentocracia". Ou seja, o privilégio da pele clara (light skin) em relação à escura (dark skin) no tocante às oportunidades de mobilidade social.

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AbstractThe case of conductor Karl Muck and the Boston Symphony Orchestra during World War I is notorious for its combination of nationalist patriotism and opposition to international influence on US concert organizations. Although it seemed on the surface to be a spontaneous uprising against a foreign musician who refused to play “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the public outcry against Muck was part of a larger campaign orchestrated by a shadowy propaganda magazine named The Chronicle, published in New York from March 1917 to November 1918. This journal was marketed to the United States’ wealthy elite and was available to subscribers by invitation only. By strategic publication of fake news stories and xenophobic opinion pieces, editor Richard Fletcher spread fear and suspicion through the most rarefied strata of US society. The journal was instrumental in blacklisting suspicious arts organizations and fomenting prejudice against enemy aliens. This article examines for the first time the role of this magazine in the banning of German-language operas at the Met, the internment of Muck, and the near-elimination of German repertoire from US orchestral programs.

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In the mid-1960s, the United States witnessed increasing social unrest: students led protests against the Vietnam war, and many black Americans expressed disillusionment over piecemeal gains of the civil rights movement. Whereas history remembers the antiwar rallies mostly as protests, official records often code black demonstrations in Boston, Cleveland, Buffalo, and the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles as riots. In response to two so-called riots in Newark, New Jersey, in July 1967, Chester Himes wrote “On the Use of Force” for the 24 July 1967 issue of the weekly Gaullist magazine Le nouveau Candide, where it was published in French translation (French version). The essay, never before published in English, offers timely thoughts concerning police brutality and is sure to be valuable for Himes scholarship, the story of black Americans in Europe, and the history of race and violence.

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Abstract This essay mines the earliest and most influential of African American literary magazines, the Boston-based Colored American Magazine (CAM) (1900–09), and its southern rival, the Atlanta-based Voice of the Negro (1904–07), to investigate how black writers and activists addressed the links between US race relations, settler colonialism, and empire in the Pacific. Spanning these two periodicals, Pauline Hopkins’s work as an editor and contributor grappled with the question of how to represent, engage, and position Black Americans in a globalizing world that was at once becoming more vast, heterogeneous, and integrated. Race remained a powerful structuring principle, yet it accrued dynamic new meanings in the era of new imperialism. Along the way, the essay investigates an unexplored facet of Hopkins’s authorship and compositional style. It speculates that Hopkins may have published under another as yet unattributed pen name. The enigmatic S. E. F. C. C. Hamedoe was one of the most significant of regular CAM contributors. Before disappearing from print history, Hamedoe published a four-year-long series that mapped the political contours of the emerging Global South, crisscrossing continents and oceans. The extensive connections between Hamedoe’s writings and Hopkins’s final known completed series beg the question of whether they were one and the same. The series allowed Hopkins to experiment with various epistemologies of racial and historical knowledge in her efforts to formulate an understanding of Blackness that, like the episodic serial form, was open-ended, accretive, and noncohesive.

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In November 1909 William Archer wrote an article for McClure's Magazine in which he surveyed developments in the American theatre over the past twenty years. The most innovative work had been undertaken by non-commercial companies, such as Victor Mapes' Chicago repertory and Winthrope Ames' Castle Square Theatre in Boston, and in the universities: ‘Brander Matthews at Columbia, W. L. Phelps at Yale, and George P. Baker at Harvard’. These ventures took as their models Antoine's Théâtre Libre in Paris; the Freie Bühne in Berlin; J. T. Grein's Independent Theatre, the Stage Society, Vedrenne-Barker at the Court, the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, the Gaiety Theatre in Manchester and Charles Frohman's proposed repertory company at the Duke of York's Theatre. However whereas in the 1890s the progressive theatre in America had been heavily dependent on the European repertoire of plays, when he returned in 1907 Archer found ‘the scene entirely changed’:

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Abstract The article describes the idea of creation and development of Polish biweekly magazine “Biały Orzeł” (“White Eagle”), originated in Boston in 2002/2003 by the White Eagle Media LLC publishing house. The periodical, which has been published until today, was at the time one of the largest projects in the segment of so-called ethnic media in the United States. The work’s aim is to present the title’s history, identify factors affecting on creation of the Polish diaspora press, diagnose components determining the success/failure of the project, as well as local conditions that had a direct impact on decision to launch described press title. The methodology used in the implementation of this material includes in-depth interviews with project co-founders (publishers and journalists) carried out over 2017 and 2018, executed jointly on a group of 9 people, providing quality data from staff directly involved in described publishing project from its very beginnings. A valuable source of data was also open access to archives of the “White Eagle” hard copies, dated between 2003 and 2008.

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A commentary on the Doha Development Round by a representative of the AFL-CIO. Thea Lee is Policy Director at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., where she oversees research and strategies on domestic and international economic policy. Previously, she worked as an international trade economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington, D.C. and as an editor at Dollars & Sense magazine in Boston. Lee is co-author of A Field Guide to the Global Economy, published by the New Press. Her research projects include reports on the North American Free Trade Agreement, the impact of international trade on U.S. wage inequality, and the domestic steel and textile industries. She has testified before several committees of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate on various trade topics. She serves on several advisory committees, including the State Department Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and the Export-Import Bank Advisory Committee. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Worker Rights Consortium and the National Bureau of Economic Research. She received a Bachelor’s degree from Smith College and a Master’s degree in economics from the University of Michigan.

Abstract:

Robert Rosenthal began his career in journalism at The New York Times, where he was a news assistant on the foreign desk and an editorial assistant on the Pulitzer-Prize winning Pentagon Papers project. He later worked at the Boston Globe, and for 22 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer, starting as a reporter and eventually becoming its executive editor in 1998. He became managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle in late 2002, and joined the Center for Investigative Reporting as executive director in 2008. Rosenthal has won numerous awards, including the Overseas Press Club Award for magazine writing, the Sigma Delta Chi Award for distinguished foreign correspondence, and the National Association of Black Journalists Award for Third World Reporting. He was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in international reporting, and has been an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. The Australian Centre for Independent Journalism (ACIJ) invited Robert Rosenthal to speak about the transformational model of investigative journalism, which he has pioneered at the CIR, as the keynote speech at the ‘Back to the Source’ conference.

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Purpose The following article is a “Q&A interview” conducted by Joanne Pransky of Industrial Robot Journal as a method to impart the combined technological, business and personal experience of a prominent, robotic industry engineer-turned entrepreneur regarding the evolution, commercialization and challenges of bringing a technological invention to market. Design/methodology/approach The interviewee is innovator Helen Greiner, Founder and CEO of CyPhy Works. Ms Greiner describes her technical and business experiences delivering ground robots into the industrial, consumer and military markets, which led to her pioneering flying robot solutions. Findings Helen Greiner received a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s degree in computer science, both from MIT. She also holds an honorary doctor of engineering degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Greiner is one of the three co-founders of iRobot Corp (Nasdaq: IRBT) and served as iRobot’s Vice President of Engineering (1990-1994), President (1994-2008), and Chairman (2004-2008). She founded CyPhy Works in 2008. Greiner has also served as the President, Board Member for the Robotics Technology Consortium; a Trustee for MIT; and is currently a Trustee for the Boston Museum of Science. Originality/value Inspired as a child by the movie Star Wars, Greiner’s life goal has been to create robots. Greiner was one of three people that founded iRobot Corporation and developed a culture of innovation that led to the Roomba Autonomous Vacuuming Robot. There are now more than 12 million Roombas worldwide. She also led iRobot’s entry into the military marketplace with the creation and deployment of over 6,000 PackBot robots. Greiner has received many awards and honors for her contributions in technology innovation and business leadership. She was named by the Kennedy School at Harvard in conjunction with the US News and World Report as one of America’s Best Leaders and was honored by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International with the prestigious Pioneer Award. She has also been honored as a Technology Review Magazine “Innovator for the Next Century” and has been awarded the DEMO God Award and DEMO Lifetime Achievement Award. She was named one of the Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneurs of the Year, invited to the World Economic Forum as a Global Leader of Tomorrow and Young Global Leader and has been inducted in the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame.

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Since 1993, popular music magazines in the USA such as Rolling Stone have reported the outbreak of an alternative music ‘revolution’, as bands such as Green Day (who trace their musical roots to late-1970s punk groups such as the Sex Pistols) achieve large-scale popular success. In September 1994 the Boston Globe newspaper devoted significant coverage to the free Green Day concert in Boston that was cancelled midway through as the crowd of 70,000 (comprised mostly of teenagers) threatened to overwhelm the security guards. The news media have focused their attention on the dancing known as ‘slamdancing’, or ‘moshing’, which is associated with this newly popular music. Slamdancing and moshing are two different, albeit similar, styles of dance in which participants (mostly men) violently hurl their bodies at one another in a dance area called a ‘pit’. The media attention paid to this music and its associated violent audience-behaviour paint them as emerging threats to public safety. On 10 September 1994, the Globe reported that ‘there have been severe injuries in mosh pits, where fans act out the hostile lyrics of groups such as Green Day’.

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Dear Editor,The original article published in your magazine, titled service design for innovation in small andmedium businesses from the author Carvalho (2019) concludes that small companies can innovatetheir services without incurring large costs and demanding a large amount of time, the mostimportant is involved to the users strongly. To complement this research, the study carried out bySánchez, Cervantes, y Peralta (2016) mentions that in order to carry out and efficient managementof the innovation in the small companies, it is necessary to encourage and take advantage of theinnovative skills and abilities of collaborators, involving them during the strategic planning andmotivating them to participate with their ideas in the innovation process. For which, it’s necessaryto create a favorable working environment and formal procedures for the reception and evaluationof the creative ideas that may be presented by the workers. This position is reinforced by the studycarried out by Pertuz, Boscan, Straccia, y Pérez (2016), who recommend developing the capabilitiesof collaborators through the formation of multidisciplinary teams within the organization.

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ABSTRACT Janet Iwasa pursued her undergraduate degree in biology, with a double major in Asian studies, at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA. She then joined the lab of Dyche Mullins at University of California, San Francisco (USCF) for her PhD in cell biology, studying the dynamics of actin nucleation and filament assembly. Shortly after receiving her graduate degree, Janet also completed a course in 3D animation at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in Los Angeles, California. In 2006, she moved back to Massachusetts to join the lab of Jack Szostak at Harvard Medical School, in Boston, for her postdoctoral studies, focusing on biological animation. She was a lecturer in molecular visualisation at Harvard Medical School between 2008 and 2012, and then moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, in 2013, where she became an Assistant Research Professor in the Biochemistry Department at the University of Utah. Janet established her own laboratory at the University of Utah in 2018, where she and her group members create and develop molecular and cellular animations for various projects related to molecular and cell biology. In 2014, Janet was named a TED fellow and recognized as one of the ‘100 Leading Global Thinkers’ by Foreign Policy magazine.

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William Edward Daniel Ross transformed himself into a popular fiction novelist in mid-life; the years between 1962 and 1967 witnessing his authorial advance from apprentice to journeyman. During this period, he produced at least 85 original novels, which appeared in the United States or the United Kingdom in hardback, paperback, or digest format. By 1966, Ross’s rapid production identified him as a “literary factory” within the trade. As a “professional writer,” he responded to the market needs of publishers, which led him to produce novels in multiple genres, including mysteries, westerns, nurse romances, and gothics. The majority of his novels appeared under pseudonyms, most of them feminine; as Ross recognised, this circ*mstance obscured his claims to authorship, leading to his early designation as “Canada’s best-known unknown author.” A substantial collection of Ross’s professional papers held at Boston University represents an invaluable resource into this author’s early years as a novelist, and into the trans-Atlantic popular fiction market for which he wrote. In combination with newspaper and magazine articles episodically published about him, this resource reveals an author who, between 1962 and 1967, established himself with publishers as a reliable creator of popular fiction. Ross brokered key business relationships with several hardback publishers producing popular fiction for the commercial lending libraries, as well as half a dozen paperback firms. Ross’s remarkable level of production relied on key “support personnel”: his wife Marilyn Ross facilitated his writing daily while New York-based literary agents Robert Mills and Donald MacCampbell offered strategic guidance.

Abstract:

IntroductionWhen I saw Patriots Day (Berg 2016) at my local multiplex, a family entered the theatre and sat a few rows in front of me. They had a child with them, a boy who was perhaps nine or ten years old. Upon seeing the kid, I had a physical reaction. Not quite a knee-jerk, but more of an uneasy gut punch. ‘Don't you know what this movie is about?’ I wanted to ask his parents; ‘I’ve seen Jeff Bauman’s bones, and that is not something a child should see.’ I had lived through the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and subsequent manhunt, and the memories were vivid in my mind as I waited for the movie to start, to re-present the memory on screen. Admittedly, I had lived through it from the other side of the world, watching through the mediated windows of the computer, smartphone, and television screen. Nevertheless, I remembered it in blood-soaked colour detail, brought to me by online photo galleries, social media updates, the failed amateur sleuths of Reddit, and constant cable news updates, breaking news even when the events had temporarily stalled. Alison Landsberg has coined the term “prosthetic memory” to describe how historical events are re-created and imbued with an affective experience through cinema and other sites of mass cultural mediation, allowing those who did not experience the past to form a personal connection to and subjective memory of history (2). For the boy in the cinema, Patriots Day would most likely be his first encounter with and memory of the Boston Marathon bombing. But how does prosthetic memory apply to audience members like me, who had lived through the Boston bombing from a great distance, with personalised memories mediated by the first-person perspective of social media? Does the ease of dissemination of information, particularly eyewitness photographs and videos, create possibilities for a prosthetic experience of the present? Does the online mediation of historical events of the present translate to screen dramatisations? These questions become particularly pertinent when the first-release audience of a film has recent, living memories of the real events depicted on screen.The time between when an event occurs and when it is brought to cinemas in a true-events adaptation is decreasing. Rebecca A. Sheehan argues that the cultural value of instant information has given rise to a trend in the contemporary biopic and historical film that sees our mediated world turned into a temporal "paradox in which the present is figured as both historical and ongoing" (36). Since 2005, Sheehan writes, biographical films that depict the lives of still-living public figures or in other ways comment on the ongoing history of the present have become increasingly frequent. Sheehan cites films such as The Social Network (Fincher 2010), The Queen (Frears 2006), W. (Stone 2008), and Game Change (Roach 2012) as examples of this growing biopic trend (35-36). In addition to the instantaneous remediation of public figures in the contemporary biopic, similarly there is a stable of contemporary historical films based on the true stories of ordinary people involved in extraordinary recent events. Films such as The Impossible (Bayona 2012), World Trade Center (Stone 2006), United 93 (Greengrass 2006), and Deepwater Horizon (Berg 2016) bring the death and destruction of real-world natural disasters or terrorist attacks to a sanitised but experiential cinematic event. The sensitive nature of some of the events in question often see the films labelled “too soon” and exploitative of recent tragedy. Films such as these typically do not have known public figures as their protagonists, but they arise from a similar climate of the demands of televisual and online mediation that Sheehan describes in the “instant biopics” of her study (36). Given this rise of brief temporal space between real events and their dramatisations, in this essay, I examine Patriots Day in light of the role digital experience plays in both its dramatisation and how the film's initial audience may remember the event. As Patriots Day replicates a kind of prosthetic memory of the present, it uses the first-instance digital mediation of the event to form prosthetic memories for future viewers. Through Patriots Day, I seek to gesture toward the possibilities of first-person digital mediation of major news events in shaping dramatisations of the recent past.Digital Memories of the Boston Marathon BombingTo examine the ways the Boston Marathon bombing circulated in online space, I look at the link- and image-based online discussion platform Reddit as an example of engagement with and recirculation of the event, particularly as a form of engagement defined by photographs and videos. Because the Boston Marathon is a televised and widely-reported event, professional videographers and photographers were present at the marathon’s finish line at the time of the first explosion. Thus, the first bomb and its immediate aftermath were captured in news footage and still images. The graphic nature of some of these images depicting the violence of the scene saw traditional print and television outlets cropping or otherwise editing the photographs to make them appropriate for mass broadcast (Hughney). Some online outlets, however, showed these pictures in their unedited form, often accompanied by warnings that required readers to scroll further down the page or click through the warning to see the photographs. These distinctive capabilities of the online environment allowed individuals to choose whether to view the image, while still allowing the uncensored image to circulate and be reposted elsewhere, such as on Reddit. In addition to photos and videos shot by professionals at the finish line, witnesses armed with smart phone cameras and access to social media posted their views of the aftermath to social media like Twitter, enabling the collation of both amateur and professionally shot photographs of the scene by online news aggregators such as Buzzfeed (Broderick). The Reddit community is seen as an essential part of the Boston Bombing story for the way some of its users participated in a form of ‘crowd-sourced’ investigation that resulted in the false identification of suspects (see: Nhan et al.; Tapia et al.; Potts and Harrison). There is another aspect to Reddit’s role in the circulation and mediation of the story, however, as online venues became a go-to source for news on the unfolding event, where information was delivered faster and with greater accuracy than the often-sensationalised television news coverage (Starbird et al. 347). In addition to its role in providing information that is a part of Reddit’s culture that “value[s] evidence of some kind” to support discussion (Potts and Harrison 144), Reddit played a number of roles in the sense-making process that social media can often facilitate during crisis situations (Heverin and Zach). Through its division into “subreddits,” the individual communities and discussion areas that make up the platform, Reddit accommodates an incredibly diverse range of topics and interests. Different areas of Reddit were able to play different roles in the process of sharing information and acting in a community sense-making capacity in the aftermath of the bombing. Among the subreddits involved in attempting to make sense of the event were those that served as appropriate places for posting image galleries of both professional and amateur photographs and videos, drawn from a variety of online sources. Users of subreddits such as /r/WTF and /r/MorbidReality, for example, posted galleries of “NSFL” (Not Safe For Life) images of the bombing and its aftermath (see: touhou_hijack, titan059, f00d4tehg0dz). Additionally, the /r/Boston subreddit issued calls for anyone with photographs or videos related to the attack to upload them to the thread, as well as providing an e-mail address to submit them to the FBI (RichardHerold). The /r/FindBostonBombers subreddit became a hub for analysis of the photographs. The subreddit's investigatory work was picked up by other online and traditional media outlets (including the New York Post cover photo which misidentified two suspects), bringing wider attention to Reddit’s unfolding coverage of the bombing (Potts and Harrison 148). Landsberg’s theory of prosthetic memory, and her application of it, largely relates to mass culture’s role in “the production and dissemination of memories that have no direct connection to a person’s lived past” (20). The possibilities for news events to be recorded and disseminated by smart phones and social media, however, help to create a deeper sense of affective engagement with a distant present, creating prosthetic memories out of the mediated first-hand experiences of others. The graphic nature of the photos and videos of the Boston bombing collected by and shared on sites like Reddit, the ongoing nature of the event (which, from detonation to the capture of Dzokhar Tsarnaev, spanned five days), and the participatory activity of scouring photographs for clues to the identity of the bombers all lend a sense of ongoing, experiential engagement with first-person, audiovisual mediations of the event. These prosthetic memories of the present are, as Landsberg writes of those created from dramatisations or re-creations of the past, transferable, able to belong to those who have no “natural” claim to them (18) with an experiential element that personalises history for those who do not directly experience it (33). If widely disseminated first-person mediations of events like the Boston bombing can be thought of as a prosthetic experience of present history, how will they play a part in the prosthetic memories of the future? How will those who did not live through the Boston bombing, either as a personal experience or a digitally mediated one, incorporate this digital memory into their own experience of its cinematic re-creation? To address this question, I turn to consider Patriots Day. Of particular note is the bombing sequence’s resemblance to digital mediations of the event as a marker of a plausible docudramatic resemblance to reality.The Docudramatic Re-Presentation of Digital MemoryAs a cinematic representation of recent history, Patriots Day sits at a somewhat uncomfortable intersection of fact and fiction, of docudrama and popcorn action movie, more so than an instant history film typically would. Composite characters or entirely invented characters and narratives that play out against the backdrop of real events are nothing out of the ordinary in the historical film. However, Patriots Day's use of real material and that of pure invention coincides, frequently in stark contrast. The film's protagonist, Boston Police Sergeant Tommy Saunders (played by Mark Wahlberg) is a fictional character, the improbable hero of the story who is present at every step of the attack and the manhunt. He is there on Boylston Street when the bombs go off. He is there with the FBI, helping to identify the suspects with knowledge of Boylston Street security cameras that borders on a supernatural power. He is there at the Watertown shootout among exploding cars and one-liner quips. When Dzokhar Tsarnaev is finally located, he is, of course, first on the scene. Tommy Saunders, as embodied by Wahlberg, trades on all the connotations of both the stereotypical Boston Southie and the action hero that are embedded in Wahlberg’s star persona. As a result, Patriots Day often seems to be a depiction of an alternate universe where Mark Wahlberg in a cop uniform almost single-handedly caught a terrorist. The improbability of Saunders as a character in a true-events drama, though, is thoroughly couched in the docudramatic material of historical depiction. Steven N. Lipkin argues that docudrama is a mode of representation that performs a re-creation of memory to persuade us that it is representing the real (1). By conjuring the memory of an event into being in ways that seem plausible and anchored to the evidence of actuality—such as integrating archival footage or an indexical resemblance to the actual event or an actual person—the representational, cinematic, or fictionalised elements of docudrama are imbued with a sense of the reality they claim to represent (Lipkin 3). Patriots Day uses real visual material throughout the film. The integration of evidence is particularly notable in the bombing sequence, which combines archival footage of the 2013 race, surveillance footage of the Tsarnaev brothers approaching the finish line, and a dramatic re-creation that visually resembles the original to such an extent that its integration with archival footage is almost seamless (Landler). The conclusion of the film draws on this evidential connection to the real as well, in the way that docudrama is momentarily suspended to become documentary, as interviews with some of the real people who are depicted as characters in the film close out the story. In addition to its direct use of the actual, Patriots Day's re-creation of the bombing itself bears an indexical resemblance to the event as seen by those who were not there and relies on memories of the bombing's initial mediation to vouch for the dramatisation's accuracy. In the moments before the bombing's re-creation, actual footage of the Tsarnaevs's route down Boylston Street plays, a low ominous tone of the score building over the silent security footage. The fictional Saunders’s fictional wife (Michelle Monaghan) has come to the finish line to bring him a knee brace, and she passes Tamerlan Tsarnaev as she leaves. This shot directly crosses a visual resemblance to the actual (Themo Melikidze playing Tsarnaev, resembling the bomber through physicality and costuming) with the fictional structuring device of the film in the form of Tommy Saunders. Next, in a long shot, we see Tsarnaev bump into a man wearing a grey raglan shirt. The man turns to look at Tsarnaev. From the costuming, it is evident that this man who is not otherwise named is intended to represent Jeff Bauman, the subject of an iconic photograph from the bombing. In the photo, Bauman is shown being taken from the scene in a wheelchair with both legs amputated from below the knee by the blast (another cinematic dramatisation of the Boston bombing, Stronger, based on Bauman’s memoir of the same name, will be released in 2017). In addition to the visual signifier of Bauman from the memorable photograph, reports circulated that Bauman's ability to describe Tsarnaev to the FBI in the immediate aftermath of the bombing was instrumental in identifying the suspects (Hartmann). Here, this digital memory is re-created in a brief but recognisable moment: this is the before picture of Jeff Bauman, this is the moment of identification that was widely circulated and talked about, a memory of that one piece of good news that helped satisfy public curiosity about the status of the iconic Man in the Wheelchair.When the bombs detonate, we are brought into the smoke and ash, closer access than the original mediation afforded by the videographers at the finish line. After the first bomb detonates, the camera follows Saunders as he walks toward the smoke cloud. As the second bomb explodes, we go inside the scene. The sequence cuts from actual security camera footage that captured the blast, to a first-person perspective of the explosion, the resulting fire and smoke, and a shot that resembles the point of view of footage captured on a smart phone. The frame shakes wildly, giving the viewer disorienting flashes of the victims, a sense of the chaos without seeing anything in lasting, specific detail, before the frame tips sideways onto the pavement, stained with blood and littered with debris. Coupled with this is a soundscape that resembles both the subjective experience of a bombing victim and what their smart phone video has captured. There is the rumble of the explosion and muffled sounds of debris hidden under the noise of shockwaves of air hitting a microphone, fading into an electronic whine and tinnitus ring. A later shot shows the frame obscured by smoke, slowly clearing to give us a high angle view of the aftermath, resembling photographs taken from a window overlooking the scene on Boylston Street (see: touhou_hijack). Archival footage of first responders and points of view resembling a running cell phone camera that captures flashes of blood and open wounds combine with shots of the actors playing characters (both fictional and based on real people) that were established at the beginning of the film. There is once again a merging of the re-created and the actual, bound together by a sense of memory that encourages the viewer to take the former as plausible, based on its resemblance to the latter.When Saunders runs for the second bombing site further down the street, he looks down at two bodies on the ground. Framed in close-up, the bloodless, empty expression and bright blue shirt of Krystle Campbell are recognisable. We can ignore the inaccuracies of this element of the digital memory amidst the chaos of the sequence. Campbell died in the first bombing, not the second. The body of a woman in a black shirt is between the camera's position on the re-created Boylston Street and the actor standing in for Campbell, the opposite of how Campbell and her friend Karen Rand lay beside each other in photographs of the bombing aftermath. The police officer who takes Krystle's pulse on film and shakes her head at Wahlberg's character is a brunette, not the blonde in the widely-circulated picture of a first responder at the actual bombing. The most visceral portion of the image is there, though, re-created almost exactly as it appeared at its first point of mediation: the lifeless eyes and gaping mouth, the bright blue t-shirt. The memory of the event is conjured into being, and the cinematic image resembles the most salient elements of the memory enough for the cinematic image to be a plausible re-creation. The cinematic frame is positioned at a lower level to the original still, as though we are on the ground beside her, bringing the viewer even closer to the event, even as the frame crops out her injuries as scene photographs did not, granting a semblance of respectful distance from the real death. This re-creation of Krystle Campbell’s death is a brief flash in the sequence, but a powerful moment of recognition for those who remember its original mediation. The result is a sequence that shows the graphic violence of the actuality it represents in a series of images that invite its viewer to expand the sequence with their memory of the event the way most of them experienced it: on other screens, at the site of its first instance of digital mediation.ConclusionThrough its use of cinematography that resembles actual photographic evidence of the Boston Marathon bombing or imbues the re-creation with a sense of a first-person, digitally mediated account of the event, Patriots Day draws on its audience's digital memory of recent history to claim accuracy in its fictionalisation. Not everyone who sees Patriots Day may be as familiar with the wealth of eyewitness photographs and images of the Boston Marathon bombing as those who may have experienced and followed the events in online venues such as Reddit. Nonetheless, the fact of this material's existence shapes the event's dramatisation as the filmmakers attempt to imbue the dramatisation with a sense of accuracy and fidelity to the event. The influence of digital memory on the film’s representation of the event gestures toward the possibilities for how online engagement with major news events may play a role in their dramatisation moving forward. Events that have had eyewitness visual accounts distributed online, such as the 2015 Bataclan massacre, the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting, the 2017 Manchester Arena bombing and Westminster Bridge attack, or the 2016 police shooting of Philando Castile that was streamed on Facebook live, may become the subject of future dramatisations of recent history. The dramatic renderings of contemporary history films will undoubtedly be shaped by the recent memory of their online mediations to appeal to a sense of accuracy in the viewer's memory. As recent history films continue, digital memories of the present will help make the prosthetic memories of the future. ReferencesBroderick, Ryan. “Photos from the Scene of the Boston Marathon Explosion (Extremely Graphic).” Buzzfeed News, 16 Apr. 2013. 2 Aug. 2017 <https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/first-photos-from-the-scene-of-the-boston-marathon-explosion?utm_term=.fw38Byjq1#.peNXWPe8G>.f00d4tehg0dz. “Collection of Photos from the Boston Marathon Bombing (NSFW) (NSFL-Gore).” Reddit, 16 Apr. 2013. 8 Aug. 2017 <https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1cfhg4/collection_of_photos_from_the_boston_marathon/>.Hartmann, Margaret. “Bombing Victim in Iconic Photo Was Key to Identifying Boston Suspects.” New York Magazine, 18 Apr. 2013. 8 Aug. 2017 <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/04/bombing-victim-identified-suspects.html>.Heverin, Thomas, and Lisl Zach. “Use of Microblogging for Collective Sense-Making during Violent Crises: A Study of Three Campus Shootings.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 63.1 (2012): 34-47. Hughney, Christine. “News Media Weigh Use of Photos of Carnage.” New York Times, 17 Apr. 2013. 2 Aug. 2017 <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/business/media/news-media-weigh-use-of-photos-of-carnage.html>.Landler, Edward. “Recreating the Boston Marathon Bombing in Patriots Day.” Cinemontage, 21 Dec. 2016. 8 Aug. 2017 <http://cinemontage.org/2016/12/recreating-boston-marathon-bombing-patriots-day/>.Landsberg, Alison. Prosthetic Memory: The Transformation of American Remembrance in the Age of Mass Culture. New York: Columbia U P, 2004. Lipkin, Steven N. Docudrama Performs the Past: Arenas of Argument in Films Based on True Stories. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, 2011. Nhan, Johnny, Laura Huey, and Ryan Broll. “Digilantism: An Analysis of Crowdsourcing and the Boston Marathon Bombing.” British Journal of Criminology 57 (2017): 341-361. Patriots Day. Dir. Peter Berg. CBS Films, 2016.Potts, Liza, and Angela Harrison. “Interfaces as Rhetorical Constructions. Reddit and 4chan during the Boston Marathon Bombings.” Proceedings of the 31st ACM International Conference on Design of Communication. Greenville, North Carolina, September-October 2013. 143-150. RichardHerold. “2013 Boston Marathon Attacks: Please Upload Any Photos in Relation to the Attacks That You Have.” Reddit, 15 Apr. 2013. 8 Aug. 2017 <https://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1cf5wp/2013_boston_marathon_attacks_please_upload_any/>.Sheehan, Rebecca A. “Facebooking the Present: The Biopic and Cultural Instantaneity.” The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture. Eds. Tom Brown and Bélen Vidal. New York: Routledge, 2014. 35-51. Starbird, Kate, Jim Maddock, Mania Orand, Peg Achterman, and Robert M. Mason. “Rumors, False Flags, and Digital Vigilantes: Misinformation on Twitter after the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing.” iConference 2014 Proceedings. Berlin, March 2014. 654-662. Tapia, Andrea H., Nicolas LaLone, and Hyun-Woo Kim. “Run Amok: Group Crowd Participation in Identifying the Bomb and Bomber from the Boston Marathon Bombing.” Proceedings of the 11th International ISCRAM Conference. Eds. S.R. Hiltz, M.S. Pfaff, L. Plotnick, and P.C. Shih. University Park, Pennsylvania, May 2014. 265-274. titan059. “Pics from Boston Bombing NSFL.” Reddit, 15 Apr. 2013. 8 Aug. 2017 <https://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/1cf0po/pics_from_boston_bombing_nsfl/>.touhou_hijack. “Krystle Campbell Died Screaming. This Sequence of Photos Shows Her Final Moments.” Reddit, 18 Apr. 2013. 8 Aug. 2017 <https://www.reddit.com/r/MorbidReality/comments/1cktrx/krystle_campbell_died_screaming_this_sequence_of/>.

Abstract:

Representation of Aboriginality in National Geographic In trafficking images of cultural difference, National Geographic has an unrivalled worldwide reach to over 37 million people per issue. Over the past 25 years, 48 photographs of Aboriginal Australians have appeared in 11 articles in the magazine. This article first examines how the magazine has exoticised, naturalised and sexualised Aboriginal Australians. By deploying the standard evolutionary model, National Geographic typically represents Aboriginal Australians as Black savages relegated to the Stone Age. In the remote outback "Arnhem Land Aboriginals Cling to the Dreamtime" (Scollay & Tweedie 645). In "Journey into Dreamtime" (Arden & Abell 8) an Aboriginal man is "triumphant with his kill of a wild turkey [and] leads a small group of Aborigines who have returned to some of the old ways of their nomadic ancestors in the Great Sandy Desert". The article concludes that the Stone Age encounter with modernity depicted in the magazine became a journey through time from location past to location present. Exoticisation The world of the Aboriginal Australians is male through the eyes of National Geographic. This stems from the Western cultural pattern that assigns things masculine to the cultural and things feminine to the natural realm (Ortner). The male Aboriginal performer of an initiation ritual in "Leapingin tribute" (Scollay & Tweedie 656-7) is represented as rooted in tradition and living in a sacred yet superstitious world. Portraits abound of men with painted faces, as in "Surging energy" (Scollay & Tweedie 648). Male finery and self-display become salient markers, Aboriginal "Boys summon courage" in male initiation focussing on bloodletting (Scollay & Tweedie 656). Such images convey the impression that the region is one of nature, taboo, danger and adventure and that it is a land out of time. The enchantment with ritual stems from it being a key to the past and indicative of photographer and writer having travelled through space to travel through time, similar to the connection made by Victorian evolutionary anthropologists last century (see Fabian). Naturalisation The naturalised Aboriginal Australians appearing in National Geographic are characterised by having timeless societies and personalities, what Wolf identifies as people without history. Routine location narratives naturalise Aboriginal Australians through their remote landscapes and seascapes ("blazing bushfire", Scollay & Tweedie 652-3; "conjuring an image as old as his ancestors", "scorched in one season, sodden in the next" Newman & Abell 3-9). In the West the cultural appropriation of nature is the object of labour, whereas for Aboriginal Australians it is the subject of labour. Aboriginal men are hunters ("triumphant with his kill", Arden & Abell 9; "the earth and sea of their own accord furnish them with all the things necessary for life", Newman & Abell 14-5). Thus, in National Geographic the productive world of work further naturalises the Aboriginal 'Other'. Sexualisation Naked Black women provide the hallmark National Geographic imagery of the sexualized 'Other'. By purveying the nude Aboriginal female, the magazine develops Western ideas about race, gender and sexuality, subcategorised in each case as black, female and unrepressed (Lutz & Collins 115). Women are white, men are Black and Black women are invisible in popular visual representations of motherhood in Western culture. In trafficking in photographs of Black women for an overwhelmingly white readership, National Geographic is clearly linking narrative threads of gender and race (Lutz & Collins166). As the readers' gaze focusses on the Aboriginal child they become the site for dealing with racial anxieties through creating the Black love object ("an appetite for learning", Scollay & Tweedie 654; "mud mates", Ellis & Austen 8-9). National Geographic's nickname for mother-child photos is 'tit* and tots' (Meltzer) and they are a romantic staple in the magazine. Aboriginal mothering in "marriages of diplomacy" is idealised as the foundation of human social life (Scollay & Tweedie 650-1). However, with "seven of Johnny Bungawuy's 11 wives and a handful of his 52 children" this marriage is exotic enough to make cultural difference an issue because it depicts the unusually large number of plural marriage partners available to Aboriginal men in their practice of polygyny. The attribution of erotic qualities and sexual license to Aboriginal women is a result of displaying their bodies for close examination. The naked Aboriginal women in "marriages of diplomacy" represent the nude stylised as ethnographic fact (Scollay & Tweedie 650-1). The addition of a woman in the "marriages of diplomacy" photograph commoditises the practice of polygyny and illustrates that women have traditionally been seen as objects to be possessed, owned and adornments to the lives of men (Pollack). Location Past to Location Present Idealisation of the Aboriginal 'Other' allows for detemporalisation to be played out in alluring images of a simpler, natural Aboriginal world only now tentatively facing the throes of modernisation. Social Darwinism counterpoises superstition/ritual with science/technology and darker skin/exotic clothes with lighter skin/Western clothes. The Aboriginal guide bearing a "striking resemblance to his counterpart on the Burke-Wills journey" facilitates a form of ancestor worship that relates to what Rosaldo calls imperialist nostalgia for the passing of what we ourselves have destroyed (Judge & Scherschel 165). Photographs of the Aboriginal Australians are organised into a story about cultural evolution couched in normative discourse of modernisation and development as progress. In photographs contrasting the premodern with the modern the commodity stands for the future: "soda, soap, and spears in the arms of an [Aboriginal] father and daughter demonstrate their coexistence with white society" (Scollay & Tweedie 662). While for the Aboriginal father in "keeping faith with past and future" his "son enters an era that will inevitably propel his people into modern society" (MacLeish & Nebbia 171). Commodities in these contrasting representations are to be seen simply as a stage on the way to Westernisation. Dynamism, change and agency are apportioned to the Western centre, while Aboriginal Australians are just responding to the onslaught of modernisation on the periphery. Aboriginal masculinisation of modernity is situated in a series of photographs depicting the expansive frontier outback where Aboriginal stockmen are content to muster the cattle of white station owners. In "boiling the red dust" the Aboriginal stockman strums his guitar but sometimes "lapses into tradition and roams on walkabout" (Walker & Scherschel 457). Another Aboriginal stockman, in "saga of beef or bust", "uses his tracking ability to run down strays and cleanskins -- unbranded beasts" (MacLeish & Nebbia 161). "Other than his boots and a jug of water all he owns is rolled into the swag", the Aboriginal stockman must compete with the modern helicopter ("pesky as a giant fly", MacLeish & Stanfield 165); alternatively, "with a wager on the line, an Aboriginal stockman whoops it up at the annual Bedourie Race Meeting" (Ellis & Austen 3). The idealised image is one of the rugged yet happy lives of the Aboriginal stockman in transition to modernity. Social evolutionary theory "saw women in non-Western societies as oppressed and servile creatures, beasts of burden, chattels who could be bought and sold, eventually to be liberated by 'civilisation' or 'progress', thus attaining the enviable position of women in Western society" (Etienne & Leaco*ck 1). Aboriginal feminisation of modernity is told through stories about the premodern helpmate to husband work of Aboriginal women. "Sharing a 'cuppa' at the start of their day" is gendered with vulnerability, primitivity, superstition and the constraints of tradition (Newman & Abell 24-5). The ambivalent message represented in "sharing a 'cuppa' at the start of their day" is complicated by the Aboriginal woman's stockman partner being white. Western ideological understanding of women's work has changed since WWII from helpmate to husband to self-realisation and independence (Chafe). However, images of Aboriginal women in modern work are conspicuously absent. Dispossessed Aboriginal prospectors earn money by 'yandying' ("Paddy Blair's no Irishman", MacLeish & Stanfield 166) -- "winnowing by tossing handfuls of ore into the wind to separate dirt from tin or gold" and 'noodling' -- "poking through rubble" ("selling water and renting bulldozers", Moore & Tweedie 569). Abject "down-and-outs addicted to cheap, poisonous wood alcohol" end up as dispossessed fringe-dwelling 'goomies' in Redfern ("matron saint", Starbird & Madden 224-5). Resistance through situationally motivated undertaking by Indigenous people against expropriation of land and resources is rarely represented in the media (see Drinnon), and National Geographic first attempts such a representation in the 1980s with "heads of several clans" (Scollay & Tweedie 653). Aboriginal men attempt to block a government mining survey crew. But the six Aboriginal men gaze off in different directions and only one is clearly focussed on something in the frame, thus the assembled men assume a disconnected, uncoordinated look. In the 1990s National Geographic story "The Uneasy Magic of Australia's Cape York Peninsula", Aboriginality is equated with caring for the land (Newman & Abell). Aboriginal peoples of Cape York Peninsula are portrayed as conservators valuable for their preservation of biocultural diversity ("the richlytextured landscape", Newman & Abell 17). Aboriginal "white sand people" of Cape York Peninsula are "on a sacred mission" when they "return an ancestor's skull to their homeland at Shelbourne Bay (Newman & Abell 32-3). After years of frustrated efforts to win back their lost domain, the peninsula's native people are at last gaining ground". Aboriginal Australian uses of land and resources are idealised as non-destructive and caring in contrast to rapacious postcolonial development aggression. National Geographic images of Aboriginal Australians have moved from the exoticised, naturalised and sexualised location past. Images in the location present of Cape York mirror the postcolonial transition from Aboriginal dispossession informed by terra nullius to their contemporary empowerment informed by native title. References Arden, H., and S. Abell. "Journey into Dreamtime: The Land of Northwest Australia." National Geographic 179 (Jan. 1991): 8-42. Chafe, W. "Social Change and the American Woman, 1940-70". A History of Our Time: Readings on Postwar America. Eds. W. Chafe and H. Sitkoff. New York: Oxford UP, 1983. 157-65. Drinnon, R. Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian Hating and Empire Building. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1980. Ellis, W., and D. Austen. "Queensland: Broad Shoulder of Australia." National Geographic 169 (Jan. 1986): 2-39. Etienne, M. and E. Leaco*ck, eds. Women and Colonisation: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Praeger, 1980. Fabian, J. Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object. New York: Columbia UP, 1983. Judge, J., and J. Scherschel. "The Journey of Burke and Wills: First across Australia." National Geographic Feb. (1979): 52-91. Lutz, C., and J. Collins. Reading National Geographic. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1993. MacLeish, K., and T. Nebbia. "The Top End Down Under." National Geographic Feb. (1993): 143-73. MacLeish, K. and J. Stanfield. "Western Australia: The Big Country." National Geographic Feb. (1975): 147-87. Meltzer, M. Dorothea Lange: A Photographer's Life. NewYork: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1978. Moore, K., and P. Tweedie. "Coober Pedy: Opal Capital of Australia's Outback." National Geographic Oct. (1976): 560-71. Newman, C., and S. Abell. "The Uneasy Magic of Australia's Cape York Peninsula." National Geographic June (1996 ): 2-33. Ortner, S. "Is Female to Male as Nature Is to Culture?" Woman, Culture, and Society. Eds. M. Rosaldo and L. Lamphere. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1974. 67-88. Pollack, G. "What's Wrong with Images of Women?" Looking On: Images of Femininity in the Visual Arts and the Media. Ed. R. Betterton. London: Pandora, 1987. 40-8. Rosaldo, R. Culture and Truth. Boston: Beacon P, 1989. Scollay, C., and P. Tweedie. "Arnhem Land Aboriginals Cling to the Dreamtime." National Geographic Nov. (1980): 645-61. Starbird, E., and R. Madden. "Sydney: Big, Breezy, and a Bloomin' Good Show." National Geographic Feb. (1979): 211-36. Walker, H., and J. Scherschel. "South Australia, Gateway to the Great Outback." National Geographic April (1970): 441-81. Wolf, E. Europe and the People without History.Berkeley: U of California P, 1982. Citation reference for this article MLA style: David Hyndman. "Postcolonial Representation of Aboriginal Australian Culture: Location Past to Location Present in National Geographic." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.2 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0005/geo.php>. Chicago style: David Hyndman, "Postcolonial Representation of Aboriginal Australian Culture: Location Past to Location Present in National Geographic," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 2 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0005/geo.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: David Hyndman. (2000) Postcolonial representation of Aboriginal Australian culture: location past to location present in National Geographic. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(2). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0005/geo.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

In most developing countries, like India, women are responsible for nutrition and food security at household level and even at agricultural level whereas they are not considered ‘farmers’. They just do this duty as being addressed as housewives. Whereas, women are more than that.The 2020 prediction says that more than half of new Internet users in India will be from rural societies, and rural users will constitute almost half (48%) of connected users (The Rising Connected Consumer in Rural India: by The Boston Consulting Group suggests). Also, number of Indian rural internet users will reach to 315 million users in 2020. The growth will be driven by cheaper handsets, explosion of wireless and wireline networks. Even various studies after 201 suggested that Facebook, WhatsApp and YouTube are now being used to share diverse farming based information across different parts of India. Similarly, the contribution of females, in modern times, is unlimited both at home and farm. Women have an understanding of the latest technologies which could be amalgamated with agriculture. For Agriculture, media aims at encouraging national integration, dissemination of message, educating women, providing healthy entertainment and spreading of essential knowledge to fuel agricultural production.Punjab is a land of farming and known as ‘Bread Basket’ and its women are equally contributing in the agriculture. In the various villages of Punjab, women are oriented to farming and use Media for agricultural tips, agricultural know-hows, recipes, sessions based on agriculture, etc. Even a wide range of mass media including newspaper, magazines, books, radio, television etc. are being utilised by farm women based in Punjab. The following study will focus on the utilisation of Media, in various forms, by farm women of Village Pakhowal, Punjab for analysing agricultural coverage.

Abstract:

What is the countercultural potential of citizen science? As a participant in the wider citizen science movement, I can attest that contemporary citizen science initiatives rarely characterise themselves as countercultural. Rather, the goal of most citizen science projects is to be seen as producing orthodox scientific knowledge: the ethos is respectability rather than rebellion (NERC). I will suggest instead that there are resonances with the counterculture that emerged in the 1960s, most visibly through an emphasis on participatory experimentation and the principles of environmental sustainability and social justice. This will be illustrated by example, through two citizen science projects that have a commitment to combining social values with scientific practice. I will then describe the explicitly countercultural organisation, Science for the People, which arose from within the scientific community itself, out of opposition to the Vietnam War. Methodological and conceptual weaknesses in the authoritative model of science are explored, suggesting that there is an opportunity for citizen science to become anti-hegemonic by challenging the hegemony of science itself. This reformulation will be expressed through Deleuze and Guattari's notion of nomadic science, the means through which citizen science could become countercultural. Counterculture Before examining the countercultural potential of citizen science, I set out some of the grounds for identifying a counterculture drawing on the ideas of Theodore Roszak, who invented the term counterculture to describe the new forms of youth movements that emerged in the 1960s (Roszak). This was a perspective that allowed the carnivalesque procession of beatniks, hippies and the New Left to be seen as a single paradigm shift combining psychic and social revolution. But just as striking and more often forgotten is the way Roszak characterised the role of the counterculture as mobilising a vital critique of the scientific worldview (Roszak 273-274). The concept of counterculture has been taken up in diverse ways since its original formation. We can draw, for example, on Lawrence Grossberg's more contemporary analysis of counterculture (Grossberg) to clarify the main concepts and contrast them with a scientific approach. Firstly, a counterculture works on and through cultural formations. This positions it as something the scientific community would see as the other, as the opposite to the objective, repeatable and quantitative truth-seeking of science. Secondly, a counterculture is a diverse and hybrid space without a unitary identity. Again, scientists would often see science as a singular activity applied in modulated forms depending on the context, although in practice the different sciences can experience each other as different tribes. Thirdly, a counterculture is lived as a transformative experience where the participant is fundamentally changed at a psychic level through participation in unique events. Contrast this with the scientific idea of the separation of observer and observed, and the objective repeatability of the experiment irrespective of the experimenter. Fourthly, a counterculture is associated with a unique moment in time, a point of shift from the old to the new. For the counterculture of the 1960s this was the Age of Aquarius. In general, the aim of science and scientists is to contribute to a form of truth that is essentially timeless, in that a physical law is assumed to hold across all time (and space), although science also has moments of radical change with regard to scientific paradigms. Finally, and significantly for the conclusions of this paper, according to Roszak a counterculture stands against the mainstream. It offers a challenge not at the level of detail but, to the fundamental assumptions of the status quo. This is what “science” cannot do, in as much as science itself has become the mainstream. It was the character of science as the bedrock of all values that Roszak himself opposed and for which he named and welcomed the counterculture. Although critical of some of the more shallow aspects of its psychedelic experimentation or political militancy, he shared its criticism of the technocratic society (the technocracy) and the egocentric mode of consciousness. His hope was that the counterculture could help restore a visionary imagination along with a more human sense of community. What Is Citizen Science? In recent years the concept of citizen science has grown massively in popularity, but is still an open and unstable term with many variants. Current moves towards institutionalisation (Citizen Science Association) are attempting to marry growth and stabilisation, with the first Annual General Meeting of the European Citizen Science Association securing a tentative agreement on the common principles of citizen science (Haklay, "European"). Key papers and presentations in the mainstream of the movement emphasise that citizen science is not a new activity (Bonney et al.) with much being made of the fact that the National Audubon Society started its annual Christmas Bird Count in 1900 (National Audubon Society). However, this elides the key role of the Internet in the current surge, which takes two distinct forms; the organisation of distributed fieldwork, and the online crowdsourcing of data analysis. To scientists, the appeal of citizen science fieldwork follows from its distributed character; they can research patterns over large scales and across latitudes in ways that would be impossible for a researcher at a single study site (Toomey). Gathering together the volunteer, observations are made possible by an infrastructure of web tools. The role of the citizen in this is to be a careful observer; the eyes and ears of the scientist in cyberspace. In online crowdsourcing, the internet is used to present pattern recognition tasks; enrolling users in searching images for signs of new planets or the jets of material from black holes. The growth of science crowdsourcing is exponential; one of the largest sites facilitating this kind of citizen science now has well in excess of a million registered users (Zooniverse). Such is the force of the technological aura around crowdsourced science that mainstream publications often conflate it with the whole of citizen science (Parr). There are projects within citizen science which share core values with the counterculture as originally defined by Roszak, in particular open participation and social justice. These projects also show characteristics from Grossberg's analysis of counterculture; they are diverse and hybrid spaces, carry a sense of moving from an old era to a new one, and have cultural forms of their own. They open up the full range of the scientific method to participation, including problem definition, research design, analysis and action. Citizen science projects that aim for participation in all these areas include the Extreme Citizen Science research group (ExCiteS) at University College London (UCL), the associated social enterprise Mapping for Change (Mapping for Change), and the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science (Public Lab). ExCiteS sees its version of citizen science as "a situated, bottom-up practice" that "takes into account local needs, practices and culture". Public Lab, meanwhile, argue that many citizen science projects only offer non-scientists token forms of participation in scientific inquiry that rarely amount to more that data collection and record keeping. They counter this through an open process which tries to involve communities all the way from framing the research questions, to prototyping tools, to collating and interpreting the measurements. ExCiteS and Public Lab also share an implicit commitment to social justice through scientific activity. The Public Lab mission is to "put scientific inquiry at the heart of civic life" and the UCL research group strive for "new devices and knowledge creation processes that can transform the world". All of their work is framed by environmental sustainability and care for the planet, whether it's enabling environmental monitoring by indigenous communities in the Congo (ExCiteS) or developing do-it-yourself spectrometry kits to detect crude oil pollution (Public Lab, "Homebrew"). Having provided a case for elements of countercultural DNA being present in bottom-up and problem-driven citizen science, we can contrast this with Science for the People, a scientific movement that was born out of the counterculture. Countercultural Science from the 1970s: Science for the People Science for the People (SftP) was a scientific movement seeded by a rebellion of young physicists against the role of US science in the Vietnam War. Young members of the American Physical Society (APS) lobbied for it to take a position against the war but were heavily criticised by other members, whose written complaints in the communications of the APS focused on the importance of scientific neutrality and the need to maintain the association's purely scientific nature rather than allowing science to become contaminated by politics (Sarah Bridger, in Plenary 2, 0:46 to 1:04). The counter-narrative from the dissidents argued that science is not neutral, invoking the example of Nazi science as a justification for taking a stand. After losing the internal vote the young radicals left to form Scientists and Engineers for Social and Political Action (SESPA), which later became Science for the People (SftP). As well as opposition to the Vietnam War, SftP embodied from the start other key themes of the counterculture, such as civil rights and feminism. For example, the first edition of Science for the People magazine (appearing as Vol. 2, No. 2 of the SESPA Newsletter) included an article about leading Black Panther, Bobby Seale, alongside a piece entitled “Women Demand Equality in Science.” The final articles in the same issue are indicators of SftP's dual approach to science and change; both the radicalisation of professionals (“Computer Professionals for Peace”) and the demystification of technical practices (“Statistics for the People”) (Science for the People). Science for the People was by no means just a magazine. For example, their technical assistance programme provided practical support to street health clinics run by the Black Panthers, and brought SftP under FBI surveillance (Herb Fox, in Plenary 1, 0:25 to 0:35). Both as a magazine and as a movement, SftP showed a tenacious longevity, with the publication being produced every two months between August 1970 and May/June 1989. It mutated through a network of affiliated local groups and international links, and was deeply involved in constructing early critiques of nuclear power and genetic determinism. SftP itself seems to have had a consistent commitment to non-hierarchical processes and, as one of the founders expressed it, a “sh*t kicking” approach to putting its principles in to practice (Al Weinrub, in Plenary 1, 0:25 to 0:35). SftP criticised power, front and centre. It is this opposition to hegemony that puts the “counter” into counterculture, and is missing from citizen science as currently practised. Cracks in the authority of orthodox science, which can be traced to both methodologies and basic concepts, follow in this paper. These can be seen as an opportunity for citizen science to directly challenge orthodox science and thus establish an anti-hegemonic stance of its own. Weaknesses of Scientific Hegemony In this section I argue that the weaknesses of scientific hegemony are in proportion to its claims to authority (Feyerabend). Through my scientific training as an experimental particle physicist I have participated in many discussions about the ontological and epistemological grounds for scientific authority. While most scientists choose to present their practice publicly as an infallible machine for the production of truths, the opinions behind the curtain are far more mixed. Physicist Lee Somolin has written a devastating critique of science-in-practice that focuses on the capture of the institutional economy of science by an ideological grouping of string theorists (Smolin), and his account is replete with questions about science itself and ethnographic details that bring to life the messy behind-the-scenes conflicts in scientific-knowledge making. Knowledge of this messiness has prompted some citizen science advocates to take science to task, for example for demanding higher standards in data consistency from citizen science than is often the case in orthodox science (Haklay, "Assertions"; Freitag, "Good Science"). Scientists will also and invariably refer to reproducibility as the basis for the authority of scientific truths. The principle that the same experiments always get the same results, irrespective of who is doing the experiment, and as long as they follow the same method, is a foundation of scientific objectivity. However, a 2012 study of landmark results in cancer science was able to reproduce only 11 per cent of the original findings (Begley and Ellis). While this may be an outlier case, there are broader issues with statistics and falsification, a bias on positive results, weaknesses in peer review and the “publish or perish” academic culture (The Economist). While the pressures are all-too-human, the resulting distortions are rarely acknowledged in public by scientists themselves. On the other hand, citizen science has been slow to pick up the gauntlet. For example, while some scientists involved in citizen science have commented on the inequality and inappropriateness of orthodox peer review for citizen science papers (Freitag, “What Is the Role”) there has been no direct challenge to any significant part of the scientific edifice. I argue that the nearest thing to a real challenge to orthodox science is the proposal for a post-normal science, which pre-dates the current wave of citizen science. Post-normal science tries to accommodate the philosophical implications of post-structuralism and at the same time position science to tackle problems such as climate change, intractable to reproducibility (Funtowicz and Ravetz). It accomplishes this by extending the domains in which science can provide meaningful answers to include issues such as global warming, which involve high decision stakes and high uncertainty. It extends traditional peer review into an extended peer community, which includes all the stakeholders in an issue, and may involve active research as well as quality assessment. The idea of extended peer review has obvious overlaps with community-oriented citizen science, but has yet to be widely mobilised as a theoretical buttress for citizen-led science. Prior even to post-normal science are the potential cracks in the core philosophy of science. In her book Cosmopolitics, Isabelle Stengers characterises the essential nature of scientific truth as the ability to disqualify and exclude other truth claims. This, she asserts, is the hegemony of physics and its singular claim to decide what is real and what is true. Stengers traces this, in part, to the confrontation more than one hundred years ago between Max Planck and Ernst Mach, whereas the latter argued that claims to an absolute truth should be replaced by formulations that tied physical laws to the human practices that produced them. Planck stood firmly for knowledge forms that were unbounded by time, space or specific social-material procedures (Stengers). Although contemporary understandings of science are based on Planck's version, citizen science has the potential to re-open these questions in a productive manner for its own practices, if it can re-conceive of itself as what Deleuze and Guattari would call nomadic science (Deleuze; Deleuze & Guattari). Citizen Science as Nomadic Science Deleuze and Guattari referred to orthodox science as Royal Science or Striated Science, referring in part to its state-like form of authority and practice, as well as its psycho-social character. Their alternative is a smooth or nomadic science that, importantly for citizen science, does not have the ambition to totalise knowledge. Nomadic science is a form of empirical investigation that has no need to be hooked up to a grand narrative. The concept of nomadic science is a natural fit for bottom-up citizen science because it can valorise truths that are non-dual and that go beyond objectivity to include the experiential. In this sense it is like the extended peer review of post-normal science but without the need to be limited to high-risk high-stakes questions. As there is no a priori problem with provisional knowledges, it naturally inclines towards the local, the situated and the culturally reflective. The apparent unreliability of citizen science in terms of participants and tools, which is solely a source of anxiety, can become heuristic for nomadic science when re-cast through the forgotten alternatives like Mach's formulation; that truths are never separated from the specifics of the context and process that produced them (Stengers 6-18; 223). Nomadic science, I believe, will start to emerge through projects that are prepared to tackle toxic epistemology as much as toxic pollutants. For example, the Community Based Auditing (CBA) developed by environmental activists in Tasmania (Tattersall) challenges local alliances of state and extractive industries by undermining their own truth claims with regards to environmental impact, a process described in the CBA Toolbox as disconfirmation. In CBA, this mixture of post-normal science and Stenger's critique is combined with forms of data collection and analysis known as Community Based Sampling (Tattersall et al.), which would be recognisable to any citizen science project. The change from citizen science to nomadic science is not a total rupture but a shift in the starting point: it is based on an overt critique of power. One way to bring this about is being tested in the “Kosovo Science for Change” project (Science for Change Kosovo), where I am a researcher and where we have adopted the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire as the starting point for our empirical investigations (Freire). Critical pedagogy is learning as the co-operative activity of understanding—how our lived experience is constructed by power, and how to make a difference in the world. Taking a position such as nomadic science, openly critical of Royal Science, is the anti-hegemonic stance that could qualify citizen science as properly countercultural. Citizen Science and Counterculture Counterculture, as I have expressed it, stands against or rejects the hegemonic culture. However, there is a strong tendency in contemporary social movements to take a stance not only against the dominant structures but against hegemony itself. They contest what Richard Day calls the hegemony of hegemony (Day). I witnessed this during the counter-G8 mobilisation of 2001. Having been an activist in the 1980s and 1990s I was wearily familiar with the sectarian competitiveness of various radical narratives, each seeking to establish itself as the correct path. So it was a strongly affective experience to stand in the convergence centre and listen to so many divergent social groups and movements agree to support each other's tactics, expressing a solidarity based on a non-judgemental pluralism. Since then we have seen the emergence of similarly anti-hegemonic countercultures around the Occupy and Anonymous movements. It is in this context of counterculture that I will try to summarise and evaluate the countercultural potential of citizen science and what being countercultural might offer to citizen science itself. To be countercultural it is not enough for citizen science to counterpose participation against the institutional and hierarchical aspects of professional science. As an activity defined purely by engagement it offers to plug the legitimacy gap for science while still being wholly dependent on it. A countercultural citizen science must pose a strong challenge to the status quo, and I have suggested that a route to this would be to develop as nomadic science. This does not mean replacing or overthrowing science but constructing an other to science with its own claim to empirical methods. It is fair to ask what this would offer citizen science that it does not already have. At an abstract level it would gain a freedom of movement; an ability to occupy Deleuzian smooth spaces rather than be constrained by the striation of established science. The founders of Science for the People are clear that it could never have existed if it had not been able to draw on the mass movements of its time. Being countercultural would give citizen science an affinity with the bottom-up, local and community-based issues where empirical methods are likely to have the most social impact. One of many examples is the movement against fracking (the hydraulic fracturing of deep rock formations to release shale gas). Together, these benefits of being countercultural open up the possibility for forms of citizen science to spread rhizomatically in a way that is not about immaterial virtual labour but is itself part of a wider cultural change. The possibility of a nomadic science stands as a doorway to the change that Roszak saw at the heart of the counterculture, a renewal of the visionary imagination. References Begley, C. Glenn, and Lee M. Ellis. "Drug Development: Raise Standards for Preclinical Cancer Research." Nature 483.7391 (2012): 531–533. 8 Oct. 2014 ‹http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/483531a.html›. Bonney, Rick, et al. "Citizen Science: A Developing Tool for Expanding Science Knowledge and Scientific Literacy." BioScience 59.11 (2009): 977–984. 6 Oct. 2014 ‹http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/content/59/11/977›. Citizen Science Association. "Citizen Science Association." 2014. 6 Oct. 2014 ‹http://citizenscienceassociation.org/›. Day, Richard J.F. Gramsci Is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements. London: Pluto Press, 2005. Deleuze, Giles. Nomadology: The War Machine. New York, NY: MIT Press, 1986. Deleuze, Gilles, and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. 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Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1969. Science for Change Kosovo. "Citizen Science Kosovo." Facebook, n.d. 17 Aug. 2014 ‹https://www.facebook.com/CitSciKS›. Science for the People. "SftP Magazine." 2013. 8 Oct. 2014 ‹http://science-for-the-people.org/sftp-resources/magazine/›. Smolin, Lee. The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next. Reprint ed. Boston: Mariner Books, 2007. Stengers, Isabelle. Cosmopolitics I. Trans. Robert Bononno. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2010. Tattersall, Philip J. "What Is Community Based Auditing and How Does It Work?." Futures 42.5 (2010): 466–474. 9 Oct. 2014 ‹http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328709002055›. ---, Kim Eastman, and Tasmanian Community Resource Auditors. Community Based Auditing: Tool Boxes: Training and Support Guides. Beauty Point, Tas.: Resource Publications, 2010. The Economist. 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Abstract:

Introduction Tiffany and Co. is an American luxury jewellery and specialty retailer with its headquarters in New York City. Each piece of jewellery, symbolically packaged in a blue box and tied with a white bow, encapsulates the brand’s unique diamond pieces, symbolic origin story, branded historical contributions and representations in culture. Cultural brands are those that live and thrive in the minds of consumers (Holt). Their brand promise inspires loyalty and trust. These brands offer experiences, products, and personalities and spark emotional connotations within consumers (Arvidsson). This case study uses Tiffany & Co. as a successful example to reveal the importance of understanding consumers, the influential nature of media culture, and the efficacy of strategic branding, advertising, and marketing over time (Holt). It also reveals how Tiffany & Co. earned and maintained its place as an iconic cultural brand within consumer culture, through its strong association with New York and products from abroad. Through its trademarked logo and authentic luxury jewellery, encompassed in the globally recognised “Tiffany Blue” boxes, Tiffany & Co.’s cultural significance stems from its embodiment of the expected makings of a brand (Chernatony et al.). However, what propels this brand into what Douglas Holt terms “iconic territory” is that in its one hundred and seventy-nine years of existence, Tiffany’s has lived exclusively in the minds of its consumers.Tiffany & Co.’s intuitive prowess in reaching its target audience is what allows it to dominate the luxury jewellery market (Halasz et al.). This is not only a result of product value, but the alluring nature of the “Tiffany's from New York” brand imagery and experience (Holt et al.), circulated and celebrated in consumer culture through influential depictions in music, film and literature over time (Knight). Tiffany’s faithfully participates in the magnetic identity myth embodied by the brand and city, and has become globally sought after by consumers near and far, and recognised for its romantic connotations of love, luxury, and New York (Holt). An American Dream: New York Affiliation & Diamond OriginsIt was Truman Capote’s characterisation of Holly Golightly in his book (1958) and film adaption, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) that introduced the world to New York as the infatuating “setting,” upon which the Tiffany’s diamond rested. It was a place, that enabled the iconic Holly Golightly to personify the feeling of being abroad in New York and to demonstrate the seductive nature of a Tiffany’s store experience, further shaping the identity myth encompassed by the brand and the city for their global audience (Holt). Essentially, New York was the influential cultural instigator that propelled Tiffany & Co. from a consumer product, to a cultural icon. It did this by circulating its iconography via celebrity affiliations and representations in music, film, and literature (Knight), and by guiding strong brand associations in the minds of consumers (Arvidsson). However, before Tiffany’s became culturally iconic, it established its place in American heritage through historical contributions (Tiffany & Co.) and pledged an association to New York by personifying the American Dream (Mae). To help achieve his dream in a rapidly evolving economy (Elliott), Charles Lewis Tiffany purportedly brought the first substantial gemstones into America from overseas, and established the first American jewellery store to sell them to the public (Halasz et al.). The Tiffany & Co. origin story personifies the alluring nature of products from abroad, and their influence on individuals seeking an image of affluence for themselves. The ties between New York, Tiffany’s, and its consumers were further strengthened through the established, invaluable and emblematic nature of the diamond, historically launched and controlled by South African Diamond Cartel of De Beers (Twitchell). De Beers manipulated the demand for diamonds and instigated it as a status symbol. It then became a commoditised measurement of an individual’s worth and potential to love (Twitchell), a philosophy, also infused in the Tiffany & Co. brand ideology (Holt). Building on this, Tiffany’s further ritualised the justification of the material symbolisation of love through the idealistic connotations surrounding its assorted diamond ring experiences (Lee). This was projected through a strategic product placement and targeted advertising scheme, evident in dominant culture throughout the brand’s existence (Twitchell). Idealistically discussed by Purinton, this is also what exemplified, for consumers, the enticing cultural symbolism of the crystal rock from New York (Halasz et al.). Brand Essence: Experience & Iconography Prior to pop culture portraying the charming Tiffany’s brand imagery in mainstream media (Balmer et al.), Charles Tiffany directed the company’s ascent into luxury jewellery (Phillips et al.), fashioned the enticing Tiffany’s “store experience”, and initiated the experiential process of purchasing a diamond product. This immediately intertwined the imagery of Tiffany’s with New York, instigating the exclusivity of the experience for consumers (Holt). Tiffany’s provided customers with the opportunity to participate in an intricately branded journey, resulting in the diamond embodiment which declared their love most accurately; a token, packaged and presented within an iconic “Tiffany Blue” box (Klara). Aligning with Keller’s branding blueprint (7), this interactive process enabled Tiffany & Co. to build brand loyalty by consistently connecting with each of its consumers, regardless of their location in the world. The iconography of the coveted “blue box” was crafted when Charles Tiffany trademarked the shade Pantone No. 1837 (Osborne), which he coined for the year of Tiffany’s founding (Klara). Along with the brand promise of containing quality luxury jewellery, the box and that particular shade of blue instantly became a symbol of exclusivity, sophistication, and elegance, as it could only be acquired by purchasing jewellery from a Tiffany’s store (Rawlings). The exclusive packaging began to shape Tiffany’s global brand image, becoming a signifier of style and superiority (Phillips et al.), and eventually just as iconic as the jewellery itself. The blue box is still the strongest signifier of the brand today (Osborne). Ultimately, individuals want to participate in the myth of love, perfection and wealth (Arvidsson), encompassed exclusively by every Tiffany’s “blue box”. Furthermore, Tiffany’s has remained artistically significant within the luxury jewellery landscape since introducing its one-of-a-kind Tiffany Setting in 1886. It was the first jewellery store to fully maximise the potential of the natural beauty possessed of diamonds, while connotatively reflecting the natural beauty of every wearer (Phillips et al.). According to Jeffrey Bennett, the current Vice President of Tiffany & Co. New York, by precisely perching the “Tiffany Diamond” upon six intricately crafted silver prongs, the ring shines to its maximum capacity in a lit environment, while being closely secured to the wearer’s finger (Lee). Hence, the “Tiffany Setting” has become a universally sought after icon of extravagance and intricacy (Knight), and, as Bennett further describes, even today, the setting represents uncompromising quality and is a standard image of true love (Lee). Alluring Brand Imagery & Influential Representations in CultureEmpirical consumer research, involving two focus groups of married and unmarried, ethnically diverse Australian women and conducted in 2015, revealed that even today, individuals accredit their desire for Tiffany’s to the inspirational imagery portrayed in music, movies and television. Through participating in the Tiffany's from New York store experience, consumers are able to indulge in their fantasies of what it would feel like to be abroad and the endless potential a city such as New York could hold for them. Tiffany’s successfully disseminated its brand ideology into consumer culture (Purinton) and extended the brand’s significance for consumers beyond the 1960s through constant representation of the expensive business of love, lust and marriage within media culture. This is demonstrated in such films as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Sleepless in Seattle (1993), Legally Blonde (2001), Sweet Home Alabama (2002), The Great Gatsby (2013), and in the influential television shows, Gossip Girl (2007—2012), and Glee (2009—2015).The most important of these was the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), and the iconic embodiment of Capote’s (1958) Holly Golightly by actress Audrey Hepburn (Wasson). Hepburn’s (1961) portrayal of the emotionally evocative connotations of experiencing Tiffany’s in New York, as personified by her romantic dialogue throughout the film (Mae), produced the image that nothing bad could ever happen at a Tiffany’s store. Thus began the Tiffany’s from New York cultural phenomenon, which has been consistently reiterated in popular media culture ever since.Breakfast at Tiffany’s also represented a greater struggle faced by women in the 1960s (Dutt); that of gender roles, women’s place in society, and their desire for stability and freedom simultaneously (Sheehan). Due to Hepburn’s accurate characterisation of this struggle, the film enabled Tiffany & Co. to become more than just jewellery and a symbol of support (Torelli). Tiffany’s also allowed filming to take place inside its New York flagship store to which Capote’s narrative so idealistically alludes, further demonstrating its support for the 1960s women’s movement at an opportune moment in history (Torelli). Hence, Tiffany’s from New York became a symbol for the independent materialistic modern woman (Wasson), an ideal, which has become a repeated motif, re-imagined and embodied by popular icons (Knight) such as, Madonna in Material Girl (1985), and the characterisations of Carrie Bradshaw by Sarah Jessica Parker, Charlotte York by Kristin Davis (Sex and the City), and Donna Paulsen by Sarah Rafferty (Suits). The iconic television series Sex and the City, set in New York, boldly represented Tiffany’s as a symbol of friendship when a fellow female protagonist parted with her lavish Tiffany’s engagement ring to help her friend financially (Sex and the City). This was similarly reimagined in the popular television series Suits, also set in New York, where a protagonist is gifted two Tiffany Boxes from her female friend, as a token of congratulations on her engagement. This allowed Tiffany & Co. to add friendship to its symbolic repertoire (Manning), whilst still personifying a symbol of love in the minds of its consumers who were tactically also the target audiences of these television shows (Wharton).The alluring Tiffany’s image was presented specifically to a male audience through the first iconic Bond Girl named Tiffany Case in the novel Diamonds Are Forever (Fleming). The film adaption made its cultural imprint in 1971 with Sean Connery portraying James Bond, and paired the exaggerated brand of “007” with the evocative imagery of Tiffany’s (Spilski et al.). This served as a reminder to existing audiences about the powerful and seductive connotations of the blue box with the white ribbon (Osborne), as depicted by the enticing Tiffany Case in 1956.Furthermore, the Tiffany’s image was similarly established as a lyrical status symbol of wealth and indulgence (Knight). Portrayed most memorably by Marilyn Monroe’s iconic performance of Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes). Even though the song only mentions Tiffany’s lyrically twice (Vito et al.), through the celebrity affiliation, Monroe was introduced as a credible embodiment of Tiffany’s brand essence (Davis). Consequently, she permanently attached her image to that of the alluring Tiffany Diamonds for the target audience, male and female, past and present (Vito et al.). Exactly thirty-two years later, Monroe’s 1953 depiction was reinforced in consumer culture (Wharton) through an uncanny aesthetic and lyrical reimagining of the original performance by Madonna in her music video Material Girl (1985). This further preserved and familiarised the Tiffany’s image of glamour, luxury and beauty by implanting it in the minds of a new generation (Knight). Despite the shift in celebrity affiliation to a current cultural communicator (Arvidsson), the influential image of the Tiffany Diamond remains constant and Tiffany’s has maintained its place as a popular signifier of affluence and elegance in mainstream consumer culture (Jansson). The main difference, however, between Monroe’s and Madonna’s depictions is that Madonna aspired to be associated with the Tiffany’s brand image because of her appreciation for Marilyn Monroe and her brand image, which also intrinsically exuded beauty, money and glamour (Vito et al.). This suggests that even a musical icon like Madonna was influenced by Tiffany & Co.’s hold on consumer culture (Spilski et al.), and was able to inject the same ideals into her own loyal fan base (Fill). It is evident that Tiffany & Co. is thoroughly in tune with its target market and understands the relevant routes into the minds of its consumers. Kotler (113) identifies that the brand has demonstrated the ability to reach its separate audiences simultaneously, with an image that resonates with them on different levels (Manning). For example, Tiffany & Co. created the jewellery that featured in Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 cinematic adaption of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby (1925). Through representing a signifier of love and lust induced by monetary possessions (Fitzgerald), Tiffany’s truthfully portrayed its own brand image and persuaded audiences to associate the brand with these ideals (Holt). By illustrating the romantic, alluring and powerful symbolism of giving or obtaining love, armed with a Tiffany’s Diamond (Mae), Tiffany’s validated its timeless, historical and cultural contemporary relevance (Greene).This was also most recently depicted through Tiffany & Co.’s Will You (2015) advertising campaign. The brand demonstrated its support for marriage equality, by featuring a real life same-sex couple to symbolise that love is not conditional and that Tiffany’s has something that signifies every relationship (Dicker). Thus, because of the brand’s rooted place in central media culture and the ability to appeal to the belief system of its target market while evolving with, and understanding its consumers on a level of metonymy (Manning), Tiffany & Co. has transitioned from a consumer product to a culturally relevant and globally sought-after iconic brand (Holt). ConclusionTiffany & Co.’s place-based association and representational reflection in music, film, and literature, assisted in the formation of loyal global communities that thrive on the identity building side effects associated with luxury brand affiliation (Banet-Weiser et al.). Tiffany’s enables its global target market to revel in the shared meanings surrounding the brand, by signifying a symbolic construct that resonates with consumers (Hall). Tiffany’s inspires consumers to eagerly exercise their brand trust and loyalty by independently ritualising the Tiffany’s from New York brand experience for themselves and the ones they love (Fill). Essentially, Tiffany & Co. successfully established its place in society and strengthened its ties to New York, through targeted promotions and iconographic brand dissemination (Nita).Furthermore, by ritualistically positioning the brand (Holt), surrounding and saturating it in existing cultural practices, supporting significant cultural actions and becoming a symbol of wealth, luxury, commitment, love and exclusivity (Phillips et al.), Tiffany’s has steadily built a positive brand association and desire in the minds of consumers near and far (Keller). 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Abstract:

Introduction In any list of dictators and antagonists of the West the name of Libya’s Colonel Muammar Qaddafi will always rank highly as one of the most memorable, colourful and mercurial. The roles he played to his fellow Libyans, to regional groupings, to revolutionaries and to the West were complex and nuanced. These various roles developed over time but were all grounded in his self-belief as a messianic revolutionary figure. More importantly, these roles and behaviours that stemmed from them were instrumental in preserving Qaddafi’s rule and thwarting challenges to it. These facets of Qaddafi’s public self accord with the model of “persona” described by Marshall. Whilst the nature of political persona and celebrity in the Western world has been explored by several scholars (for example Street; Wilson), little work has been conducted on the use of persona by non-democratic leaders. This paper examines the aspects of persona exhibited by Colonel Qaddafi and applied during his tenure. In constructing his role as a revolutionary leader, Qaddafi was engaging in a form of public performance aimed at delivering himself to a wider audience. Whether at home or abroad, this persona served the purpose of helping the Libyan leader consolidate his power, stymie political opposition and export his revolutionary ideals. The trajectory of his persona begins in the early days of his coming to power as a charismatic leader during a “time of distress” (Weber) and culminates in his bloody end next to a roadside drainage culvert. In between these points Qaddafi’s persona underwent refinement and reinvention. Coupled with the legacy he left on the Libyan political system, the journey of Muammar Qaddafi’s personas demonstrate how political personality can be the salvation or damnation of an entire state.Qaddafi: The Brotherly RevolutionaryCaptain Muammar Qaddafi came to power in Libya in 1969 at the age of just 27. He was the leader of a group of military officers who overthrew King Idris in a popular and relatively bloodless coup founded on an ideology of post-colonial Arab nationalism and a doing away with the endemic corruption and nepotism that were the hallmarks of the monarchy. With this revolutionary cause in mind and in an early indication that he recognised the power of political image, Qaddafi showed restraint in adopting the trappings of office. His modest promotion to the rank of Colonel was an obvious example of this, and despite the fact that in practical terms he was the supreme commander of Libya’s armed forces, he resisted the temptation to formally aggrandize himself with military titles for the ensuing 42 years of his rule.High military rank was in a way irrelevant to a man moving to change his persona from army officer to messianic national leader. Switching away from a reliance on military hierarchy as a basis for his authority allowed Qaddafi to re-cast himself as a leader with a broader mission. He began to utilise titles such as “Chairman of the Revolutionary Command Council” (RCC) and “Brotherly Leader and Guide of the Revolution.” The persona on display here was one of detached impartiality and almost reluctant leadership. There was the suggestion that Qaddafi was not really acting as a head of state, but merely an ordinary Libyan who, through popular acclaim, was being begged to lead his people. The attraction of this persona remained until the bitter end for Qaddafi, with his professed inability to step aside from a leadership role he insisted he did not formally occupy. This accords with the contention of Weber, who describes how an individual favoured with charisma can step forward at a time of crisis to complete a “mission.” Once in a position of authority, perpetuating that role of leadership and acclamation can become the mission itself:The holder, of charisma seizes the task that is adequate for him and demands obedience and a following by virtue of his mission. His success determines whether he finds them. His charismatic claim breaks down if his mission is not recognized by those to whom he feels he has been sent. If they recognize him, he is their master—so long as he knows how to maintain recognition through ‘proving’ himself. But he does not derive his ‘right’ from their will, in the manner of an election. Rather, the reverse holds: it is the duty of those to whom he addresses his mission to recognize him as their charismatically qualified leader. (Weber 266-7)As his rule extended across the decades, Qaddafi fostered his revolutionary credentials via a typical cult of personality approach. His image appeared on everything from postage stamps to watches, bags, posters and billboards. Quotations from the Brother Leader were set to music and broadcast as pop songs. “Spontaneous” rallies of support would occur when crowds of loyalists would congregate to hear the Brotherly Leader speak. Although Qaddafi publicly claimed he did not like this level of public adoration he accepted it because the people wanted to adore him. It was widely known however that many of these crowds were paid to attend these rallies (Blundy and Lycett 16).Qaddafi: The Philosopher In developing his persona as a guide and a man who was sharing his natural gifts with the people, Qaddafi developed a post-colonial philosophy he called “Third Universal Theory.” This was published in volumes collectively known as The Green Book. This was mandatory reading for every Libyan and contained a distillation of Qaddafi’s thoughts and opinions on everything from sports to politics to religion to the differences between men and women. Whilst it may be tempting for outsiders to dismiss these writings as the scribbling of a dictator, the legacy of Qaddafi’s persona as political philosopher is worthy of some examination. For in offering his revelations to the Libyan people, Qaddafi extended his mandate beyond leader of a revolution and into the territory of “messianic reformer of a nation.”The Green Book was a three-part series. The first instalment was written in 1975 and focuses on the “problem of democracy” where Qaddafi proposes direct democracy as the best option for a progressive nation. The second instalment, published in 1977, focuses on economics and expounds socialism as the solution to all fiscal woes. (Direct popular action here was evidenced in the RCC making rental of real estate illegal, meaning that all tenants in the country suddenly found themselves granted ownership of the property they were occupying!) The final chapter, published in 1981, proposes the Third Universal Theory where Qaddafi outlines his unique solution for implementing direct democracy and socialism. Qaddafi coined a new term for his Islamically-inspired socialist utopia: Jamahiriya. This was defined as being a “state of the masses” and formed the blueprint for Libyan society which Qaddafi subsequently imposed.This model of direct democracy was part of the charismatic conceit Qaddafi cultivated: that the Libyan people were their own leaders and his role was merely as a benevolent agent acceding to their wishes. However the implementation of the Jamahiriya was anything but benevolent and its legacy has crippled post-Qaddafi Libya. Under this system, Libyans did have some control over their affairs at a very local level. Beyond this, an increasingly complex series of committees and regional groupings, over which the RCC had the right of veto, diluted the participation of ordinary citizens and their ability to coalesce around any individual leader. The banning of standard avenues of political organisation, such as parties and unions, coupled with a ruthless police state that detained and executed anyone offering even a hint of political dissent served to snuff out any opposition before it had a chance to gather pace. The result was that there were no Libyans with enough leadership experience or public profile to take over when Qaddafi was ousted in 2011.Qaddafi: The Liberator In a further plank of his revolutionary persona Qaddafi turned to the world beyond Libya to offer his brotherly guidance. This saw him champion any cause that claimed to be a liberation or resistance movement struggling against the shackles of colonialism. He tended to favour groups that had ideologies aligned with his own, namely Arab unity and the elimination of Israel, but ultimately was not consistent in this regard. Aside from Palestinian nationalists, financial support was offered to groups such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Moro National Liberation Front (Philippines), Umkhonto we Sizwe (South Africa), ETA (Spain), the Polisario Front (Western Sahara), and even separatist indigenous Australians. This policy of backing revolutionary groups was certainly a projection of his persona as a charismatic enabler of the revolutionary mission. However, the reception of this mission in the wider world formed the basis for the image that Qaddafi most commonly occupied in Western eyes.In 1979 the ongoing Libyan support for groups pursuing violent action against Israel and the West saw the country designated a State-Sponsor of Terror by the US Department of State. Diplomatic relations between the two nations were severed and did not resume until 2004. At this point Qaddafi seemed to adopt a persona of “opponent of the West,” ostensibly on behalf of the world’s downtrodden colonial peoples. The support for revolutionary groups was changing to a more active use of them to strike at Western interests. At the same time Qaddafi stepped up his rhetoric against America and Britain, positioning himself as a champion of the Arab world, as the one leader who had the courage of his convictions and the only one who was squarely on the side of the ordinary citizenry (in contrast to other, more compliant Arab rulers). Here again there is evidence of the charismatic revolutionary persona, reluctantly taking up the burden of leadership on behalf of his brothers.Whatever his ideals, the result was that Qaddafi and his state became the focus of increasing Western ire. A series of incidents between the US and Libya in international waters added to the friction, as did Libyan orchestrated terror attacks in Berlin, Rome and Vienna. At the height of this tension in 1986, American aircraft bombed targets in Libya, narrowly missing Qaddafi himself. This role as public enemy of America led to Qaddafi being characterised by President Ronald Reagan (no stranger to the use of persona himself) as the “mad dog of the Middle East” and a “squalid criminal.” The enmity of the West made life difficult for ordinary Libyans dealing with crippling sanctions, but for Qaddafi, it helped bolster his persona as a committed revolutionary.Qaddafi: Leader of the Arab and African Worlds Related to his early revolutionary ideologies were Qaddafi’s aspirations as a pan-national leader. Inspired by Egypt’s Gamel Abdul Nasser from a young age, the ideals of pan-Arab unity were always a cornerstone of Qaddafi’s beliefs. It is not therefore surprising that he developed ambitions of being the person to bring about and “guide” that unity. Once again the Weberian description of the charismatic leader is relevant, particularly the notion that such leadership does not respect conventional boundaries of functional jurisdictions or local bailiwicks; in this case, state boundaries.During the 1970s Qaddafi was involved in numerous attempts to broker Arab unions between Libya and states such as Egypt, Syria and Tunisia. All of these failed to materialise once the exact details of the mergers began to be discussed, in particular who would assume the mantle of leadership in these super-states. In line with his persona as the rightly-guided revolutionary, Qaddafi consistently blamed the failure of these unions on the other parties, souring his relationship with his fellow Arab leaders. His hardline stance on Israel also put him at odds with those peers more determined to find a compromise. Following the assassination of Egypt’s Anwar Sadat in 1981 Qaddafi praised the act as justified because of Sadat’s signing of the Camp David Accords with Israel.Having given up on the hope of achieving pan-Arab Unity, Qaddafi sought to position himself as a leader of the African bloc. In 2009 he became Chairperson of the African Union and took to having himself introduced as “The King of Kings of Africa.” The level of dysfunction of the African Union was no less than that of the Arab League and Qaddafi’s grandiose plans for becoming the President of the United States of Africa failed to materialise.In both his pan-Arab and pan-Africa ambitions, we see a persona of Qaddafi that aims at leadership beyond his own state. Whilst there may be delusions of grandeur apparent in the practicalities of these goals, this image was nevertheless something that Qaddafi used to leverage the next phase of his political transformation.Qaddafi: The Post-9/11 Statesman However much he might be seen as erratic, Qaddafi’s innate intelligence could result in a political astuteness lacking in many of his Arab peers. Following the events of 11 September 2001, Qaddafi was the first international leader to condemn the attacks on America and pledge support in the War on Terror and the extermination of al-Qaeda. Despite his history as a supporter of terrorism overseas, Qaddafi had a long history of repressing it at home, just as with any other form of political opposition. The pan-Islamism of al-Qaeda was anathema to his key ideologies of direct democracy (guided by himself). This meant the United States and Libya were now finally on the same team. As part of this post-9/11 sniffing of the wind, Qaddafi abandoned his fledgling Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program and finally agreed to pay reparations to the families of the victims of the Pan Am 107 flight downed over Lockerbie in 1987.This shift in Qaddafi’s policy did not altogether dispel his persona of brotherly leadership amongst African nations. As a bloc leader and an example of the possibility of ‘coming in from the cold’, Qaddafi and Libya were reintegrated into the world community. This included giving a speech at the United Nations in 2009. This event did little to add to his reputation as a statesman in the West. Given a 15-minute slot, the Libyan leader delivered a rambling address over 90 minutes long, which included him tearing up a copy of the UN Charter and turning his back to the audience whilst continuing to speak.Qaddafi: The Clown From the Western point of view, performances like this painted Qaddafi’s behaviour as increasingly bizarre. Particularly after Libya’s rapprochement with the West, the label of threatening terrorist supporter faded and was replaced with something along the lines of a harmless clown prince. Tales of the Libyan leader’s coterie of virgin female bodyguards were the subject of ridicule, as was his ardour for US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Perhaps this behaviour was indicative of a leader increasingly divorced from reality. Surrounded by sycophants dependent on his regard for their tenure or physical survival, as well as Western leaders eager to contrast his amiability with that of Saddam Hussein, nobody was prepared to draw attention to the emperor’s new clothes.Indeed, elaborate and outlandish clothing played an increasing role in Qaddafi’s persona as the decades went on. His simple revolutionary fatigues of the early years were superseded by a vast array of military uniforms heavily decorated with medals and emblems; traditional African, Arab or Bedouin robes depending on the occasion; and in later years a penchant for outfits that included images of the African continent or pictures of dead martyrs. (In 2009 Vanity Fair did a tongue-in-cheek article on the fashion of Colonel Qaddafi entitled Dictator Chic: Colonel Qaddafi—A Life in Fashion. This spawned a number of similar features including one in TIME Magazine entitled Gaddafi Fashion: The Emperor Had Some Crazy Clothes.)The Bedouin theme was an aspect of persona that Qaddafi cultivated as an ascetic “man of the people” throughout his leadership. Despite having many palaces available he habitually slept in an elaborate tent, according once again with Weber’s description of the charismatic leader as one who eschews methodical material gain. This predisposition served him well in the 1986 United States bombing, when his residence in a military barracks was demolished, but Qaddafi escaped unscathed as he was in his tent at the time. He regularly entertained foreign dignitaries in tents when they visited Libya and he took one when travelling abroad, including pitching it in the gardens of a Parisian hotel during a state visit in 2007. (A request to camp in New York’s Central Park for his UN visit in 2009 was denied; “Inside the Tents of Muammar Gaddafi”).The role of such a clown was unlikely to have been an aim for Qaddafi, but was instead the product of his own increasing isolation. It will likely be his most enduring character in the Western memory of his rule. It should be noted though that clowns and fools do not maintain an iron grip on power for over 40 years.The Legacy of Qaddafi’s Many Personas Colonel Muammar Qaddafi was a clever and complex leader who exhibited many variations of persona during his four decades of rule. These personas were generally facets of the same core self-belief of a charismatic leader, but could be conflicting, and often confusing, to observers. His eccentricities often hid a layer of deeper cunning and ambition, but ultimately led to his marginalisation and an impression by world leaders that he was untrustworthy.His erratic performance at the UN in 2009 perhaps typifies the end stages of Qaddafi’s leadership: a man increasingly disconnected from his people and the realities of what was going on around him. His insistence that the 2011 Libyan revolution was variously a colonial or terrorist inspired piece of theatre belied the deep resentment of his rule. His role as opponent of the Western and Arab worlds alike meant that he was unsupported in his attempts to deal with the uprising. Indeed, the West’s rapid willingness to use their airpower was instrumental in speeding on the rebel forces.What cannot be disputed is the chaotic legacy this charismatic figure left for his country. Since the uprising climaxed in his on-camera lynching in October 2011, Libya has been plunged in to turmoil and shows no signs of this abating. One of the central reasons for this chaos is that Qaddafi’s supremacy, his political philosophies, and his use of messianic persona left Libya completely unprepared for rule by any other party.This ensuing chaos has been a cruel, if ironic, proof of Qaddafi’s own conceit: Libya could not survive without him.References Al-Gathafi, Muammar. The Green Book: The Solution to the Problem of Democracy; The Solution to the Economic Problem; The Social Basis of the Third Universal Theory. UK: Ithaca Press, 2005.Blundy, David, and Andrew Lycett. Qaddafi and the Libyan Revolution. Boston and Toronto: Little Brown & Co, 1987.Marshall, P. David. “Persona Studies: Mapping the Proliferation of the Public Self”. Journalism 15.2 (2014): 153-170.Qaddafi, Muammar. Speech at the United Nations 2009. ‹http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKMyY2V0J0Y›. Street, John. “Celebrity Politicians: Popular Culture and Political Representation.” British Journal of Politics and International Relations 6 (2004): 435-52.Street, John. “Do Celebrity Politics and Celebrity Politicians Matter?” The British Journal of Politics & International Relations 14.3 (2012): 346-356.TIME Magazine. “Gaddafi Fashion: The Emperor Had Some Crazy Clothes.” ‹http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2055860,00.html›.TIME Magazine. “Inside the Tents of Muammar Gaddafi.” ‹http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2058074,00.html›.Totman, Sally, and Mat Hardy. “In the Green Zone: 40 years with Colonel Qaddafi.” Ed. Geoffrey Hawker. APSA 2009: Proceedings of the APSA Annual Conference 2009. Sydney: Macquarie University, 2009. 1-19.Totman, Sally, and Mat Hardy. “The Rise and Decline of Libya as a Rogue State.” OCIS 2008: Oceanic Conference on International Studies. Brisbane: University of Queensland, 2008. 1-25.Vanity Fair. “Dictator Chic: Colonel Qaddafi—A Life in Fashion.” ‹http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2009/08/qaddafi-slideshow200908›.Weber, Max, Hans Heinrich Gerth, and C. Wright Mills. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. London: Routledge, 2009.Wilson, J. “Kevin Rudd, Celebrity and Audience Democracy in Australia.” Journalism 15.2 (2013): 202-217.

Abstract:

At a time when almost every human transgression, illness, profession and other personal aspect of life has been chronicled in autobiographical writing (Rak)—in 1998 Zinsser called ours “the age of memoir” (3)—writing about fat is one of the most recent subjects to be addressed in this way. This article surveys a range of contemporary autobiographical texts that are titled with, or revolve around, that powerful and most evocative word, “fat”. Following a number of cultural studies of fat in society (Critser; Gilman, Fat Boys; Fat: A Cultural History; Stearns), this discussion views fat in socio-cultural terms, following Lupton in understanding fat as both “a cultural artefact: a bodily substance or body shape that is given meaning by complex and shifting systems of ideas, practices, emotions, material objects and interpersonal relationships” (i). Using a case study approach (Gerring; Verschuren), this examination focuses on a range of texts from autobiographical cookbooks and memoirs to novel-length graphic works in order to develop a preliminary taxonomy of these works. In this way, a small sample of work, each of which (described below) explores an aspect (or aspects) of the form is, following Merriam, useful as it allows a richer picture of an under-examined phenomenon to be constructed, and offers “a means of investigating complex social units consisting of multiple variables of potential importance in understanding the phenomenon” (Merriam 50). Although the sample size does not offer generalisable results, the case study method is especially suitable in this context, where the aim is to open up discussion of this form of writing for future research for, as Merriam states, “much can be learned from […] an encounter with the case through the researcher’s narrative description” and “what we learn in a particular case can be transferred to similar situations” (51). Pro-Fat Autobiographical WritingAlongside the many hundreds of reduced, low- and no-fat cookbooks and weight loss guides currently in print that offer recipes, meal plans, ingredient replacements and strategies to reduce fat in the diet, there are a handful that promote the consumption of fats, and these all have an autobiographical component. The publication of Jennifer McLagan’s Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes in 2008 by Ten Speed Press—publisher of Mollie Katzen’s groundbreaking and influential vegetarian Moosewood Cookbook in 1974 and an imprint now known for its quality cookbooks (Thelin)—unequivocably addressed that line in the sand often drawn between fat and all things healthy. The four chapter titles of this cookbook— “Butter,” subtitled “Worth It,” “Pork Fat: The King,” “Poultry Fat: Versatile and Good For You,” and, “Beef and Lamb Fats: Overlooked But Tasty”—neatly summarise McLagan’s organising argument: that animal fats not only add an unreplaceable and delicious flavour to foods but are fundamental to our health. Fat polarised readers and critics; it was positively reviewed in prominent publications (Morris; Bhide) and won influential food writing awards, including 2009 James Beard Awards for Single Subject Cookbook and Cookbook of the Year but, due to its rejection of low-fat diets and the research underpinning them, was soon also vehemently criticised, to the point where the book was often described in the media as “controversial” (see Smith). McLagan’s text, while including historical, scientific and gastronomic data and detail, is also an outspokenly personal treatise, chronicling her sensual and emotional responses to this ingredient. “I love fat,” she begins, continuing, “Whether it’s a slice of foie gras terrine, its layer of yellow fat melting at the edges […] hot bacon fat […] wilting a plate of pungent greens into submission […] or a piece of crunchy pork crackling […] I love the way it feels in my mouth, and I love its many tastes” (1). Her text is, indeed, memoir as gastronomy / gastronomy as memoir, and this cookbook, therefore, an example of the “memoir with recipes” subgenre (Brien et al.). It appears to be this aspect – her highly personal and, therein, persuasive (Weitin) plea for the value of fats – that galvanised critics and readers.Molly Chester and Sandy Schrecengost’s Back to Butter: A Traditional Foods Cookbook – Nourishing Recipes Inspired by Our Ancestors begins with its authors’ memoirs (illness, undertaking culinary school training, buying and running a farm) to lend weight to their argument to utilise fats widely in cookery. Its first chapter, “Fats and Oils,” features the familiar butter, which it describes as “the friendly fat” (22), then moves to the more reviled pork lard “Grandma’s superfood” (22) and, nowadays quite rarely described as an ingredient, beef tallow. Grit Magazine’s Lard: The Lost Art of Cooking with Your Grandmother’s Secret Ingredient utilises the rhetoric that fat, and in this case, lard, is a traditional and therefore foundational ingredient in good cookery. This text draws on its publisher’s, Grit Magazine (published since 1882 in various formats), long history of including auto/biographical “inspirational stories” (Teller) to lend persuasive power to its argument. One of the most polarising of fats in health and current media discourse is butter, as was seen recently in debate over what was seen as its excessive use in the MasterChef Australia television series (see, Heart Foundation; Phillipov). It is perhaps not surprising, then, that butter is the single fat inspiring the most autobiographical writing in this mode. Rosie Daykin’s Butter Baked Goods: Nostalgic Recipes from a Little Neighborhood Bakery is, for example, typical of a small number of cookbooks that extend the link between baking and nostalgia to argue that butter is the superlative ingredient for baking. There are also entire cookbooks dedicated to making flavoured butters (Vaserfirer) and a number that offer guides to making butter and other (fat-based) dairy products at home (Farrell-Kingsley; Hill; Linford).Gabrielle Hamilton’s Blood, Bones and Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef is typical among chef’s memoirs in using butter prominently although rare in mentioning fat in its title. In this text and other such memoirs, butter is often used as shorthand for describing a food that is rich but also wholesomely delicious. Hamilton relates childhood memories of “all butter shortcakes” (10), and her mother and sister “cutting butter into flour and sugar” for scones (15), radishes eaten with butter (21), sautéing sage in butter to dress homemade ravoli (253), and eggs fried in browned butter (245). Some of Hamilton’s most telling references to butter present it as an staple, natural food as, for instance, when she describes “sliced bread with butter and granulated sugar” (37) as one of her family’s favourite desserts, and lists butter among the everyday foodstuffs that taste superior when stored at room temperature instead of refrigerated—thereby moving butter from taboo (Gwynne describes a similar process of the normalisation of sexual “perversion” in erotic memoir).Like this text, memoirs that could be described as arguing “for” fat as a substance are largely by chefs or other food writers who extol, like McLagan and Hamilton, the value of fat as both food and flavouring, and propose that it has a key role in both ordinary/family and gourmet cookery. In this context, despite plant-based fats such as coconut oil being much lauded in nutritional and other health-related discourse, the fat written about in these texts is usually animal-based. An exception to this is olive oil, although this is never described in the book’s title as a “fat” (see, for instance, Drinkwater’s series of memoirs about life on an olive farm in France) and is, therefore, out of the scope of this discussion.Memoirs of Being FatThe majority of the other memoirs with the word “fat” in their titles are about being fat. Narratives on this topic, and their authors’ feelings about this, began to be published as a sub-set of autobiographical memoir in the 2000s. The first decade of the new millennium saw a number of such memoirs by female writers including Judith Moore’s Fat Girl (published in 2005), Jen Lancaster’s Such a Pretty Fat: One Narcissist’s Quest to Discover If Her Life Makes Her Ass Look Big, or Why Pie Is Not the Answer, and Stephanie Klein’s Moose: A Memoir (both published in 2008) and Jennifer Joyne’s Designated Fat Girl in 2010. These were followed into the new decade by texts such as Celia Rivenbark’s bestselling 2011 You Don’t Sweat Much for a Fat Girl, and all attracted significant mainstream readerships. Journalist Vicki Allan pulled no punches when she labelled these works the “fat memoir” and, although Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson’s influential categorisation of 60 genres of life writing does not include this description, they do recognise eating disorder and weight-loss narratives. Some scholarly interest followed (Linder; Halloran), with Mitchell linking this production to feminism’s promotion of the power of the micro-narrative and the recognition that the autobiographical narrative was “a way of situating the self politically” (65).aken together, these memoirs all identify “excess” weight, although the response to this differs. They can be grouped as: narratives of losing weight (see Kuffel; Alley; and many others), struggling to lose weight (most of these books), and/or deciding not to try to lose weight (the smallest number of works overall). Some of these texts display a deeply troubled relationship with food—Moore’s Fat Girl, for instance, could also be characterised as an eating disorder memoir (Brien), detailing her addiction to eating and her extremely poor body image as well as her mother’s unrelenting pressure to lose weight. Elena Levy-Navarro describes the tone of these narratives as “compelled confession” (340), mobilising both the conventional understanding of confession of the narrator “speaking directly and colloquially” to the reader of their sins, failures or foibles (Gill 7), and what she reads as an element of societal coercion in their production. Some of these texts do focus on confessing what can be read as disgusting and wretched behavior (gorging and vomiting, for instance)—Halloran’s “gustatory abject” (27)—which is a feature of the contemporary conceptualisation of confession after Rousseau (Brooks). This is certainly a prominent aspect of current memoir writing that is, simultaneously, condemned by critics (see, for example, Jordan) and popular with readers (O’Neill). Read in this way, the majority of memoirs about being fat are about being miserable until a slimming regime of some kind has been undertaken and successful. Some of these texts are, indeed, triumphal in tone. Lisa Delaney’s Secrets of a Former Fat Girl is, for instance, clear in the message of its subtitle, How to Lose Two, Four (or More!) Dress Sizes—And Find Yourself Along the Way, that she was “lost” until she became slim. Linden has argued that “female memoir writers frequently describe their fat bodies as diseased and contaminated” (219) and “powerless” (226). Many of these confessional memoirs are moving narratives of shame and self loathing where the memoirist’s sense of self, character, and identity remain somewhat confused and unresolved, whether they lose weight or not, and despite attestations to the contrary.A sub-set of these memoirs of weight loss are by male authors. While having aspects in common with those by female writers, these can be identified as a sub-set of these memoirs for two reasons. One is the tone of their narratives, which is largely humourous and often ribaldly comic. There is also a sense of the heroic in these works, with male memoirsts frequently mobilising images of battles and adversity. Texts that can be categorised in this way include Toshio Okada’s Sayonara Mr. Fatty: A Geek’s Diet Memoir, Gregg McBride and Joy Bauer’s bestselling Weightless: My Life as a Fat Man and How I Escaped, Fred Anderson’s From Chunk to Hunk: Diary of a Fat Man. As can be seen in their titles, these texts also promise to relate the stratgies, regimes, plans, and secrets that others can follow to, similarly, lose weight. Allen Zadoff’s title makes this explicit: Lessons Learned on the Journey from Fat to Thin. Many of these male memoirists are prompted by a health-related crisis, diagnosis, or realisation. Male body image—a relatively recent topic of enquiry in the eating disorder, psychology, and fashion literature (see, for instance, Bradley et al.)—is also often a surprising motif in these texts, and a theme in common with weight loss memoirs by female authors. Edward Ugel, for instance, opens his memoir, I’m with Fatty: Losing Fifty Pounds in Fifty Miserable Weeks, with “I’m haunted by mirrors … the last thing I want to do is see myself in a mirror or a photograph” (1).Ugel, as that prominent “miserable” in his subtitle suggests, provides a subtle but revealing variation on this theme of successful weight loss. Ugel (as are all these male memoirists) succeeds in the quest be sets out on but, apparently, despondent almost every moment. While the overall tone of his writing is light and humorous, he laments every missed meal, snack, and mouthful of food he foregoes, explaining that he loves eating, “Food makes me happy … I live to eat. I love to eat at restaurants. I love to cook. I love the social component of eating … I can’t be happy without being a social eater” (3). Like many of these books by male authors, Ugel’s descriptions of the food he loves are mouthwatering—and most especially when describing what he identifies as the fattening foods he loves: Reuben sandwiches dripping with juicy grease, crispy deep friend Chinese snacks, buttery Danish pastries and creamy, rich ice cream. This believable sense of regret is not, however, restricted to male authors. It is also apparent in how Jen Lancaster begins her memoir: “I’m standing in the kitchen folding a softened stick of butter, a cup of warmed sour cream, and a mound of fresh-shaved Parmesan into my world-famous mashed potatoes […] There’s a maple-glazed pot roast browning nicely in the oven and white-chocolate-chip macadamia cookies cooling on a rack farther down the counter. I’ve already sautéed the almonds and am waiting for the green beans to blanch so I can toss the whole lot with yet more butter before serving the meal” (5). In the above memoirs, both male and female writers recount similar (and expected) strategies: diets, fasts and other weight loss regimes and interventions (calorie counting, colonics, and gastric-banding and -bypass surgery for instance, recur); consulting dieting/health magazines for information and strategies; keeping a food journal; employing expert help in the form of nutritionists, dieticians, and personal trainers; and, joining health clubs/gyms, and taking up various sports.Alongside these works sit a small number of texts that can be characterised as “non-weight loss memoirs.” These can be read as part of the emerging, and burgeoning, academic field of Fat Studies, which gathers together an extensive literature critical of, and oppositional to, dominant discourses about obesity (Cooper; Rothblum and Solovay; Tomrley and Naylor), and which include works that focus on information backed up with memoir such as self-described “fat activist” (Wann, website) Marilyn Wann’s Fat! So?: Because You Don’t Have to Apologise, which—when published in 1998—followed a print ’zine and a website of the same title. Although certainly in the minority in terms of numbers, these narratives have been very popular with readers and are growing as a sub-genre, with well-known actress Camryn Manheim’s New York Times-bestselling memoir, Wake Up, I'm Fat! (published in 1999) a good example. This memoir chronicles Manheim’s journey from the overweight and teased teenager who finds it a struggle to find friends (a common trope in many weight loss memoirs) to an extremely successful actress.Like most other types of memoir, there are also niche sub-genres of the “fat memoir.” Cheryl Peck’s Fat Girls and Lawn Chairs recounts a series of stories about her life in the American Midwest as a lesbian “woman of size” (xiv) and could thus be described as a memoir on the subjects of – and is, indeed, catalogued in the Library of Congress as: “Overweight women,” “Lesbians,” and “Three Rivers (Mich[igan]) – Social life and customs”.Carol Lay’s graphic memoir, The Big Skinny: How I Changed My Fattitude, has a simple diet message – she lost weight by counting calories and exercising every day – and makes a dual claim for value of being based on both her own story and a range of data and tools including: “the latest research on obesity […] psychological tips, nutrition basics, and many useful tools like simplified calorie charts, sample recipes, and menu plans” (qtd. in Lorah). The Big Skinny could, therefore, be characterised with the weight loss memoirs above as a self-help book, but Lay herself describes choosing the graphic form in order to increase its narrative power: to “wrap much of the information in stories […] combining illustrations and story for a double dose of retention in the brain” (qtd. in Lorah). Like many of these books that can fit into multiple categories, she notes that “booksellers don’t know where to file the book – in graphic novels, memoirs, or in the diet section” (qtd. in O’Shea).Jude Milner’s Fat Free: The Amazing All-True Adventures of Supersize Woman! is another example of how a single memoir (graphic, in this case) can be a hybrid of the categories herein discussed, indicating how difficult it is to neatly categorise human experience. Recounting the author’s numerous struggles with her weight and journey to self-acceptance, Milner at first feels guilty and undertakes a series of diets and regimes, before becoming a “Fat Is Beautiful” activist and, finally, undergoing gastric bypass surgery. Here the narrative trajectory is of empowerment rather than physical transformation, as a thinner (although, importantly, not thin) Milner “exudes confidence and radiates strength” (Story). ConclusionWhile the above has identified a number of ways of attempting to classify autobiographical writing about fat/s, its ultimate aim is, after G. Thomas Couser’s work in relation to other sub-genres of memoir, an attempt to open up life writing for further discussion, rather than set in placed fixed and inflexible categories. Constructing such a preliminary taxonomy aspires to encourage more nuanced discussion of how writers, publishers, critics and readers understand “fat” conceptually as well as more practically and personally. 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Abstract:

Introduction With a deluge of mouthwatering pre-publicity, the opening of The Spotted Pig, the USA’s first self-identified British-styled gastropub, in Manhattan in February 2004 was much anticipated. The late Australian chef, food writer and restauranteur Mietta O’Donnell has noted how “taking over a building or business which has a long established reputation can be a mixed blessing” because of the way that memories “can enrich the experience of being in a place or they can just make people nostalgic”. Bistro Le Zoo, the previous eatery on the site, had been very popular when it opened almost a decade earlier, and its closure was mourned by some diners (Young; Kaminsky “Feeding Time”; Steinhauer & McGinty). This regret did not, however, appear to affect The Spotted Pig’s success. As esteemed New York Times reviewer Frank Bruni noted in his 2006 review: “Almost immediately after it opened […] the throngs started to descend, and they have never stopped”. The following year, The Spotted Pig was awarded a Michelin star—the first year that Michelin ranked New York—and has kept this star in the subsequent annual rankings. Writing Restaurant Biography Detailed studies have been published of almost every type of contemporary organisation including public institutions such as schools, hospitals, museums and universities, as well as non-profit organisations such as charities and professional associations. These are often written to mark a major milestone, or some significant change, development or the demise of the organisation under consideration (Brien). Detailed studies have also recently been published of businesses as diverse as general stores (Woody), art galleries (Fossi), fashion labels (Koda et al.), record stores (Southern & Branson), airlines (Byrnes; Jones), confectionary companies (Chinn) and builders (Garden). In terms of attracting mainstream readerships, however, few such studies seem able to capture popular reader interest as those about eating establishments including restaurants and cafés. This form of restaurant life history is, moreover, not restricted to ‘quality’ establishments. Fast food restaurant chains have attracted their share of studies (see, for example Love; Jakle & Sculle), ranging from business-economic analyses (Liu), socio-cultural political analyses (Watson), and memoirs (Kroc & Anderson), to criticism around their conduct and effects (Striffler). Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal is the most well-known published critique of the fast food industry and its effects with, famously, the Rolling Stone article on which it was based generating more reader mail than any other piece run in the 1990s. The book itself (researched narrative creative nonfiction), moreover, made a fascinating transition to the screen, transformed into a fictionalised drama (co-written by Schlosser) that narrates the content of the book from the point of view of a series of fictional/composite characters involved in the industry, rather than in a documentary format. Akin to the range of studies of fast food restaurants, there are also a variety of studies of eateries in US motels, caravan parks, diners and service station restaurants (see, for example, Baeder). Although there has been little study of this sub-genre of food and drink publishing, their popularity can be explained, at least in part, because such volumes cater to the significant readership for writing about food related topics of all kinds, with food writing recently identified as mainstream literary fare in the USA and UK (Hughes) and an entire “publishing subculture” in Australia (Dunstan & Chaitman). Although no exact tally exists, an informed estimate by the founder of the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards and president of the Paris Cookbook Fair, Edouard Cointreau, has more than 26,000 volumes on food and wine related topics currently published around the world annually (ctd. in Andriani “Gourmand Awards”). The readership for publications about restaurants can also perhaps be attributed to the wide range of information that can be included a single study. My study of a selection of these texts from the UK, USA and Australia indicates that this can include narratives of place and architecture dealing with the restaurant’s location, locale and design; narratives of directly food-related subject matter such as menus, recipes and dining trends; and narratives of people, in the stories of its proprietors, staff and patrons. Detailed studies of contemporary individual establishments commonly take the form of authorised narratives either written by the owners, chefs or other staff with the help of a food journalist, historian or other professional writer, or produced largely by that writer with the assistance of the premise’s staff. These studies are often extensively illustrated with photographs and, sometimes, drawings or reproductions of other artworks, and almost always include recipes. Two examples of these from my own collection include a centennial history of a famous New Orleans eatery that survived Hurricane Katrina, Galatoire’s Cookbook. Written by employees—the chief operating officer/general manager (Melvin Rodrigue) and publicist (Jyl Benson)—this incorporates reminiscences from both other staff and patrons. The second is another study of a New Orleans’ restaurant, this one by the late broadcaster and celebrity local historian Mel Leavitt. The Court of Two Sisters Cookbook: With a History of the French Quarter and the Restaurant, compiled with the assistance of the Two Sisters’ proprietor, Joseph Fein Joseph III, was first published in 1992 and has been so enduringly popular that it is in its eighth printing. These texts, in common with many others of this type, trace a triumph-over-adversity company history that incorporates a series of mildly scintillating anecdotes, lists of famous chefs and diners, and signature recipes. Although obviously focused on an external readership, they can also be characterised as an instance of what David M. Boje calls an organisation’s “story performance” (106) as the process of creating these narratives mobilises an organisation’s (in these cases, a commercial enterprise’s) internal information processing and narrative building activities. Studies of contemporary restaurants are much more rarely written without any involvement from the eatery’s personnel. When these are, the results tend to have much in common with more critical studies such as Fast Food Nation, as well as so-called architectural ‘building biographies’ which attempt to narrate the historical and social forces that “explain the shapes and uses” (Ellis, Chao & Parrish 70) of the physical structures we create. Examples of this would include Harding’s study of the importance of the Boeuf sur le Toit in Parisian life in the 1920s and Middlebrook’s social history of London’s Strand Corner House. Such work agrees with Kopytoff’s assertion—following Appadurai’s proposal that objects possess their own ‘biographies’ which need to be researched and expressed—that such inquiry can reveal not only information about the objects under consideration, but also about readers as we examine our “cultural […] aesthetic, historical, and even political” responses to these narratives (67). The life story of a restaurant will necessarily be entangled with those of the figures who have been involved in its establishment and development, as well as the narratives they create around the business. This following brief study of The Spotted Pig, however, written without the assistance of the establishment’s personnel, aims to outline a life story for this eatery in order to reflect upon the pig’s place in contemporary dining practice in New York as raw foodstuff, fashionable comestible, product, brand, symbol and marketing tool, as well as, at times, purely as an animal identity. The Spotted Pig Widely profiled before it even opened, The Spotted Pig is reportedly one of the city’s “most popular” restaurants (Michelin 349). It is profiled in all the city guidebooks I could locate in print and online, featuring in some of these as a key stop on recommended itineraries (see, for instance, Otis 39). A number of these proclaim it to be the USA’s first ‘gastropub’—the term first used in 1991 in the UK to describe a casual hotel/bar with good food and reasonable prices (Farley). The Spotted Pig is thus styled on a shabby-chic version of a traditional British hotel, featuring a cluttered-but-well arranged use of pig-themed objects and illustrations that is described by latest Michelin Green Guide of New York City as “a country-cute décor that still manages to be hip” (Michelin 349). From the three-dimensional carved pig hanging above the entrance in a homage to the shingles of traditional British hotels, to the use of its image on the menu, website and souvenir tee-shirts, the pig as motif proceeds its use as a foodstuff menu item. So much so, that the restaurant is often (affectionately) referred to by patrons and reviewers simply as ‘The Pig’. The restaurant has become so well known in New York in the relatively brief time it has been operating that it has not only featured in a number of novels and memoirs, but, moreover, little or no explanation has been deemed necessary as the signifier of “The Spotted Pig” appears to convey everything that needs to be said about an eatery of quality and fashion. In the thriller Lethal Experiment: A Donovan Creed Novel, when John Locke’s hero has to leave the restaurant and becomes involved in a series of dangerous escapades, he wants nothing more but to get back to his dinner (107, 115). The restaurant is also mentioned a number of times in Sex and the City author Candace Bushnell’s Lipstick Jungle in relation to a (fictional) new movie of the same name. The joke in the book is that the character doesn’t know of the restaurant (26). In David Goodwillie’s American Subversive, the story of a journalist-turned-blogger and a homegrown terrorist set in New York, the narrator refers to “Scarlett Johansson, for instance, and the hostess at the Spotted Pig” (203-4) as the epitome of attractiveness. The Spotted Pig is also mentioned in Suzanne Guillette’s memoir, Much to Your Chagrin, when the narrator is on a dinner date but fears running into her ex-boyfriend: ‘Jack lives somewhere in this vicinity […] Vaguely, you recall him telling you he was not too far from the Spotted Pig on Greenwich—now, was it Greenwich Avenue or Greenwich Street?’ (361). The author presumes readers know the right answer in order to build tension in this scene. Although this success is usually credited to the joint efforts of backer, music executive turned restaurateur Ken Friedman, his partner, well-known chef, restaurateur, author and television personality Mario Batali, and their UK-born and trained chef, April Bloomfield (see, for instance, Batali), a significant part has been built on Bloomfield’s pork cookery. The very idea of a “spotted pig” itself raises a central tenet of Bloomfield’s pork/food philosophy which is sustainable and organic. That is, not the mass produced, industrially farmed pig which produces a leaner meat, but the fatty, tastier varieties of pig such as the heritage six-spotted Berkshire which is “darker, more heavily marbled with fat, juicier and richer-tasting than most pork” (Fabricant). Bloomfield has, indeed, made pig’s ears—long a Chinese restaurant staple in the city and a key ingredient of Southern US soul food as well as some traditional Japanese and Spanish dishes—fashionable fare in the city, and her current incarnation, a crispy pig’s ear salad with lemon caper dressing (TSP 2010) is much acclaimed by reviewers. This approach to ingredients—using the ‘whole beast’, local whenever possible, and the concentration on pork—has been underlined and enhanced by a continuing relationship with UK chef Fergus Henderson. In his series of London restaurants under the banner of “St. John”, Henderson is famed for the approach to pork cookery outlined in his two books Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking, published in 1999 (re-published both in the UK and the US as The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating), and Beyond Nose to Tail: A Kind of British Cooking: Part II (coauthored with Justin Piers Gellatly in 2007). Henderson has indeed been identified as starting a trend in dining and food publishing, focusing on sustainably using as food the entirety of any animal killed for this purpose, but which mostly focuses on using all parts of pigs. In publishing, this includes Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s The River Cottage Meat Book, Peter Kaminsky’s Pig Perfect, subtitled Encounters with Some Remarkable Swine and Some Great Ways to Cook Them, John Barlow’s Everything but the Squeal: Eating the Whole Hog in Northern Spain and Jennifer McLagan’s Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes (2008). In restaurants, it certainly includes The Spotted Pig. So pervasive has embrace of whole beast pork consumption been in New York that, by 2007, Bruni could write that these are: “porky times, fatty times, which is to say very good times indeed. Any new logo for the city could justifiably place the Big Apple in the mouth of a spit-roasted pig” (Bruni). This demand set the stage perfectly for, in October 2007, Henderson to travel to New York to cook pork-rich menus at The Spotted Pig in tandem with Bloomfield (Royer). He followed this again in 2008 and, by 2009, this annual event had become known as “FergusStock” and was covered by local as well as UK media, and a range of US food weblogs. By 2009, it had grown to become a dinner at the Spotted Pig with half the dishes on the menu by Henderson and half by Bloomfield, and a dinner the next night at David Chang’s acclaimed Michelin-starred Momof*cku Noodle Bar, which is famed for its Cantonese-style steamed pork belly buns. A third dinner (and then breakfast/brunch) followed at Friedman/Bloomfield’s Breslin Bar and Dining Room (discussed below) (Rose). The Spotted Pig dinners have become famed for Henderson’s pig’s head and pork trotter dishes with the chef himself recognising that although his wasn’t “the most obvious food to cook for America”, it was the case that “at St John, if a couple share a pig’s head, they tend to be American” (qtd. in Rose). In 2009, the pigs’ head were presented in pies which Henderson has described as “puff pastry casing, with layers of chopped, cooked pig’s head and potato, so all the lovely, bubbly pig’s head juices go into the potato” (qtd. in Rose). Bloomfield was aged only 28 when, in 2003, with a recommendation from Jamie Oliver, she interviewed for, and won, the position of executive chef of The Spotted Pig (Fabricant; Q&A). Following this introduction to the US, her reputation as a chef has grown based on the strength of her pork expertise. Among a host of awards, she was named one of US Food & Wine magazine’s ten annual Best New Chefs in 2007. In 2009, she was a featured solo session titled “Pig, Pig, Pig” at the fourth Annual International Chefs Congress, a prestigious New York City based event where “the world’s most influential and innovative chefs, pastry chefs, mixologists, and sommeliers present the latest techniques and culinary concepts to their peers” (Starchefs.com). Bloomfield demonstrated breaking down a whole suckling St. Canut milk raised piglet, after which she butterflied, rolled and slow-poached the belly, and fried the ears. As well as such demonstrations of expertise, she is also often called upon to provide expert comment on pork-related news stories, with The Spotted Pig regularly the subject of that food news. For example, when a rare, heritage Hungarian pig was profiled as a “new” New York pork source in 2009, this story arose because Bloomfield had served a Mangalitsa/Berkshire crossbreed pig belly and trotter dish with Agen prunes (Sanders) at The Spotted Pig. Bloomfield was quoted as the authority on the breed’s flavour and heritage authenticity: “it took me back to my grandmother’s kitchen on a Sunday afternoon, windows steaming from the roasting pork in the oven […] This pork has that same authentic taste” (qtd. in Sanders). Bloomfield has also used this expert profile to support a series of pork-related causes. These include the Thanksgiving Farm in the Catskill area, which produces free range pork for its resident special needs children and adults, and helps them gain meaningful work-related skills in working with these pigs. Bloomfield not only cooks for the project’s fundraisers, but also purchases any excess pigs for The Spotted Pig (Estrine 103). This strong focus on pork is not, however, exclusive. The Spotted Pig is also one of a number of American restaurants involved in the Meatless Monday campaign, whereby at least one vegetarian option is included on menus in order to draw attention to the benefits of a plant-based diet. When, in 2008, Bloomfield beat the Iron Chef in the sixth season of the US version of the eponymous television program, the central ingredient was nothing to do with pork—it was olives. Diversifying from this focus on ‘pig’ can, however, be dangerous. Friedman and Bloomfield’s next enterprise after The Spotted Pig was The John Dory seafood restaurant at the corner of 10th Avenue and 16th Street. This opened in November 2008 to reviews that its food was “uncomplicated and nearly perfect” (Andrews 22), won Bloomfield Time Out New York’s 2009 “Best New Hand at Seafood” award, but was not a success. The John Dory was a more formal, but smaller, restaurant that was more expensive at a time when the financial crisis was just biting, and was closed the following August. Friedman blamed the layout, size and neighbourhood (Stein) and its reservation system, which limited walk-in diners (ctd. in Vallis), but did not mention its non-pork, seafood orientation. When, almost immediately, another Friedman/Bloomfield project was announced, the Breslin Bar & Dining Room (which opened in October 2009 in the Ace Hotel at 20 West 29th Street and Broadway), the enterprise was closely modeled on the The Spotted Pig. In preparation, its senior management—Bloomfield, Friedman and sous-chefs, Nate Smith and Peter Cho (who was to become the Breslin’s head chef)—undertook a tasting tour of the UK that included Henderson’s St. John Bread & Wine Bar (Leventhal). Following this, the Breslin’s menu highlighted a series of pork dishes such as terrines, sausages, ham and potted styles (Rosenberg & McCarthy), with even Bloomfield’s pork scratchings (crispy pork rinds) bar snacks garnering glowing reviews (see, for example, Severson; Ghorbani). Reviewers, moreover, waxed lyrically about the menu’s pig-based dishes, the New York Times reviewer identifying this focus as catering to New York diners’ “fetish for pork fat” (Sifton). This representative review details not only “an entree of gently smoked pork belly that’s been roasted to tender goo, for instance, over a drift of buttery mashed potatoes, with cabbage and bacon on the side” but also a pig’s foot “in gravy made of reduced braising liquid, thick with pillowy shallots and green flecks of deconstructed brussels sprouts” (Sifton). Sifton concluded with the proclamation that this style of pork was “very good: meat that is fat; fat that is meat”. Concluding remarks Bloomfield has listed Michael Ruhlman’s Charcuterie as among her favourite food books. Publishers Weekly reviewer called Ruhlman “a food poet, and the pig is his muse” (Q&A). In August 2009, it was reported that Bloomfield had always wanted to write a cookbook (Marx) and, in July 2010, HarperCollins imprint Ecco publisher and foodbook editor Dan Halpern announced that he was planning a book with her, tentatively titled, A Girl and Her Pig (Andriani “Ecco Expands”). As a “cookbook with memoir running throughout” (Maurer), this will discuss the influence of the pig on her life as well as how to cook pork. This text will obviously also add to the data known about The Spotted Pig, but until then, this brief gastrobiography has attempted to outline some of the human, and in this case, animal, stories that lie behind all businesses. References Andrews, Colman. “Its Up To You, New York, New York.” Gourmet Apr. (2009): 18-22, 111. Andriani, Lynn. “Ecco Expands Cookbook Program: HC Imprint Signs Up Seven New Titles.” Publishers Weekly 12 Jul. (2010) 3 Sep. 2010 http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/book-news/cooking/article/43803-ecco-expands-cookbook-program.html Andriani, Lynn. “Gourmand Awards Receive Record Number of Cookbook Entries.” Publishers Weekly 27 Sep. 2010 http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/book-news/cooking/article/44573-gourmand-awards-receive-record-number-of-cookbook-entries.html Appadurai, Arjun. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspectives. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press, 2003. First pub. 1986. Baeder, John. Gas, Food, and Lodging. New York: Abbeville Press, 1982. Barlow, John. Everything But the Squeal: Eating the Whole Hog in Northern Spain. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008. Batali, Mario. “The Spotted Pig.” Mario Batali 2010. 3 Sep. 2010 http://www.mariobatali.com/restaurants_spottedpig.cfm Boje, David M. “The Storytelling Organization: A Study of Story Performance in an Office-Supply Firm.” Administrative Science Quarterly 36.1 (1991): 106-126. Brien, Donna Lee. “Writing to Understand Ourselves: An Organisational History of the Australian Association of Writing Programs 1996–2010.” TEXT: Journal of Writing and Writing Courses Apr. 2010 http://www.textjournal.com.au/april10/brien.htm Bruni, Frank. “Fat, Glorious Fat, Moves to the Center of the Plate.” New York Times 13 Jun. 2007. 3 Sep. 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/13/dining/13glut.html Bruni, Frank. “Stuffed Pork.” New York Times 25 Jan. 2006. 4 Sep. 2010 http://events.nytimes.com/2006/01/25/dining/reviews/25rest.html Bushnell, Candace. Lipstick Jungle. New York: Hyperion Books, 2008. Byrnes, Paul. Qantas by George!: The Remarkable Story of George Roberts. Sydney: Watermark, 2000. Chinn, Carl. The Cadbury Story: A Short History. Studley, Warwickshire: Brewin Books, 1998. Dunstan, David and Chaitman, Annette. “Food and Drink: The Appearance of a Publishing Subculture.” Ed. David Carter and Anne Galligan. Making Books: Contemporary Australian Publishing. St Lucia: U of Queensland P, 2007: 333-351. Ellis, W. Russell, Tonia Chao and Janet Parrish. “Levi’s Place: A Building Biography.” Places 2.1 (1985): 57-70. Estrine, Darryl. Harvest to Heat: Cooking with America’s Best Chefs, Farmers, and Artisans. Newton CT: The Taunton Press, 2010 Fabricant, Florence. “Food stuff: Off the Menu.” New York Times 26 Nov. 2003. 3 Sep. 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/26/dining/food-stuff-off-the-menu.html?ref=april_bloomfield Fabricant, Florence. “Food Stuff: Fit for an Emperor, Now Raised in America.” New York Times 23 Jun. 2004. 2 Sep. 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/23/dining/food-stuff-fit-for-an-emperor-now-raised-in-america.html Farley, David. “In N.Y., An Appetite for Gastropubs.” The Washington Post 24 May 2009. 1 Sep. 2010 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052201105.html Fearnley-Whittingstall, Hugh. The River Cottage Meat Book. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2004. Food & Wine Magazine. “Food & Wine Magazine Names 19th Annual Best New Chefs.” Food & Wine 4 Apr. 2007. 3 Sep. 2010 http://www.foodandwine.com/articles/2007-best-new-chefs Fossi, Gloria. Uffizi Gallery: Art, History, Collections. 4th ed. Florence Italy: Giunti Editore, 2001. Garden, Don. Builders to the Nation: The A.V. Jennings Story. Carlton: Melbourne U P, 1992. Ghorbani, Liza. “Boîte: In NoMad, a Bar With a Pub Vibe.” New York Times 26 Mar. 2010. 3 Sep. 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/fashion/28Boite.html Goodwillie, David. American Subversive. New York: Scribner, 2010. Guillette, Suzanne. Much to Your Chagrin: A Memoir of Embarrassment. New York, Atria Books, 2009. Henderson, Fergus. Nose to Tail Eating: A Kind of British Cooking. London: Pan Macmillan, 1999 Henderson, Fergus and Justin Piers Gellatly. Beyond Nose to Tail: A Kind of British Cooking: Part I1. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2007. Hughes, Kathryn. “Food Writing Moves from Kitchen to bookshelf.” The Guardian 19 Jun. 2010. 1 Sep. 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jun/19/anthony-bourdain-food-writing Jakle, John A. and Keith A. Sculle. Fast Food: Roadside Restaurants in the Automobile Age. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U P, 1999. Jones, Lois. EasyJet: The Story of Britain's Biggest Low-cost Airline. London: Aurum, 2005. Kaminsky, Peter. “Feeding Time at Le Zoo.” New York Magazine 12 Jun. 1995: 65. Kaminsky, Peter. Pig Perfect: Encounters with Some Remarkable Swine and Some Great Ways To Cook Them. New York: Hyperion 2005. Koda, Harold, Andrew Bolton and Rhonda K. Garelick. Chanel. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005. Kopytoff, Igor. “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process.” The Social Life of things: Commodities in Cultural Perspectives. Ed. Arjun Appadurai. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge U P, 2003. 64-94. (First pub. 1986). Kroc, Ray and Robert Anderson. Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald’s, Chicago: H. Regnery, 1977 Leavitt, Mel. The Court of Two Sisters Cookbook: With a History of the French Quarter and the Restaurant. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2005. Pub. 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003. Leventhal, Ben. “April Bloomfield & Co. Take U.K. Field Trip to Prep for Ace Debut.” Grub Street 14 Apr. 2009. 3 Sep. 2010 http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2009/04/april_bloomfield_co_take_uk_field_trip_to_prep_for_ace_debut.html Fast Food Nation. R. Linklater (Dir.). Fox Searchlight Pictures, 2006. Liu, Warren K. KFC in China: Secret Recipe for Success. Singapore & Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley (Asia), 2008. Locke, John. Lethal Experiment: A Donovan Creed Novel. Bloomington: iUniverse, 2009. Love, John F. McDonald’s: Behind the Arches. Toronto & New York: Bantam, 1986. Marx, Rebecca. “Beyond the Breslin: April Bloomfield is Thinking Tea, Bakeries, Cookbook.” 28 Aug. 2009. 3 Sep. 2010 http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/archives/2009/08/beyond_the_bres.php Maurer, Daniel. “Meatball Shop, April Bloomfield Plan Cookbooks.” Grub Street 12 Jul. 2010. 3 Sep. 2010 http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2010/07/meatball_shop_april_bloomfield.html McLagan, Jennifer. Fat: An Appreciation of a Misunderstood Ingredient, with Recipes. Berkeley: Ten Speed Press, 2008. Michelin. Michelin Green Guide New York City. Michelin Travel Publications, 2010. O’Donnell, Mietta. “Burying and Celebrating Ghosts.” Herald Sun 1 Dec. 1998. 3 Sep. 2010 http://www.miettas.com.au/restaurants/rest_96-00/buryingghosts.html Otis, Ginger Adams. New York Encounter. Melbourne: Lonely Planet, 2007. “Q and A: April Bloomfield.” New York Times 18 Apr. 2008. 3 Sep. 2010 http://dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/q-and-a-april-bloomfield Rodrigue, Melvin and Jyl Benson. Galatoire’s Cookbook: Recipes and Family History from the Time-Honored New Orleans Restaurant. New York: Clarkson Potter, 2005. Rose, Hilary. “Fergus Henderson in New York.” The Times (London) Online, 5 Dec. 2009. 23 Aug. 2010 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/recipes/article6937550.ece Rosenberg, Sarah & Tom McCarthy. “Platelist: The Breslin’s April Bloomfield.” ABC News/Nightline 4 Dec. 2009. 23 Aug. 2010 http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/april-bloomfield-spotted-pig-interview/story?id=9242079 Royer, Blake. “Table for Two: Fergus Henderson at The Spotted Pig.” The Paupered Chef 11 Oct. 2007. 23 Aug. 2010 http://thepauperedchef.com/2007/10/table-for-two-f.html Ruhlman, Michael and Brian Polcyn. Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing. New York: W. Norton, 2005. Sanders, Michael S. “An Old Breed of Hungarian Pig Is Back in Favor.” New York Times 26 Mar. 2009. 23 Aug. 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/dining/01pigs.html?ref=april_bloomfield Schlosser, Eric. “Fast Food Nation: The True History of the America’s Diet.” Rolling Stone Magazine 794 3 Sep. 1998: 58-72. Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Severson, Kim. “From the Pig Directly to the Fish.” New York Times 2 Sep. 2008. 23 Aug. 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/03/dining/03bloom.html Severson, Kim. “For the Big Game? Why, Pigskins.” New York Times 3 Feb. 2010. 23 Aug. 2010 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9502E2DB143DF930A35751C0A9669D8B63&ref=april_bloomfield Sifton, Sam. “The Breslin Bar and Dining Room.” New York Times 12 Jan. 2010. 3 Sep. 2010 http://events.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/dining/reviews/13rest.htm Southern, Terry & Richard Branson. Virgin: A History of Virgin Records. London: A. Publishing, 1996. Starchefs.com. 4th Annual StarChefs.com International Chefs Congress. 2009. 1 Sep. 2010 http://www.starchefs.com/cook/icc-2009 Stein, Joshua David. “Exit Interview: Ken Friedman on the Demise of the John Dory.” Grub Street 15 Sep. 2009. 1 Sep. 2010 http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2009/09/exit_interview_ken_friedman_on.html Steinhauer, Jennifer & Jo Craven McGinty. “Yesterday’s Special: Good, Cheap Dining.” New York Times 26 Jun. 2005. 1 Sep. 2010 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/nyregion/26restaurant.html Striffler, Steve. Chicken: The Dangerous Transformation of America’s Favorite Food. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005. The Spotted Pig (TSP) 2010 The Spotted Pig website http://www.thespottedpig.com Time Out New York. “Eat Out Awards 2009. Best New Hand at Seafood: April Bloomfield, the John Dory”. Time Out New York 706, 9-15 Apr. 2009. 10 Sep. 2010 http://newyork.timeout.com/articles/eat-out-awards/73170/eat-out-awards-2009-best-new-hand-at-seafood-a-april-bloomfield-the-john-dory Vallis, Alexandra. “Ken Friedman on the Virtues of No Reservations.” Grub Street 27 Aug. 2009. 10 Sep. 2010 http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2009/08/ken_friedman_on_the_virtues_of.html Watson, James L. Ed. Golden Arches East: McDonald’s in East Asia. Stanford: Stanford U P, 1997.Woody, Londa L. All in a Day's Work: Historic General Stores of Macon and Surrounding North Carolina Counties. Boone, North Carolina: Parkway Publishers, 2001. Young, Daniel. “Bon Appetit! It’s Feeding Time at Le Zoo.” New York Daily News 28 May 1995. 2 Sep. 2010 http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/lifestyle/1995/05/28/1995-05-28_bon_appetit__it_s_feeding_ti.html

Abstract:

In order to identify interpretative patterns in the media coverage of technology, researches apply the variable risk and benefit framing. Risk and Benefit Framing is being measured differently; some studies use one variable, other studies use several variables to measure it. Either way, the variable is used to investigate to what extent either risks or benefits dominate the discourse and thus whether a positive or negative impression of a technology is given. In addition, it is analyzed how benefits and risks are portrayed, for example with regards to specificity and magnitude (Strekalova 2015) or how the ratio of risks and benefits changes over time or differs among different media (Donk, Metag, Kohring, & Marcinkowski 2012). Field of application/theoretical foundation: The variable risk and benefit framing is often based on Entman’s framing approach, which is frequently applied in quantitative content analyses on various topics. In media content analyses, the framing concept, however, is understood and applied differently, which is the case also for the analysis of technology coverage. In addition to risk and benefit frames, thematic or issue frames are applied including risks and/or benefits as possible frames among others (e.g. Weaver et al. 2009). Yet, some analyses are based on the assumption that a frame is a specific, unique pattern of a text composed of several elements (Kohring & Matthes 2002; Matthes & Kohring 2008). These elements are (a) problem definition, (b) causal attribution of responsibility, (c) moral judgment of the protagonists and their actions, and (d) treatment recommendations (Entman 1993, p. 52). Following this inductive approach, these elements are coded as single variables. After coding, frames are identified statistically by testing for relational patterns between the frame elements (Kohring & Matthes 2002; Matthes & Kohring 2008). References/combination with other methods of data collection: In media effects research, it can be of interest whether the frames analyzed in the media coverage are recognized by recipients and how they affect their attitudes towards a topic, which can be tested by means of surveys or experiments among recipients. Example studies: Strekalova (2015); Donk et al. (2012) Information on Strekalova, 2015 Authors: Yulia A. Strekalova Research question/research interest: “How do elite and regional U.S. newspapers cover nanomedicine? How was the news about nanomedicine framed by the U.S. newspapers?” Object of analysis: U.S. newspapers (3 national quality newspapers: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal; 3 regional newspapers: Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, The Houston Chronicle) Time frame of analysis: 1990-September 30, 2013 Information on Donk et al., 2012 Authors: André Donk, Julia Metag, Matthias Kohring, Frank Marcinkowski Research question/research interest: The framing of nanotechnology in German print media Object of analysis: 9 German daily newspapers and weekly magazines (Financial Times Deutschland, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurter Rundschau, Süddeutsche Zeitung, taz, Die Welt, Focus, Der Spiegel, die Zeit) Time frame of analysis: 2000 bis 2008 Codebook: placed at disposal Information about variable Authors Variable name/definition Level of analysis Values Scale level Reliability Strekalova (2015) Risk and Benefit Frames (in addition: magnitude and specificity of risks and benefits) article benefits only risks only benefits and risks no benefits or risks nominal intercoder reliability: .86 (range: .72-.95) Donk, Metag, Kohring & Marcinkowski (2012) Nanotechnology Frames: variables with frequency ≥5% for 7 categories representing 4 frame elements Categories for frame element “problem definition”: Main topic Evaluation of benefits Evaluation of risks Variables “main topic”: Scientific research medical implementation implementation in information and communication technology (ICT) economy overview of nanotechnology Variables “Evaluation of benefits”: medical benefits scientific benefits economic benefits Variables “Evaluation of risks”: Medical risks Categories for frame element “Causal attribution of responsibility”: Protagonist responsible for benefits Protagonist responsible for risks Variables “Protagonist responsible for benefits”: Scientist economic protagonist nanotechnology Variables “Protagonist responsible for risks”: Nanotechnology Category for frame element “Moral judgement”: Evaluation of nanotechnology Variables: Positive evaluation/acceptance negative evaluation/acceptance Category for frame element “Treatment recommendation”: Call for regulation/support Prospects Variables: Risk regulation Prospects Positive prospects article nominal R = .87 Pi = .79 References Strekalova, Yulia A. (2015): Informing Dissemination Research. In: Science Communication 37(2), 151–172. Donk, André; Metag, Julia; Kohring, Matthias; Marcinkowski, Frank (2012): Framing Emerging Technologies. In: Science Communication 34(1), 5–29. Further References Entman, R. M. (1993). Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication, 43, 51­58. Kohring, M., & Matthes, J. (2002). The face(t)s of biotech in the nineties: How the German press framed modern biotechnology. Public Understanding of Science, 11, 143­154. Matthes, J., &, Kohring, M. (2008). The content analysis of media frames: Toward improving reliability and validity. Journal of Communication, 58, 258­279.

Abstract:

“Journalists have to begin a new type of journalism, sometimes being the guide on the side of the civic conversation as well as the filter and gatekeeper.” (Kolodzy 218) “In many respects, citizen journalism is simply public journalism removed from the journalism profession.” (Barlow 181) 1. Citizen Journalism — The Latest Innovation? New Media theorists such as Dan Gillmor, Henry Jenkins, Jay Rosen and Jeff Howe have recently touted Citizen Journalism (CJ) as the latest innovation in 21st century journalism. “Participatory journalism” and “user-driven journalism” are other terms to describe CJ, which its proponents argue is a disruptive innovation (Christensen) to the agenda-setting media institutions, news values and “objective” reportage. In this essay I offer a “contrarian” view, informed by two perspectives: (1) a three-stage model of theory-building (Carlile & Christensen) to evaluate the claims made about CJ; and (2) self-reflexive research insights (Etherington) from editing the US-based news site Disinformation between November 1999 and February 2008. New media theories can potentially create “cognitive dissonance” (Festinger) when their explanations of CJ practices are compared with what actually happens (Feyerabend). First I summarise Carlile & Christensen’s model and the dangers of “bad theory” (Ghoshal). Next I consider several problems in new media theories about CJ: the notion of ‘citizen’, new media populism, parallels in event-driven and civic journalism, and mergers and acquisitions. Two ‘self-reflexive’ issues are considered: ‘pro-ams’ or ‘professional amateurs’ as a challenge to professional journalists, and CJ’s deployment in new media operations and production environments. Finally, some exploratory questions are offered for future researchers. 2. An Evaluative Framework for New Media Theories on Citizen Journalism Paul Carlile and Clayton M. Christensen’s model offers one framework with which to evaluate new media theories on CJ. This framework is used below to highlight select issues and gaps in CJ’s current frameworks and theories. Carlile & Christensen suggest that robust theory-building emerges via three stages: Descriptive, Categorisation and Normative (Carlile & Christensen). There are three sub-stages in Descriptive theory-building; namely, the observation of phenomena, inductive classification into schemas and taxonomies, and correlative relationships to develop models (Carlile & Christensen 2-5). Once causation is established, Normative theory evolves through deductive logic which is subject to Kuhnian paradigm shifts and Popperian falsifiability (Carlile & Christensen 6). Its proponents situate CJ as a Categorisation or new journalism agenda that poses a Normative challenged and Kuhnian paradigm shift to traditional journalism. Existing CJ theories jump from the Descriptive phase of observations like “smart mobs” in Japanese youth subcultures (Rheingold) to make broad claims for Categorisation such as that IndyMedia, blogs and wiki publishing systems as new media alternatives to traditional media. CJ theories then underpin normative beliefs, values and worldviews. Correlative relationships are also used to differentiate CJ from the demand side of microeconomic analysis, from the top-down editorial models of traditional media outlets, and to adopt a vanguard stance. To support this, CJ proponents cite research on emergent collective behaviour such as the “wisdom of crowds” hypothesis (Surowiecki) or peer-to-peer network “swarms” (Pesce) to provide scientific justification for their Normative theories. However, further evaluative research is needed for three reasons: the emergent collective behaviour hypothesis may not actually inform CJ practices, existing theories may have “correlation not cause” errors, and the link may be due to citation network effects between CJ theorists. Collectively, this research base also frames CJ as an “ought to” Categorisation and then proceeds to Normative theory-building (Carlile & Christensen 7). However, I argue below that this Categorisation may be premature: its observations and correlative relationships might reinforce a ‘weak’ Normative theory with limited generalisation. CJ proponents seem to imply that it can be applied anywhere and under any condition—a “statement of causality” that almost makes it a fad (Carlile & Christensen 8). CJ that relies on Classification and Normative claims will be problematic without a strong grounding in Descriptive observation. To understand what’s potentially at stake for CJ’s future consider the consider the parallel debate about curricula renewal for the Masters of Business Administration in the wake of high-profile corporate collapses such as Enron, Worldcom, HIH and OneTel. The MBA evolved as a sociological and institutional construct to justify management as a profession that is codified, differentiated and has entry barriers (Khurana). This process might partly explain the pushback that some media professionals have to CJ as one alternative. MBA programs faced criticism if they had student cohorts with little business know-how or experiential learning (Mintzberg). Enron’s collapse illustrated the ethical dilemmas and unintended consequences that occurred when “bad theories” were implemented (Ghoshal). Professional journalists are aware of this: MBA-educated managers challenged the “craft” tradition in the early 1980s (Underwood). This meant that journalism’s ‘self-image’ (Morgan; Smith) is intertwined with managerial anxieties about media conglomerates in highly competitive markets. Ironically, as noted below, Citizen Journalists who adopt a vanguard position vis-a-vis media professionals step into a more complex game with other players. However, current theories have a naïve idealism about CJ’s promise of normative social change in the face of Machiavellian agency in business, the media and politics. 3. Citizen Who? Who is the “citizen” in CJ? What is their self-awareness as a political agent? CJ proponents who use the ‘self-image’ of ‘citizen’ draw on observations from the participatory vision of open source software, peer-to-peer networks, and case studies such as Howard Dean’s 2004 bid for the Democrat Party nominee in the US Presidential election campaign (Trippi). Recent theorists note Alexander Hamilton’s tradition of civic activism (Barlow 178) which links contemporary bloggers with the Federalist Papers and early newspaper pamphlets. One unsurfaced assumption in these observations and correlations is that most bloggers will adopt a coherent political philosophy as informed citizens: a variation on Lockean utilitarianism, Rawlsian liberalism or Nader consumer activism. To date there is little discussion about how political philosophy could deepen CJ’s ‘self-image’: how to critically evaluate sources, audit and investigation processes, or strategies to deal with elites, deterrence and power. For example, although bloggers kept Valerie Plame’s ‘outing’ as a covert intelligence operative highly visible in the issues-attention cycle, it was agenda-setting media like The New York Times who the Bush Administration targeted to silence (Pearlstine). To be viable, CJ needs to evolve beyond a new media populism, perhaps into a constructivist model of agency, norms and social change (Finnemore). 4. Citizen Journalism as New Media Populism Several “precursor trends” foreshadowed CJ notably the mid-1990s interest in “cool-hunting” by new media analysts and subculture marketeers (Gibson; Gladwell). Whilst this audience focus waned with the 1995-2000 dotcom bubble it resurfaced in CJ and publisher Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 vision. Thus, CJ might be viewed as new media populism that has flourished with the Web 2.0 boom. Yet if the boom becomes a macroeconomic bubble (Gross; Spar) then CJ could be written off as a “silver bullet” that ultimately failed to deliver on its promises (Brooks, Jr.). The reputations of uncritical proponents who adopted a “true believer” stance would also be damaged (Hoffer). This risk is evident if CJ is compared with a parallel trend that shares its audience focus and populist view: day traders and technical analysts who speculate on financial markets. This parallel trend provides an alternative discipline in which the populism surfaced in an earlier form (Carlile & Christensen 12). Fidelity’s Peter Lynch argues that stock pickers can use their Main Street knowledge to beat Wall Street by exploiting information asymmetries (Lynch & Rothchild). Yet Lynch’s examples came from the mid-1970s to early 1980s when indexed mutual fund strategies worked, before deregulation and macroeconomic volatility. A change in the Web 2.0 boom might similarly trigger a reconsideration of Citizen Journalism. Hedge fund maven Victor Niederhoffer contends that investors who rely on technical analysis are practicing a Comtean religion (Niederhoffer & Kenner 72-74) instead of Efficient Market Hypothesis traders who use statistical arbitrage to deal with ‘random walks’ or Behavioural Finance experts who build on Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky). Niederhoffer’s deeper point is that technical analysts’ belief that the “trend is your friend” is no match for the other schools, despite a mini-publishing industry and computer trading systems. There are also ontological and epistemological differences between the schools. Similarly, CJ proponents who adopt a ‘Professional Amateur’ or ‘Pro-Am’ stance (Leadbeater & Miller) may face a similar gulf when making comparisons with professional journalists and the production environments in media organisations. CJ also thrives as new media populism because of institutional vested interests. When media conglomerates cut back on cadetships and internships CJ might fill the market demand as one alternative. New media programs at New York University and others can use CJ to differentiate themselves from “hyperlocal” competitors (Christensen; Slywotzky; Christensen, Curtis & Horn). This transforms CJ from new media populism to new media institution. 5. Parallels: Event-driven & Civic Journalism For new media programs, CJ builds on two earlier traditions: the Event-driven journalism of crises like the 1991 Gulf War (Wark) and the Civic Journalism school that emerged in the 1960s social upheavals. Civic Journalism’s awareness of minorities and social issues provides the character ethic and political philosophy for many Citizen Journalists. Jay Rosen and others suggest that CJ is the next-generation heir to Civic Journalism, tracing a thread from the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention to IndyMedia’s coverage of the 1999 “Battle in Seattle” (Rosen). Rosen’s observation could yield an interesting historiography or genealogy. Events such as the Southeast Asian tsunami on 26 December 2004 or Al Qaeda’s London bombings on 7 July 2005 are cited as examples of CJ as event-driven journalism and “pro-am collaboration” (Kolodzy 229-230). Having covered these events and Al Qaeda’s attacks on 11th September 2001, I have a slightly different view: this was more a variation on “first responder” status and handicam video footage that journalists have sourced for the past three decades when covering major disasters. This different view means that the “salience of categories” used to justify CJ and “pro-am collaboration” these events does not completely hold. Furthermore, when Citizen Journalism proponents tout Flickr and Wikipedia as models of real-time media they are building on a broader phenomenon that includes CNN’s Gulf War coverage and Bloomberg’s dominance of financial news (Loomis). 6. The Mergers & Acquisitions Scenario CJ proponents often express anxieties about the resilience of their outlets in the face of predatory venture capital firms who initiate Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) activities. Ironically, these venture capital firms have core competencies and expertise in the event-driven infrastructure and real-time media that CJ aspires to. Sequoia Capital and other venture capital firms have evaluative frameworks that likely surpass Carlile & Christensen in sophistication, and they exploit parallels, information asymmetries and market populism. Furthermore, although venture capital firms such as Union Street Ventures have funded Web 2.0 firms, they are absent from the explanations of some theorists, whose examples of Citizen Journalism and Web 2.0 success may be the result of survivorship bias. Thus, the venture capital market remains an untapped data source for researchers who want to evaluate the impact of CJ outlets and institutions. The M&A scenario further problematises CJ in several ways. First, CJ is framed as “oppositional” to traditional media, yet this may be used as a stratagem in a game theory framework with multiple stakeholders. Drexel Burnham Lambert’s financier Michael Milken used market populism to sell ‘high-yield’ or ‘junk’ bonds to investors whilst disrupting the Wall Street establishment in the late 1980s (Curtis) and CJ could fulfil a similar tactical purpose. Second, the M&A goal of some Web 2.0 firms could undermine the participatory goals of a site’s community if post-merger integration fails. Jason Calacanis’s sale of Weblogs, Inc to America Online in 2005 and MSNBC’s acquisition of Newsvine on 5 October 2007 (Newsvine) might be success stories. However, this raises issues of digital “property rights” if you contribute to a community that is then sold in an M&A transaction—an outcome closer to business process outsourcing. Third, media “buzz” can create an unrealistic vision when a CJ site fails to grow beyond its start-up phase. Backfence.com’s demise as a “hyperlocal” initiative (Caverly) is one cautionary event that recalls the 2000 dotcom crash. The M&A scenarios outlined above are market dystopias for CJ purists. The major lesson for CJ proponents is to include other market players in hypotheses about causation and correlation factors. 7. ‘Pro-Ams’ & Professional Journalism’s Crisis CJ emerged during a period when Professional Journalism faced a major crisis of ‘self-image’. The Demos report The Pro-Am Revolution (Leadbeater & Miller) popularised the notion of ‘professional amateurs’ which some CJ theorists adopt to strengthen their categorisation. In turn, this triggers a response from cultural theorists who fear bloggers are new media’s barbarians (Keen). I concede Leadbeater and Miller have identified an important category. However, how some CJ theorists then generalise from ‘Pro-Ams’ illustrates the danger of ‘weak’ theory referred to above. Leadbeater and Miller’s categorisation does not really include a counter-view on the strengths of professionals, as illustrated in humanistic consulting (Block), professional service firms (Maister; Maister, Green & Galford), and software development (McConnell). The signs of professionalism these authors mention include a commitment to learning and communal verification, mastery of a discipline and domain application, awareness of methodology creation, participation in mentoring, and cultivation of ethical awareness. Two key differences are discernment and quality of attention, as illustrated in how the legendary Hollywood film editor Walter Murch used Apple’s Final Cut Pro software to edit the 2003 film Cold Mountain (Koppelman). ‘Pro-Ams’ might not aspire to these criteria but Citizen Journalists shouldn’t throw out these standards, either. Doing so would be making the same mistake of overconfidence that technical analysts make against statistical arbitrageurs. Key processes—fact-checking, sub-editing and editorial decision-making—are invisible to the end-user, even if traceable in a blog or wiki publishing system, because of the judgments involved. One post-mortem insight from Assignment Zero was that these processes were vital to create the climate of authenticity and trust to sustain a Citizen Journalist community (Howe). CJ’s trouble with “objectivity” might also overlook some complexities, including the similarity of many bloggers to “noise traders” in financial markets and to op-ed columnists. Methodologies and reportage practices have evolved to deal with the objections that CJ proponents raise, from New Journalism’s radical subjectivity and creative non-fiction techniques (Wolfe & Johnson) to Precision Journalism that used descriptive statistics (Meyer). Finally, journalism frameworks could be updated with current research on how phenomenological awareness shapes our judgments and perceptions (Thompson). 8. Strategic Execution For me, one of CJ’s major weaknesses as a new media theory is its lack of “rich description” (Geertz) about the strategic execution of projects. As Disinfo.com site editor I encountered situations ranging from ‘denial of service’ attacks and spam to site migration, publishing systems that go offline, and ensuring an editorial consistency. Yet the messiness of these processes is missing from CJ theories and accounts. Theories that included this detail as “second-order interactions” (Carlile & Christensen 13) would offer a richer view of CJ. Many CJ and Web 2.0 projects fall into the categories of mini-projects, demonstration prototypes and start-ups, even when using a programming language such as Ajax or Ruby on Rails. Whilst the “bootstrap” process is a benefit, more longitudinal analysis and testing needs to occur, to ensure these projects are scalable and sustainable. For example, South Korea’s OhmyNews is cited as an exemplar that started with “727 citizen reporters and 4 editors” and now has “38,000 citizen reporters” and “a dozen editors” (Kolodzy 231). How does OhmyNews’s mix of hard and soft news change over time? Or, how does OhmyNews deal with a complex issue that might require major resources, such as security negotiations between North and South Korea? Such examples could do with further research. We need to go beyond “the vision thing” and look at the messiness of execution for deeper observations and counterintuitive correlations, to build new descriptive theories. 9. Future Research This essay argues that CJ needs re-evaluation. Its immediate legacy might be to splinter ‘journalism’ into micro-trends: Washington University’s Steve Boriss proclaims “citizen journalism is dead. Expert journalism is the future.” (Boriss; Mensching). The half-lives of such micro-trends demand new categorisations, which in turn prematurely feeds the theory-building cycle. Instead, future researchers could reinvigorate 21st century journalism if they ask deeper questions and return to the observation stage of building descriptive theories. In closing, below are some possible questions that future researchers might explore: Where are the “rich descriptions” of journalistic experience—“citizen”, “convergent”, “digital”, “Pro-Am” or otherwise in new media? How could practice-based approaches inform this research instead of relying on espoused theories-in-use? What new methodologies could be developed for CJ implementation? What role can the “heroic” individual reporter or editor have in “the swarm”? Do the claims about OhmyNews and other sites stand up to longitudinal observation? Are the theories used to justify Citizen Journalism’s normative stance (Rheingold; Surowiecki; Pesce) truly robust generalisations for strategic execution or do they reflect the biases of their creators? How could developers tap the conceptual dimensions of information technology innovation (Shasha) to create the next Facebook, MySpace or Wikipedia? References Argyris, Chris, and Donald Schon. Theory in Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1976. Barlow, Aaron. The Rise of the Blogosphere. Westport, CN: Praeger Publishers, 2007. Block, Peter. Flawless Consulting. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2000. Boriss, Steve. “Citizen Journalism Is Dead. Expert Journalism Is the Future.” The Future of News. 28 Nov. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://thefutureofnews.com/2007/11/28/citizen-journalism-is-dead- expert-journalism-is-the-future/>. Brooks, Jr., Frederick P. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering. Rev. ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995. Campbell, Vincent. Information Age Journalism: Journalism in an International Context. New York: Arnold, 2004. Carlile, Paul R., and Clayton M. Christensen. “The Cycles of Building Theory in Management Research.” Innosight working paper draft 6. 6 Jan. 2005. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.innosight.com/documents/Theory%20Building.pdf>. Caverly, Doug. “Hyperlocal News Site Takes A Hit.” WebProNews.com 6 July 2007. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/07/06/hyperlocal-news- sites-take-a-hit>. Chenoweth, Neil. Virtual Murdoch: Reality Wars on the Information Superhighway. Sydney: Random House Australia, 2001. Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997. Christensen, Clayton M., Curtis Johnson, and Michael Horn. Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Curtis, Adam. The Mayfair Set. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1999. Etherington, Kim. Becoming a Reflexive Researcher: Using Ourselves in Research. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2004. Festinger, Leon. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962. Feyerabend, Paul. Against Method. 3rd ed. London: Verso, 1993. Finnemore, Martha. National Interests in International Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Ghoshal, Sumantra. “Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices.” Academy of Management Learning & Education 4.1 (2005): 75-91. Gibson, William. Pattern Recognition. London: Viking, 2003. Gladwell, Malcolm. “The Cool-Hunt.” The New Yorker Magazine 17 March 1997. 20 Feb. 2008 http://www.gladwell.com/1997/1997_03_17_a_cool.htm>. Gross, Daniel. Pop! Why Bubbles Are Great for the Economy. New York: Collins, 2007. Hoffer, Eric. The True Believer. New York: Harper, 1951. Howe, Jeff. “Did Assignment Zero Fail? A Look Back, and Lessons Learned.” Wired News 16 July 2007. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/07/assignment_ zero_final?currentPage=all>. Kahneman, Daniel, and Amos Tversky. Choices, Values and Frames. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur. New York: Doubleday Currency, 2007. Khurana, Rakesh. From Higher Aims to Hired Hands. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2007. Kolodzy, Janet. Convergence Journalism: Writing and Reporting across the News Media. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Koppelman, Charles. Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple’s Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema. Upper Saddle River, NJ: New Rider, 2004. Leadbeater, Charles, and Paul Miller. “The Pro-Am Revolution”. London: Demos, 24 Nov. 2004. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/proameconomy>. Loomis, Carol J. “Bloomberg’s Money Machine.” Fortune 5 April 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/04/16/ 8404302/index.htm>. Lynch, Peter, and John Rothchild. Beating the Street. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Maister, David. True Professionalism. New York: The Free Press, 1997. Maister, David, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford. The Trusted Advisor. New York: The Free Press, 2004. Mensching, Leah McBride. “Citizen Journalism on Its Way Out?” SFN Blog, 30 Nov. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://www.sfnblog.com/index.php/2007/11/30/940-citizen-journalism- on-its-way-out>. Meyer, Philip. Precision Journalism. 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. McConnell, Steve. Professional Software Development. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2004. Mintzberg, Henry. Managers Not MBAs. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2004. Morgan, Gareth. Images of Organisation. Rev. ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006. Newsvine. “Msnbc.com Acquires Newsvine.” 7 Oct. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://blog.newsvine.com/_news/2007/10/07/1008889-msnbccom- acquires-newsvine>. Niederhoffer, Victor, and Laurel Kenner. Practical Speculation. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Pearlstine, Norman. Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007. Pesce, Mark D. “Mob Rules (The Law of Fives).” The Human Network 28 Sep. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/?p=39>. Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge MA: Basic Books, 2002. Rosen, Jay. What Are Journalists For? Princeton NJ: Yale UP, 2001. Shasha, Dennis Elliott. Out of Their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists. New York: Copernicus, 1995. Slywotzky, Adrian. Value Migration: How to Think Several Moves Ahead of the Competition. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996. Smith, Steve. “The Self-Image of a Discipline: The Genealogy of International Relations Theory.” Eds. Steve Smith and Ken Booth. International Relations Theory Today. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1995. 1-37. Spar, Debora L. Ruling the Waves: Cycles of Discovery, Chaos and Wealth from the Compass to the Internet. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Surowiecki, James. The Wisdom of Crowds. New York: Doubleday, 2004. Thompson, Evan. Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2007. Trippi, Joe. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. New York: ReganBooks, 2004. Underwood, Doug. When MBA’s Rule the Newsroom. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Wark, McKenzie. Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events. Bloomington IN: Indiana UP, 1994. Wolfe, Tom, and E.W. Johnson. The New Journalism. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Burns, Alex. "Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/10-burns.php>. APA Style Burns, A. (Apr. 2008) "Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/10-burns.php>.

Abstract:

“Journalists have to begin a new type of journalism, sometimes being the guide on the side of the civic conversation as well as the filter and gatekeeper.” (Kolodzy 218) “In many respects, citizen journalism is simply public journalism removed from the journalism profession.” (Barlow 181) 1. Citizen Journalism — The Latest Innovation? New Media theorists such as Dan Gillmor, Henry Jenkins, Jay Rosen and Jeff Howe have recently touted Citizen Journalism (CJ) as the latest innovation in 21st century journalism. “Participatory journalism” and “user-driven journalism” are other terms to describe CJ, which its proponents argue is a disruptive innovation (Christensen) to the agenda-setting media institutions, news values and “objective” reportage. In this essay I offer a “contrarian” view, informed by two perspectives: (1) a three-stage model of theory-building (Carlile & Christensen) to evaluate the claims made about CJ; and (2) self-reflexive research insights (Etherington) from editing the US-based news site Disinformation between November 1999 and February 2008. New media theories can potentially create “cognitive dissonance” (Festinger) when their explanations of CJ practices are compared with what actually happens (Feyerabend). First I summarise Carlile & Christensen’s model and the dangers of “bad theory” (Ghoshal). Next I consider several problems in new media theories about CJ: the notion of ‘citizen’, new media populism, parallels in event-driven and civic journalism, and mergers and acquisitions. Two ‘self-reflexive’ issues are considered: ‘pro-ams’ or ‘professional amateurs’ as a challenge to professional journalists, and CJ’s deployment in new media operations and production environments. Finally, some exploratory questions are offered for future researchers. 2. An Evaluative Framework for New Media Theories on Citizen Journalism Paul Carlile and Clayton M. Christensen’s model offers one framework with which to evaluate new media theories on CJ. This framework is used below to highlight select issues and gaps in CJ’s current frameworks and theories. Carlile & Christensen suggest that robust theory-building emerges via three stages: Descriptive, Categorisation and Normative (Carlile & Christensen). There are three sub-stages in Descriptive theory-building; namely, the observation of phenomena, inductive classification into schemas and taxonomies, and correlative relationships to develop models (Carlile & Christensen 2-5). Once causation is established, Normative theory evolves through deductive logic which is subject to Kuhnian paradigm shifts and Popperian falsifiability (Carlile & Christensen 6). Its proponents situate CJ as a Categorisation or new journalism agenda that poses a Normative challenged and Kuhnian paradigm shift to traditional journalism. Existing CJ theories jump from the Descriptive phase of observations like “smart mobs” in Japanese youth subcultures (Rheingold) to make broad claims for Categorisation such as that IndyMedia, blogs and wiki publishing systems as new media alternatives to traditional media. CJ theories then underpin normative beliefs, values and worldviews. Correlative relationships are also used to differentiate CJ from the demand side of microeconomic analysis, from the top-down editorial models of traditional media outlets, and to adopt a vanguard stance. To support this, CJ proponents cite research on emergent collective behaviour such as the “wisdom of crowds” hypothesis (Surowiecki) or peer-to-peer network “swarms” (Pesce) to provide scientific justification for their Normative theories. However, further evaluative research is needed for three reasons: the emergent collective behaviour hypothesis may not actually inform CJ practices, existing theories may have “correlation not cause” errors, and the link may be due to citation network effects between CJ theorists. Collectively, this research base also frames CJ as an “ought to” Categorisation and then proceeds to Normative theory-building (Carlile & Christensen 7). However, I argue below that this Categorisation may be premature: its observations and correlative relationships might reinforce a ‘weak’ Normative theory with limited generalisation. CJ proponents seem to imply that it can be applied anywhere and under any condition—a “statement of causality” that almost makes it a fad (Carlile & Christensen 8). CJ that relies on Classification and Normative claims will be problematic without a strong grounding in Descriptive observation. To understand what’s potentially at stake for CJ’s future consider the consider the parallel debate about curricula renewal for the Masters of Business Administration in the wake of high-profile corporate collapses such as Enron, Worldcom, HIH and OneTel. The MBA evolved as a sociological and institutional construct to justify management as a profession that is codified, differentiated and has entry barriers (Khurana). This process might partly explain the pushback that some media professionals have to CJ as one alternative. MBA programs faced criticism if they had student cohorts with little business know-how or experiential learning (Mintzberg). Enron’s collapse illustrated the ethical dilemmas and unintended consequences that occurred when “bad theories” were implemented (Ghoshal). Professional journalists are aware of this: MBA-educated managers challenged the “craft” tradition in the early 1980s (Underwood). This meant that journalism’s ‘self-image’ (Morgan; Smith) is intertwined with managerial anxieties about media conglomerates in highly competitive markets. Ironically, as noted below, Citizen Journalists who adopt a vanguard position vis-a-vis media professionals step into a more complex game with other players. However, current theories have a naïve idealism about CJ’s promise of normative social change in the face of Machiavellian agency in business, the media and politics. 3. Citizen Who? Who is the “citizen” in CJ? What is their self-awareness as a political agent? CJ proponents who use the ‘self-image’ of ‘citizen’ draw on observations from the participatory vision of open source software, peer-to-peer networks, and case studies such as Howard Dean’s 2004 bid for the Democrat Party nominee in the US Presidential election campaign (Trippi). Recent theorists note Alexander Hamilton’s tradition of civic activism (Barlow 178) which links contemporary bloggers with the Federalist Papers and early newspaper pamphlets. One unsurfaced assumption in these observations and correlations is that most bloggers will adopt a coherent political philosophy as informed citizens: a variation on Lockean utilitarianism, Rawlsian liberalism or Nader consumer activism. To date there is little discussion about how political philosophy could deepen CJ’s ‘self-image’: how to critically evaluate sources, audit and investigation processes, or strategies to deal with elites, deterrence and power. For example, although bloggers kept Valerie Plame’s ‘outing’ as a covert intelligence operative highly visible in the issues-attention cycle, it was agenda-setting media like The New York Times who the Bush Administration targeted to silence (Pearlstine). To be viable, CJ needs to evolve beyond a new media populism, perhaps into a constructivist model of agency, norms and social change (Finnemore). 4. Citizen Journalism as New Media Populism Several “precursor trends” foreshadowed CJ notably the mid-1990s interest in “cool-hunting” by new media analysts and subculture marketeers (Gibson; Gladwell). Whilst this audience focus waned with the 1995-2000 dotcom bubble it resurfaced in CJ and publisher Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 vision. Thus, CJ might be viewed as new media populism that has flourished with the Web 2.0 boom. Yet if the boom becomes a macroeconomic bubble (Gross; Spar) then CJ could be written off as a “silver bullet” that ultimately failed to deliver on its promises (Brooks, Jr.). The reputations of uncritical proponents who adopted a “true believer” stance would also be damaged (Hoffer). This risk is evident if CJ is compared with a parallel trend that shares its audience focus and populist view: day traders and technical analysts who speculate on financial markets. This parallel trend provides an alternative discipline in which the populism surfaced in an earlier form (Carlile & Christensen 12). Fidelity’s Peter Lynch argues that stock pickers can use their Main Street knowledge to beat Wall Street by exploiting information asymmetries (Lynch & Rothchild). Yet Lynch’s examples came from the mid-1970s to early 1980s when indexed mutual fund strategies worked, before deregulation and macroeconomic volatility. A change in the Web 2.0 boom might similarly trigger a reconsideration of Citizen Journalism. Hedge fund maven Victor Niederhoffer contends that investors who rely on technical analysis are practicing a Comtean religion (Niederhoffer & Kenner 72-74) instead of Efficient Market Hypothesis traders who use statistical arbitrage to deal with ‘random walks’ or Behavioural Finance experts who build on Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky). Niederhoffer’s deeper point is that technical analysts’ belief that the “trend is your friend” is no match for the other schools, despite a mini-publishing industry and computer trading systems. There are also ontological and epistemological differences between the schools. Similarly, CJ proponents who adopt a ‘Professional Amateur’ or ‘Pro-Am’ stance (Leadbeater & Miller) may face a similar gulf when making comparisons with professional journalists and the production environments in media organisations. CJ also thrives as new media populism because of institutional vested interests. When media conglomerates cut back on cadetships and internships CJ might fill the market demand as one alternative. New media programs at New York University and others can use CJ to differentiate themselves from “hyperlocal” competitors (Christensen; Slywotzky; Christensen, Curtis & Horn). This transforms CJ from new media populism to new media institution. 5. Parallels: Event-driven & Civic Journalism For new media programs, CJ builds on two earlier traditions: the Event-driven journalism of crises like the 1991 Gulf War (Wark) and the Civic Journalism school that emerged in the 1960s social upheavals. Civic Journalism’s awareness of minorities and social issues provides the character ethic and political philosophy for many Citizen Journalists. Jay Rosen and others suggest that CJ is the next-generation heir to Civic Journalism, tracing a thread from the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention to IndyMedia’s coverage of the 1999 “Battle in Seattle” (Rosen). Rosen’s observation could yield an interesting historiography or genealogy. Events such as the Southeast Asian tsunami on 26 December 2004 or Al Qaeda’s London bombings on 7 July 2005 are cited as examples of CJ as event-driven journalism and “pro-am collaboration” (Kolodzy 229-230). Having covered these events and Al Qaeda’s attacks on 11th September 2001, I have a slightly different view: this was more a variation on “first responder” status and handicam video footage that journalists have sourced for the past three decades when covering major disasters. This different view means that the “salience of categories” used to justify CJ and “pro-am collaboration” these events does not completely hold. Furthermore, when Citizen Journalism proponents tout Flickr and Wikipedia as models of real-time media they are building on a broader phenomenon that includes CNN’s Gulf War coverage and Bloomberg’s dominance of financial news (Loomis). 6. The Mergers & Acquisitions Scenario CJ proponents often express anxieties about the resilience of their outlets in the face of predatory venture capital firms who initiate Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) activities. Ironically, these venture capital firms have core competencies and expertise in the event-driven infrastructure and real-time media that CJ aspires to. Sequoia Capital and other venture capital firms have evaluative frameworks that likely surpass Carlile & Christensen in sophistication, and they exploit parallels, information asymmetries and market populism. Furthermore, although venture capital firms such as Union Street Ventures have funded Web 2.0 firms, they are absent from the explanations of some theorists, whose examples of Citizen Journalism and Web 2.0 success may be the result of survivorship bias. Thus, the venture capital market remains an untapped data source for researchers who want to evaluate the impact of CJ outlets and institutions. The M&A scenario further problematises CJ in several ways. First, CJ is framed as “oppositional” to traditional media, yet this may be used as a stratagem in a game theory framework with multiple stakeholders. Drexel Burnham Lambert’s financier Michael Milken used market populism to sell ‘high-yield’ or ‘junk’ bonds to investors whilst disrupting the Wall Street establishment in the late 1980s (Curtis) and CJ could fulfil a similar tactical purpose. Second, the M&A goal of some Web 2.0 firms could undermine the participatory goals of a site’s community if post-merger integration fails. Jason Calacanis’s sale of Weblogs, Inc to America Online in 2005 and MSNBC’s acquisition of Newsvine on 5 October 2007 (Newsvine) might be success stories. However, this raises issues of digital “property rights” if you contribute to a community that is then sold in an M&A transaction—an outcome closer to business process outsourcing. Third, media “buzz” can create an unrealistic vision when a CJ site fails to grow beyond its start-up phase. Backfence.com’s demise as a “hyperlocal” initiative (Caverly) is one cautionary event that recalls the 2000 dotcom crash. The M&A scenarios outlined above are market dystopias for CJ purists. The major lesson for CJ proponents is to include other market players in hypotheses about causation and correlation factors. 7. ‘Pro-Ams’ & Professional Journalism’s Crisis CJ emerged during a period when Professional Journalism faced a major crisis of ‘self-image’. The Demos report The Pro-Am Revolution (Leadbeater & Miller) popularised the notion of ‘professional amateurs’ which some CJ theorists adopt to strengthen their categorisation. In turn, this triggers a response from cultural theorists who fear bloggers are new media’s barbarians (Keen). I concede Leadbeater and Miller have identified an important category. However, how some CJ theorists then generalise from ‘Pro-Ams’ illustrates the danger of ‘weak’ theory referred to above. Leadbeater and Miller’s categorisation does not really include a counter-view on the strengths of professionals, as illustrated in humanistic consulting (Block), professional service firms (Maister; Maister, Green & Galford), and software development (McConnell). The signs of professionalism these authors mention include a commitment to learning and communal verification, mastery of a discipline and domain application, awareness of methodology creation, participation in mentoring, and cultivation of ethical awareness. Two key differences are discernment and quality of attention, as illustrated in how the legendary Hollywood film editor Walter Murch used Apple’s Final Cut Pro software to edit the 2003 film Cold Mountain (Koppelman). ‘Pro-Ams’ might not aspire to these criteria but Citizen Journalists shouldn’t throw out these standards, either. Doing so would be making the same mistake of overconfidence that technical analysts make against statistical arbitrageurs. Key processes—fact-checking, sub-editing and editorial decision-making—are invisible to the end-user, even if traceable in a blog or wiki publishing system, because of the judgments involved. One post-mortem insight from Assignment Zero was that these processes were vital to create the climate of authenticity and trust to sustain a Citizen Journalist community (Howe). CJ’s trouble with “objectivity” might also overlook some complexities, including the similarity of many bloggers to “noise traders” in financial markets and to op-ed columnists. Methodologies and reportage practices have evolved to deal with the objections that CJ proponents raise, from New Journalism’s radical subjectivity and creative non-fiction techniques (Wolfe & Johnson) to Precision Journalism that used descriptive statistics (Meyer). Finally, journalism frameworks could be updated with current research on how phenomenological awareness shapes our judgments and perceptions (Thompson). 8. Strategic Execution For me, one of CJ’s major weaknesses as a new media theory is its lack of “rich description” (Geertz) about the strategic execution of projects. As Disinfo.com site editor I encountered situations ranging from ‘denial of service’ attacks and spam to site migration, publishing systems that go offline, and ensuring an editorial consistency. Yet the messiness of these processes is missing from CJ theories and accounts. Theories that included this detail as “second-order interactions” (Carlile & Christensen 13) would offer a richer view of CJ. Many CJ and Web 2.0 projects fall into the categories of mini-projects, demonstration prototypes and start-ups, even when using a programming language such as Ajax or Ruby on Rails. Whilst the “bootstrap” process is a benefit, more longitudinal analysis and testing needs to occur, to ensure these projects are scalable and sustainable. For example, South Korea’s OhmyNews is cited as an exemplar that started with “727 citizen reporters and 4 editors” and now has “38,000 citizen reporters” and “a dozen editors” (Kolodzy 231). How does OhmyNews’s mix of hard and soft news change over time? Or, how does OhmyNews deal with a complex issue that might require major resources, such as security negotiations between North and South Korea? Such examples could do with further research. We need to go beyond “the vision thing” and look at the messiness of execution for deeper observations and counterintuitive correlations, to build new descriptive theories. 9. Future Research This essay argues that CJ needs re-evaluation. Its immediate legacy might be to splinter ‘journalism’ into micro-trends: Washington University’s Steve Boriss proclaims “citizen journalism is dead. Expert journalism is the future.” (Boriss; Mensching). The half-lives of such micro-trends demand new categorisations, which in turn prematurely feeds the theory-building cycle. Instead, future researchers could reinvigorate 21st century journalism if they ask deeper questions and return to the observation stage of building descriptive theories. In closing, below are some possible questions that future researchers might explore: Where are the “rich descriptions” of journalistic experience—“citizen”, “convergent”, “digital”, “Pro-Am” or otherwise in new media?How could practice-based approaches inform this research instead of relying on espoused theories-in-use?What new methodologies could be developed for CJ implementation?What role can the “heroic” individual reporter or editor have in “the swarm”?Do the claims about OhmyNews and other sites stand up to longitudinal observation?Are the theories used to justify Citizen Journalism’s normative stance (Rheingold; Surowiecki; Pesce) truly robust generalisations for strategic execution or do they reflect the biases of their creators?How could developers tap the conceptual dimensions of information technology innovation (Shasha) to create the next Facebook, MySpace or Wikipedia? References Argyris, Chris, and Donald Schon. Theory in Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1976. Barlow, Aaron. The Rise of the Blogosphere. Westport, CN: Praeger Publishers, 2007. Block, Peter. Flawless Consulting. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2000. Boriss, Steve. “Citizen Journalism Is Dead. Expert Journalism Is the Future.” The Future of News. 28 Nov. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 < http://thefutureofnews.com/2007/11/28/citizen-journalism-is-dead- expert-journalism-is-the-future/ >. Brooks, Jr., Frederick P. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering. Rev. ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995. Campbell, Vincent. Information Age Journalism: Journalism in an International Context. New York: Arnold, 2004. Carlile, Paul R., and Clayton M. Christensen. “The Cycles of Building Theory in Management Research.” Innosight working paper draft 6. 6 Jan. 2005. 19 Feb. 2008 < http://www.innosight.com/documents/Theory%20Building.pdf >. Caverly, Doug. “Hyperlocal News Site Takes A Hit.” WebProNews.com 6 July 2007. 19 Feb. 2008 < http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/07/06/hyperlocal-news- sites-take-a-hit >. Chenoweth, Neil. Virtual Murdoch: Reality Wars on the Information Superhighway. Sydney: Random House Australia, 2001. Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997. Christensen, Clayton M., Curtis Johnson, and Michael Horn. Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Curtis, Adam. The Mayfair Set. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1999. Etherington, Kim. Becoming a Reflexive Researcher: Using Ourselves in Research. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2004. Festinger, Leon. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962. Feyerabend, Paul. Against Method. 3rd ed. London: Verso, 1993. Finnemore, Martha. National Interests in International Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Ghoshal, Sumantra. “Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices.” Academy of Management Learning & Education 4.1 (2005): 75-91. Gibson, William. Pattern Recognition. London: Viking, 2003. Gladwell, Malcolm. “The Cool-Hunt.” The New Yorker Magazine 17 March 1997. 20 Feb. 2008 < http://www.gladwell.com/1997/1997_03_17_a_cool.htm >. Gross, Daniel. Pop! Why Bubbles Are Great for the Economy. New York: Collins, 2007. Hoffer, Eric. The True Believer. New York: Harper, 1951. Howe, Jeff. “Did Assignment Zero Fail? A Look Back, and Lessons Learned.” Wired News 16 July 2007. 19 Feb. 2008 < http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/07/assignment_ zero_final?currentPage=all >. Kahneman, Daniel, and Amos Tversky. Choices, Values and Frames. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur. New York: Doubleday Currency, 2007. Khurana, Rakesh. From Higher Aims to Hired Hands. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2007. Kolodzy, Janet. Convergence Journalism: Writing and Reporting across the News Media. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Koppelman, Charles. Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple’s Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema. Upper Saddle River, NJ: New Rider, 2004. Leadbeater, Charles, and Paul Miller. “The Pro-Am Revolution”. London: Demos, 24 Nov. 2004. 19 Feb. 2008 < http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/proameconomy >. Loomis, Carol J. “Bloomberg’s Money Machine.” Fortune 5 April 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 < http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/04/16/ 8404302/index.htm >. Lynch, Peter, and John Rothchild. Beating the Street. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Maister, David. True Professionalism. New York: The Free Press, 1997. Maister, David, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford. The Trusted Advisor. New York: The Free Press, 2004. Mensching, Leah McBride. “Citizen Journalism on Its Way Out?” SFN Blog, 30 Nov. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 < http://www.sfnblog.com/index.php/2007/11/30/940-citizen-journalism- on-its-way-out >. Meyer, Philip. Precision Journalism. 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. McConnell, Steve. Professional Software Development. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2004. Mintzberg, Henry. Managers Not MBAs. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2004. Morgan, Gareth. Images of Organisation. Rev. ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006. Newsvine. “Msnbc.com Acquires Newsvine.” 7 Oct. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 < http://blog.newsvine.com/_news/2007/10/07/1008889-msnbccom- acquires-newsvine >. Niederhoffer, Victor, and Laurel Kenner. Practical Speculation. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Pearlstine, Norman. Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007. 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Abstract:

Introduction Eating is one of the most quintessential activities of human life. Because of this primacy, eating is, as food anthropologist Sidney Mintz has observed, “not merely a biological activity, but a vibrantly cultural activity as well” (48). This article posits that the current awareness of climate change in the Western world is animating such cultural activity as the Slow Food movement and is, as a result, stimulating what could be seen as an evolutionary change in popular foodways. Moreover, this paper suggests that, in line with modelling provided by the Slow Food example, an increased awareness of the connections of climate change to the social injustices of food production might better drive social change in such areas. This discussion begins by proposing that contemporary foodways—defined as “not only what is eaten by a particular group of people but also the variety of customs, beliefs and practices surrounding the production, preparation and presentation of food” (Davey 182)—are changing in the West in relation to current concerns about climate change. Such modification has a long history. Since long before the inception of modern hom*o sapiens, natural climate change has been a crucial element driving hominidae evolution, both biologically and culturally in terms of social organisation and behaviours. Macroevolutionary theory suggests evolution can dramatically accelerate in response to rapid shifts in an organism’s environment, followed by slow to long periods of stasis once a new level of sustainability has been achieved (Gould and Eldredge). There is evidence that ancient climate change has also dramatically affected the rate and course of cultural evolution. Recent work suggests that the end of the last ice age drove the cultural innovation of animal and plant domestication in the Middle East (Zeder), not only due to warmer temperatures and increased rainfall, but also to a higher level of atmospheric carbon dioxide which made agriculture increasingly viable (McCorriston and Hole, cited in Zeder). Megadroughts during the Paleolithic might well have been stimulating factors behind the migration of hominid populations out of Africa and across Asia (Scholz et al). Thus, it is hardly surprising that modern anthropogenically induced global warming—in all its’ climate altering manifestations—may be driving a new wave of cultural change and even evolution in the West as we seek a sustainable homeostatic equilibrium with the environment of the future. In 1962, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring exposed some of the threats that modern industrial agriculture poses to environmental sustainability. This prompted a public debate from which the modern environmental movement arose and, with it, an expanding awareness and attendant anxiety about the safety and nutritional quality of contemporary foods, especially those that are grown with chemical pesticides and fertilizers and/or are highly processed. This environmental consciousness led to some modification in eating habits, manifest by some embracing wholefood and vegetarian dietary regimes (or elements of them). Most recently, a widespread awareness of climate change has forced rapid change in contemporary Western foodways, while in other climate related areas of socio-political and economic significance such as energy production and usage, there is little evidence of real acceleration of change. Ongoing research into the effects of this expanding environmental consciousness continues in various disciplinary contexts such as geography (Eshel and Martin) and health (McMichael et al). In food studies, Vileisis has proposed that the 1970s environmental movement’s challenge to the polluting practices of industrial agri-food production, concurrent with the women’s movement (asserting women’s right to know about everything, including food production), has led to both cooks and eaters becoming increasingly knowledgeable about the links between agricultural production and consumer and environmental health, as well as the various social justice issues involved. As a direct result of such awareness, alternatives to the industrialised, global food system are now emerging (Kloppenberg et al.). The Slow Food (R)evolution The tenets of the Slow Food movement, now some two decades old, are today synergetic with the growing consternation about climate change. In 1983, Carlo Petrini formed the Italian non-profit food and wine association Arcigola and, in 1986, founded Slow Food as a response to the opening of a McDonalds in Rome. From these humble beginnings, which were then unashamedly positing a return to the food systems of the past, Slow Food has grown into a global organisation that has much more future focused objectives animating its challenges to the socio-cultural and environmental costs of industrial food. Slow Food does have some elements that could be classed as reactionary and, therefore, the opposite of evolutionary. In response to the increasing hom*ogenisation of culinary habits around the world, for instance, Slow Food’s Foundation for Biodiversity has established the Ark of Taste, which expands upon the idea of a seed bank to preserve not only varieties of food but also local and artisanal culinary traditions. In this, the Ark aims to save foods and food products “threatened by industrial standardization, hygiene laws, the regulations of large-scale distribution and environmental damage” (SFFB). Slow Food International’s overarching goals and activities, however, extend far beyond the preservation of past foodways, extending to the sponsoring of events and activities that are attempting to create new cuisine narratives for contemporary consumers who have an appetite for such innovation. Such events as the Salone del Gusto (Salon of Taste) and Terra Madre (Mother Earth) held in Turin every two years, for example, while celebrating culinary traditions, also focus on contemporary artisanal foods and sustainable food production processes that incorporate the most current of agricultural knowledge and new technologies into this production. Attendees at these events are also driven by both an interest in tradition, and their own very current concerns with health, personal satisfaction and environmental sustainability, to change their consumer behavior through an expanded self-awareness of the consequences of their individual lifestyle choices. Such events have, in turn, inspired such events in other locations, moving Slow Food from local to global relevance, and affecting the intellectual evolution of foodway cultures far beyond its headquarters in Bra in Northern Italy. This includes in the developing world, where millions of farmers continue to follow many traditional agricultural practices by necessity. Slow Food Movement’s forward-looking values are codified in the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture 2006 publication, Manifesto on the Future of Food. This calls for changes to the World Trade Organisation’s rules that promote the globalisation of agri-food production as a direct response to the “climate change [which] threatens to undermine the entire natural basis of ecologically benign agriculture and food preparation, bringing the likelihood of catastrophic outcomes in the near future” (ICFFA 8). It does not call, however, for a complete return to past methods. To further such foodway awareness and evolution, Petrini founded the University of Gastronomic Sciences at Slow Food’s headquarters in 2004. The university offers programs that are analogous with the Slow Food’s overall aim of forging sustainable partnerships between the best of old and new practice: to, in the organisation’s own words, “maintain an organic relationship between gastronomy and agricultural science” (UNISG). In 2004, Slow Food had over sixty thousand members in forty-five countries (Paxson 15), with major events now held each year in many of these countries and membership continuing to grow apace. One of the frequently cited successes of the Slow Food movement is in relation to the tomato. Until recently, supermarkets stocked only a few mass-produced hybrids. These cultivars were bred for their disease resistance, ease of handling, tolerance to artificial ripening techniques, and display consistency, rather than any culinary values such as taste, aroma, texture or variety. In contrast, the vine ripened, ‘farmer’s market’ tomato has become the symbol of an “eco-gastronomically” sustainable, local and humanistic system of food production (Jordan) which melds the best of the past practice with the most up-to-date knowledge regarding such farming matters as water conservation. Although the term ‘heirloom’ is widely used in relation to these tomatoes, there is a distinctively contemporary edge to the way they are produced and consumed (Jordan), and they are, along with other organic and local produce, increasingly available in even the largest supermarket chains. Instead of a wholesale embrace of the past, it is the connection to, and the maintenance of that connection with, the processes of production and, hence, to the environment as a whole, which is the animating premise of the Slow Food movement. ‘Slow’ thus creates a gestalt in which individuals integrate their lifestyles with all levels of the food production cycle and, hence to the environment and, importantly, the inherently related social justice issues. ‘Slow’ approaches emphasise how the accelerated pace of contemporary life has weakened these connections, while offering a path to the restoration of a sense of connectivity to the full cycle of life and its relation to place, nature and climate. In this, the Slow path demands that every consumer takes responsibility for all components of his/her existence—a responsibility that includes becoming cognisant of the full story behind each of the products that are consumed in that life. The Slow movement is not, however, a regime of abstention or self-denial. Instead, the changes in lifestyle necessary to support responsible sustainability, and the sensual and aesthetic pleasure inherent in such a lifestyle, exist in a mutually reinforcing relationship (Pietrykowski 2004). This positive feedback loop enhances the potential for promoting real and long-term evolution in social and cultural behaviour. Indeed, the Slow zeitgeist now informs many areas of contemporary culture, with Slow Travel, Homes, Design, Management, Leadership and Education, and even Slow Email, Exercise, Shopping and Sex attracting adherents. Mainstreaming Concern with Ethical Food Production The role of the media in “forming our consciousness—what we think, how we think, and what we think about” (Cunningham and Turner 12)—is self-evident. It is, therefore, revealing in relation to the above outlined changes that even the most functional cookbooks and cookery magazines (those dedicated to practical information such as recipes and instructional technique) in Western countries such as the USA, UK and Australian are increasingly reflecting and promoting an awareness of ethical food production as part of this cultural change in food habits. While such texts have largely been considered as useful but socio-politically relatively banal publications, they are beginning to be recognised as a valid source of historical and cultural information (Nussel). Cookbooks and cookery magazines commonly include discussion of a surprising range of issues around food production and consumption including sustainable and ethical agricultural methods, biodiversity, genetic modification and food miles. In this context, they indicate how rapidly the recent evolution of foodways has been absorbed into mainstream practice. Much of such food related media content is, at the same time, closely identified with celebrity mass marketing and embodied in the television chef with his or her range of branded products including their syndicated articles and cookbooks. This commercial symbiosis makes each such cuisine-related article in a food or women’s magazine or cookbook, in essence, an advertorial for a celebrity chef and their named products. Yet, at the same time, a number of these mass media food celebrities are raising public discussion that is leading to consequent action around important issues linked to climate change, social justice and the environment. An example is Jamie Oliver’s efforts to influence public behaviour and government policy, a number of which have gained considerable traction. Oliver’s 2004 exposure of the poor quality of school lunches in Britain (see Jamie’s School Dinners), for instance, caused public outrage and pressured the British government to commit considerable extra funding to these programs. A recent study by Essex University has, moreover, found that the academic performance of 11-year-old pupils eating Oliver’s meals improved, while absenteeism fell by 15 per cent (Khan). Oliver’s exposé of the conditions of battery raised hens in 2007 and 2008 (see Fowl Dinners) resulted in increased sales of free-range poultry, decreased sales of factory-farmed chickens across the UK, and complaints that free-range chicken sales were limited by supply. Oliver encouraged viewers to lobby their local councils, and as a result, a number banned battery hen eggs from schools, care homes, town halls and workplace cafeterias (see, for example, LDP). The popular penetration of these ideas needs to be understood in a historical context where industrialised poultry farming has been an issue in Britain since at least 1848 when it was one of the contributing factors to the establishment of the RSPCA (Freeman). A century after Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (published in 1906) exposed the realities of the slaughterhouse, and several decades since Peter Singer’s landmark Animal Liberation (1975) and Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights (1983) posited the immorality of the mistreatment of animals in food production, it could be suggested that Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth (released in 2006) added considerably to the recent concern regarding the ethics of industrial agriculture. Consciousness-raising bestselling books such as Jim Mason and Peter Singer’s The Ethics of What We Eat and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (both published in 2006), do indeed ‘close the loop’ in this way in their discussions, by concluding that intensive food production methods used since the 1950s are not only inhumane and damage public health, but are also damaging an environment under pressure from climate change. In comparison, the use of forced labour and human trafficking in food production has attracted far less mainstream media, celebrity or public attention. It could be posited that this is, in part, because no direct relationship to the environment and climate change and, therefore, direct link to our own existence in the West, has been popularised. Kevin Bales, who has been described as a modern abolitionist, estimates that there are currently more than 27 million people living in conditions of slavery and exploitation against their wills—twice as many as during the 350-year long trans-Atlantic slave trade. Bales also chillingly reveals that, worldwide, the number of slaves is increasing, with contemporary individuals so inexpensive to purchase in relation to the value of their production that they are disposable once the slaveholder has used them. Alongside sex slavery, many other prevalent examples of contemporary slavery are concerned with food production (Weissbrodt et al; Miers). Bales and Soodalter, for example, describe how across Asia and Africa, adults and children are enslaved to catch and process fish and shellfish for both human consumption and cat food. Other campaigners have similarly exposed how the cocoa in chocolate is largely produced by child slave labour on the Ivory Coast (Chalke; Off), and how considerable amounts of exported sugar, cereals and other crops are slave-produced in certain countries. In 2003, some 32 per cent of US shoppers identified themselves as LOHAS “lifestyles of health and sustainability” consumers, who were, they said, willing to spend more for products that reflected not only ecological, but also social justice responsibility (McLaughlin). Research also confirms that “the pursuit of social objectives … can in fact furnish an organization with the competitive resources to develop effective marketing strategies”, with Doherty and Meehan showing how “social and ethical credibility” are now viable bases of differentiation and competitive positioning in mainstream consumer markets (311, 303). In line with this recognition, Fair Trade Certified goods are now available in British, European, US and, to a lesser extent, Australian supermarkets, and a number of global chains including Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonalds, Starbucks and Virgin airlines utilise Fair Trade coffee and teas in all, or parts of, their operations. Fair Trade Certification indicates that farmers receive a higher than commodity price for their products, workers have the right to organise, men and women receive equal wages, and no child labour is utilised in the production process (McLaughlin). Yet, despite some Western consumers reporting such issues having an impact upon their purchasing decisions, social justice has not become a significant issue of concern for most. The popular cookery publications discussed above devote little space to Fair Trade product marketing, much of which is confined to supermarket-produced adverzines promoting the Fair Trade products they stock, and international celebrity chefs have yet to focus attention on this issue. In Australia, discussion of contemporary slavery in the press is sparse, having surfaced in 2000-2001, prompted by UNICEF campaigns against child labour, and in 2007 and 2008 with the visit of a series of high profile anti-slavery campaigners (including Bales) to the region. The public awareness of food produced by forced labour and the troubling issue of human enslavement in general is still far below the level that climate change and ecological issues have achieved thus far in driving foodway evolution. This may change, however, if a ‘Slow’-inflected connection can be made between Western lifestyles and the plight of peoples hidden from our daily existence, but contributing daily to them. Concluding Remarks At this time of accelerating techno-cultural evolution, due in part to the pressures of climate change, it is the creative potential that human conscious awareness brings to bear on these challenges that is most valuable. Today, as in the caves at Lascaux, humanity is evolving new images and narratives to provide rational solutions to emergent challenges. As an example of this, new foodways and ways of thinking about them are beginning to evolve in response to the perceived problems of climate change. The current conscious transformation of food habits by some in the West might be, therefore, in James Lovelock’s terms, a moment of “revolutionary punctuation” (178), whereby rapid cultural adaption is being induced by the growing public awareness of impending crisis. It remains to be seen whether other urgent human problems can be similarly and creatively embraced, and whether this trend can spread to offer global solutions to them. References An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Lawrence Bender Productions, 2006. Bales, Kevin. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004 (first published 1999). Bales, Kevin, and Ron Soodalter. The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Chalke, Steve. “Unfinished Business: The Sinister Story behind Chocolate.” The Age 18 Sep. 2007: 11. Cunningham, Stuart, and Graeme Turner. The Media and Communications in Australia Today. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2002. Davey, Gwenda Beed. “Foodways.” The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore. Ed. Gwenda Beed Davey, and Graham Seal. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1993. 182–85. Doherty, Bob, and John Meehan. “Competing on Social Resources: The Case of the Day Chocolate Company in the UK Confectionery Sector.” Journal of Strategic Marketing 14.4 (2006): 299–313. Eshel, Gidon, and Pamela A. Martin. “Diet, Energy, and Global Warming.” Earth Interactions 10, paper 9 (2006): 1–17. Fowl Dinners. Exec. Prod. Nick Curwin and Zoe Collins. Dragonfly Film and Television Productions and Fresh One Productions, 2008. Freeman, Sarah. Mutton and Oysters: The Victorians and Their Food. London: Gollancz, 1989. Gould, S. J., and N. Eldredge. “Punctuated Equilibrium Comes of Age.” Nature 366 (1993): 223–27. (ICFFA) International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture. Manifesto on the Future of Food. Florence, Italy: Agenzia Regionale per lo Sviluppo e l’Innovazione nel Settore Agricolo Forestale and Regione Toscana, 2006. Jamie’s School Dinners. Dir. Guy Gilbert. Fresh One Productions, 2005. Jordan, Jennifer A. “The Heirloom Tomato as Cultural Object: Investigating Taste and Space.” Sociologia Ruralis 47.1 (2007): 20-41. Khan, Urmee. “Jamie Oliver’s School Dinners Improve Exam Results, Report Finds.” Telegraph 1 Feb. 2009. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/4423132/Jamie-Olivers-school-dinners-improve-exam-results-report-finds.html >. Kloppenberg, Jack, Jr, Sharon Lezberg, Kathryn de Master, G. W. Stevenson, and John Henrickson. ‘Tasting Food, Tasting Sustainability: Defining the Attributes of an Alternative Food System with Competent, Ordinary People.” Human Organisation 59.2 (Jul. 2000): 177–86. (LDP) Liverpool Daily Post. “Battery Farm Eggs Banned from Schools and Care Homes.” Liverpool Daily Post 12 Jan. 2008. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2008/01/12/battery-farm-eggs-banned-from-schools-and-care-homes-64375-20342259 >. Lovelock, James. The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth. New York: Bantam, 1990 (first published 1988). Mason, Jim, and Peter Singer. The Ethics of What We Eat. Melbourne: Text Publishing, 2006. McLaughlin, Katy. “Is Your Grocery List Politically Correct? Food World’s New Buzzword Is ‘Sustainable’ Products.” The Wall Street Journal 17 Feb. 2004. 29 Aug. 2009 < http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/fairtrade/coffee/1732.html >. McMichael, Anthony J, John W Powles, Colin D Butler, and Ricardo Uauy. “Food, Livestock Production, Energy, Climate Change, and Health.” The Lancet 370 (6 Oct. 2007): 1253–63. Miers, Suzanne. “Contemporary Slavery”. A Historical Guide to World Slavery. Ed. Seymour Drescher, and Stanley L. Engerman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Mintz, Sidney W. Tasting Food, Tasting Freedom: Excursions into Eating, Culture, and the Past. Boston: Beacon Press, 1994. Nussel, Jill. “Heating Up the Sources: Using Community Cookbooks in Historical Inquiry.” History Compass 4/5 (2006): 956–61. Off, Carol. Bitter Chocolate: Investigating the Dark Side of the World's Most Seductive Sweet. St Lucia: U of Queensland P, 2008. Paxson, Heather. “Slow Food in a Fat Society: Satisfying Ethical Appetites.” Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture 5.1 (2005): 14–18. Pietrykowski, Bruce. “You Are What You Eat: The Social Economy of the Slow Food Movement.” Review of Social Economy 62:3 (2004): 307–21. Pollan, Michael. The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. New York: The Penguin Press, 2006. Regan, Tom. The Case for Animal Rights. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Scholz, Christopher A., Thomas C. Johnson, Andrew S. Cohen, John W. King, John A. Peck, Jonathan T. Overpeck, Michael R. Talbot, Erik T. Brown, Leonard Kalindekafe, Philip Y. O. Amoako, Robert P. Lyons, Timothy M. Shanahan, Isla S. Castañeda, Clifford W. Heil, Steven L. Forman, Lanny R. McHargue, Kristina R. Beuning, Jeanette Gomez, and James Pierson. “East African Megadroughts between 135 and 75 Thousand Years Ago and Bearing on Early-modern Human Origins.” PNAS: Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences of the United States of America 104.42 (16 Oct. 2007): 16416–21. Sinclair, Upton. The Jungle. New York: Doubleday, Jabber & Company, 1906. Singer, Peter. Animal Liberation. New York: HarperCollins, 1975. (SFFB) Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity. “Ark of Taste.” 2009. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.fondazioneslowfood.it/eng/arca/lista.lasso >. (UNISG) University of Gastronomic Sciences. “Who We Are.” 2009. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.unisg.it/eng/chisiamo.php >. Vileisis, Ann. Kitchen Literacy: How We Lost Knowledge of Where Food Comes From and Why We Need to Get It Back. Washington: Island Press/Shearwater Books, 2008. Weissbrodt, David, and Anti-Slavery International. Abolishing Slavery and its Contemporary Forms. New York and Geneva: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations, 2002. Zeder, Melinda A. “The Neolithic Macro-(R)evolution: Macroevolutionary Theory and the Study of Culture Change.” Journal of Archaeological Research 17 (2009): 1–63.

Abstract:

Introduction Over the past thirty years media activism has expanded dramatically. Like never before, individuals and groups have access to personal computers, publishing software, fax, telecommunications, the Internet, community radio and television that enable them to participate in forms of cultural production previously reserved for an intellectual and political élite. Independently produced media among those who feel excluded from, even oppressed by, the dominant social order provides a means of raising awareness among oppressed or marginalised communities while at the same time challenging the meanings conveyed by social institutions like the mass media and the state. The use of media for the purposes of activism has occurred, by in large, in the context of new social movements. The AIDS movement in North America has provided an organisational and ideological infrastructure through which those infected have become involved in media production. This paper focusses on the development of media projects by AIDS activists for the purposes of sharing information about the treatment and management of HIV infection. Specifically I am interested in how the changing the needs of people with HIV/AIDS -- the intended audience -- as perceived by activists have shaped the evolution of treatment information projects. Community-Based Media Media projects designed as a forum for people with HIV/AIDS have been guided by the need to be and remain community-based. What constitutes community-based media has been taken up, in several different ways, in the literature on media activism. Downing, for instance, has examined the experiences of those involved in "self managed" media projects. In this analysis he illustrates how control over production is crucial to media projects that focus on challenging or resisting forms of political oppression. External influence or control only threatens to subvert collective efforts directed at achieving self representation. Smith looks at this issue in a different way, arguing that it is important to make the distinction between print media for women and feminist print media. According to Smith, the former tend to reflect the dominant gender order, contributing to the social forces that oppress and marginalise women, in part, because they do not focus on addressing or advancing the needs and concerns of women. Feminist media, in contrast, tends to be informed by a political analysis of gender: they are created and produced by and for women; they provide a forum for the voices of women who have been silenced through oppression or marginalisation; and they challenge and seek to transform patriarchal social relations. Trend takes this point further in his critique of media projects that have been informed by Leftist politics. The problem, he argues, has been that the media created or influenced by Leftist politics have been dominated by an intellectual élite that have ignored or chastised the voices and opinions of those who are oppressed or marginalised by the dominant social order. As an alternative, Trend looks to recent efforts among gay and lesbian media activists who have turned to new media technologies and their own experiences as the basis for subverting and challenging hom*ophobia and hetrosexism. For each of these scholars, community-based media follow what might be called a peer model of communication: a specific group using media to speak for themselves and in doing so achieving some degree of self representation. A key issue raised in this work is how those involved in media projects understand the role that their audience plays in establishing and sustaining this community-based status. Treatment Information Projects as Community-Based Media Activism Political organizing around the treatment of HIV infection (what has been called AIDS treatment activism) has been a central component of the community-based response to HIV/AIDS (Ariss). Treatment activism among groups like ACT UP and AIDS ACTION NOW! have focussed on influencing those power structures (government and pharmaceutical companies) in control of the development and approval of medications (Carter; Carter & Watney). Treatment activism also refers to the creation of advocacy, support, and education programs for people living with HIV/AIDS. The development of forums which enable people with HIV/AIDS to share information about treatments and health care generally has been an important aspect of treatment activism in North America. A significant part of this type of treatment activism has been the production and dissemination of information about treatments and health management. Indeed, the importance of "staying informed" has always been high on the list of survival strategies for people with HIV/AIDS. Early in the epidemic, in the 1980s, the problem that people with HIV/AIDS faced was a lack of information about new and potentially beneficial treatments. In response, people with HIV/AIDS formed social networks, often in close proximity to AIDS organizations, in order to share strategies to promote their health and manage their infection. Eventually, such forums were expanded and became, or were integrated into, print media projects. In the United States, the most notable and enduring example is AIDS Treatment News. In Canada similar publications like The Positive Side and the Treatment Information Flash were started by people with HIV/AIDS with the support of grassroots, but increasingly government funded, AIDS service organizations. During this period media products like The Positive Side and Treatment Information Flash were produced by politically involved HIV- positive gay men who sought to provide information to all people with HIV/AIDS but also realised that their primary audience was gay men who were HIV infected or affected. With developments in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, the main issue for people with HIV/AIDS became gaining access to information rather than a lack of information. Pressure from the organised HIV/AIDS community eventually led to the development of and greater support (from government and private foundations) for treatment information organisations. In the United States, groups like Project Inform (PI) were established which focussed exclusively on interpreting medical information and making it available to people with HIV/AIDS. In Canada, a similar organisation was started, the Community AIDS Treatment Information Exchange (CATIE), initially a subcommittee of AIDS ACTION NOW! and then as an autonomous organisation. Treatment-specific organisations meant that existing media projects were given more resources and a broader scope in meeting the information needs of people with HIV/AIDS. Media projects that began earlier in the epidemic were faced with the challenge of adapting to changes in the AIDS epidemic and to the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Efforts were made, for instance, in treatment information projects in Canada with varying levels of success to include the voices of a more diverse range of people with HIV/AIDS. Also, a greater emphasis was placed on providing material that would be accessible to people with varying educational, cultural, and social backgrounds. In the case of The Positive Side and the Treatment Information Flash despite efforts effectively reaching a more diverse audience of people with HIV/AIDS, while remaining relevant to gay men with HIV/AIDS, was an ongoing challenge that called into question the effectiveness and relevancy of such media as a forum for all people with HIV/AIDS. In more recent years, with the rise of new medications and the use of combination therapy or treatment co*cktails, as well as the rise in use and legitimacy of complementary therapies, the health care information needs of people with HIV/AIDS have grown exponentially. To meet the changes needs of people with HIV/AIDS, organisations like PI and CATIE have turned away from print media and instead embraced the phone, fax, and the Internet as an alternative means of disseminating treatment information. Also, the availability of information in currently less of a problems as it was in the 1980s and early 1990s (although accessibility continues to be a serious problem). Instead, people with HIV/AIDS were becoming overwhelmed by an overabundance of information. Treatment information projects had to go beyond simply making information available and understandable; people with HIV/AIDS needed to learn how to make sense of the wealth of information available in order to make informed decisions about their health. Print media projects like The Positive Side and the Treatment Information Flash were eventually incorporated into broader electronic media based projects that were more oriented toward provided a broad amount of treatment information to a diverse audience of people with HIV/AIDS. Early print media projects were unable to extend beyond their grassroots in the gay HIV-positive community. In this sense in the pursuit of becoming general media they no longer were "community-based" and as a result could no longer sustain themselves. Conclusion What community-based meant for those involved in projects like The Positive Side and the Treatment Information Flash revolved around ensuring that the media actively engaged an audience of people with HIV/AIDS and that the material in the publication was grounded in the experiences of people with HIV/AIDS." This understanding of community-based had two components. First, it was an attempt to remain accountable to the needs and concerns of those HIV-infected and affected. And, second, it was an effort to privilege and foster the opinions, views, and expertise of those living with HIV/AIDS. Achieving this required a political analysis that identified the dominant social order as working against, or simply ignoring, the best interests of those HIV-infected and affected. In response, people with HIV/AIDS needed to take control of the production and representation of information about managing HIV infection. As a result, becoming and remaining "community-based" was for a period of time an ongoing process that was negotiated between the audience and those involved in the media projects. This negotiation was seen as essential to providing an alternative forum for health care information that looked critically and pragmatically at dominant discourses about managing HIV infection. However, in recent years, the realisation that it is not possible to address people with HIV/AIDS as a unified, politically aware audience has called into question the viability of treatment information projects. As a result, early treatment publications have been replaced by large government funded treatment information organisations that provide general information through a variety of media which are intended for a diverse range of people with HIV/AIDS. The result is a greater gap between producer and consumer and a shift away from a consideration of the audience as an essential, potentially political entity in the production of AIDS treatment information. References Ariss, R. Against Death: The Practice of Living with AIDS. Australia: Gordon & Breach Publishers, 1996. Carter, G. ACT UP, the AIDS War and Activism. New Jersey: Open Magazine, 1992. Carter, E., and S. Watney. Taking Liberties: AIDS and Cultural Politics. London: Serpent's Tail, 1989. Downing, J. Radical Media. Boston: South End Press, 1984. Kahn, A. AIDS: The Winter War. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1993. Smith, M. "Feminist Media and Cultural Politics." Women in Mass Communication. Ed. P. Creedon. London: Sage, 1993. Trend, D. "Rethinking Media Activism: Why the Left Is Losing the Cultural War." Socialist Review, 2 (1993): 5-33. Citation reference for this article MLA style: James Gillett. "The Audience in Media Activism: AIDS Treatment Information Projects." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.1 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/activism.php>. Chicago style: James Gillett, "The Audience in Media Activism: AIDS Treatment Information Projects," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 1 (2000), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/activism.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: James Gillett. (2000) The Audience in Media Activism: AIDS Treatment Information Projects. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(1). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/activism.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

SuicideGirls.com In September 2001 two entrepreneurs Missy (coal-black Betty Page bangs and numerous tattoos) and Sean launched SuicideGirls.com. With their backgrounds in graphic design, programming and photography, they came up with the idea of launching an alternative adult site that started out as “a kind of an art project” — it grew out of an interest in Bunny Yeager’s pinup photos, where the control and attitude of the sexy women were emphasized, only now it was about pierced and tattooed females. Missy describes the portrayal of women on the site in the following words: The site is about the girls being in control and being in charge of how they’re portrayed. It’s also proof that sexuality and beauty aren’t mutually exclusive of intelligence, and we wanted to showcase all of the girls, but leave people guessing a little bit. There’s no need to go full-blown p*rno. SuicideGirls.com is an adult community that offers a mix of eroticism, creativity, personality and intelligence. SuicideGirls is about so-called empowered eroticism; it provides a site where girls outside of mainstream culture can express their individual style through soft erotic images, and web logs. Every week the site introduces new SuicideGirls, every day new pictures are added; a full national calendar of events is frequently updated and is searchable by location, date or keyword — members can be looked up by name, age, location or keywords; the site also features a magazine section with original fiction, articles and interviews with celebrities. What makes this site especially interesting is that each SuicideGirl has her own page featuring a pertinent profile with personal information such as age, stats, body mods, favorite books, music, sex positions, and current crushes. She can also put up pictures and video materials — including a web cam — of herself, express her thoughts and share her daily experiences in a blog, comment on other blogs and message boards, chat in designated chat rooms, and organize online and offline events. Kate78, Texan-born, is a regular blogger. She writes about her studies in Kansas City, a city she has come to hate after she learned that her car insurance could only be renewed in Texas. She describes herself as a “punk rock chick” — illustrated by pictures that show her with long spiky hair; she has got her nose pierced and her many tattoos — and a “suicidegirl”. There are plenty of blogs — e.g. LiveJournal, Blogspot, Punklog — where girls write about wanting to become a SuicideGirl. The girls are mainly motivated by a wish to share their bodily art paralleled by a sense of being in control over their image and admirers (they keep control over the photo sets and shoots). SuicideGirls.com is foremost an online community and therefore girls from all over the world can potentially become a SuicideGirl, as long as they have access to the Internet in order to publish to their personal page. These girls are in charge of their own online presentation, supported by a lively community where both women and men interact by reading and posting to the girls and each other’s blogs. In addition, members of the site can also post local events to the SuicideGirl calendar or the message boards, comment on pictures, and even hook up with one another. With the ability for members to create their own page, with their own profile picture and personal information, members can search for one another based on location, age, sex and personal preferences. Indeed, not only the SuicideGirls themselves have online pages to fill: subscribers to SuicideGirls.com have similar ‘privileges’, with the exception that they have to pay a small fee of $4 per month — though they can never refer to themselves as SuicideGirl: anyone entering the site has to log in as either ‘SuicideGirl’ or ‘Member’. Thus, SuicideGirls.com mixes a DIY attitude with alternative culture — especially Gothic, Punk and Emo — resulting in an appealing grassroots approach to sexuality that is of interest to both women and men. At the same time, the public identity of a SuicideGirl is constructed within a particular textual context dependent on commercial drivers. Through attracting fans on the basis of her “autonomous” self-representation — Goth fans, for instance — she brings in customers, raising questions about the tensions between “grassroots” self-representation and corporate branding. Collaborative Eroticism as Business Model We should document the interactions that occur among media consumers, between media consumers and media texts and between media consumers and media producers. The new participatory culture is taking shape at the intersection between three trends: 1) new tools and technologies enable consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate and re-circulate media content; 2) a range of subcultures promote do-it-yourself (DIY) media production, a discourse that shapes how consumers have deployed those technologies; and 3) economic trends favoring the horizontally integrated media conglomerates encourage the flow of images, ideas and narratives across multiple media channels and demand more active modes of spectatorship” (Jenkins 157). Traditionally the organization of economic production is based on the idea that individuals order their productive activities either on managerial hierarchies, or on production that is based on market prices (Benkler). Peer production represents a new mode of organizing that is not based on relations of dependence (managerial hierarchies) nor relations of independence (markets) rather peer production involves relations of interdependence. Peer production is a heterarchy characterized by relations of minimal hierarchy and by organizational heterogeneity (Stark). While traditionally structured organizations attempt to maximize internal order and control by enforcing a hierarchical system and establishing standards and clear lines of authority (Powell), heterarchies exist through permitting and even fostering a diversity of organizational logics and minimizing conformity (Chan). With the introduction of Mosaic and the Pentium chip in the mid-1990s the notion of the organization of production profoundly changed. The Internet could be used for more than looking up information or sending email. Instead, it offers a structure where participants are not organized by managerial hierarchies nor governed by price signals rather where people formed networks to collaborate in open source software projects or effectively constructing ‘user-created search engines’ for the exchange of e.g., music files, games (KaZaA, Gnutella), news and chat. While the present moment is marked by a legal standoff between robust communities of users (cultural co-producers) and the established media industry (particularly the music and film industry), some elements of the corporate media world have taken a different approach, embracing the new technological use rather than attempting to outlaw it. These corporations have found their way to online participatory networks and are attempting to use them for their own good. For instance, companies like Coca-Cola, BMW, and Apple offer online spaces – often in the form of thinly veiled advertisem*nts (‘advertainment’) – where people can play games, watch movies, share files and the like in order to create or promote a company’s product, service or brand. They crucially rely upon blurring the boundaries between production, distribution and consumption, encouraging the target audience to work for them. Whether by playing games with embedded advertising, or inadvertently sending marketing information back to advertisers, or simply by passing advertising texts within one’s circle of friends, the target audience and the larger dynamic of participatory networks are ‘used’ by corporations to achieve their ends. SuicideGirls.com is a good example example of this emerging mode of (commons-based) peer production in a digitally networked environment – i.e. groups of individuals who participate in online shared spaces driven by diverse motivations, and serving corporate as well as community needs. The SuicideGirls’ blogs are the shared currency that binds SuicideGirls.com and its erotic consumers together as a “community”: SuicideGirls.com taps into online communities by enabling collaborative eroticism. Moving beyond adult entertainment, this trend of using blogs for commercial purposes raises interesting questions regarding, on the one hand, the cultural status of online blogging from a commercial perspective, e.g., how should we consider the cultural status of artifacts such as blogs that have commerce at the core of their identity: Can we speak of a displacement of aesthetic experience by the branding experience, or might these two experiences be seen as part of a continuum?; and, on the other hand, regarding participatory culture in a commercially mediated environment: e.g., What is the status of b2c, c2c, and p2p in a commercially structured network; What are the implications for user appropriation? The answers to these questions among others studied by various academic disciplines may contribute to the building of a framework for examining the consequences of this strategic shift towards relating to, reaching out to and linking online customers in a commercial web (b)log. Acknowledgement Anja Rau, thank you for your feedback. References Banerjee, A. “A Simple Model of Herd Behavior.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 1992: 797-817. Barabási, A. L. Linked: The New Science of Networks. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 2002. Benkler, Y. “Coase’s Penguin, or, Linux and The Nature of the Firm.” Yale Law Journal, Winter v.04.3 2002-03. http://personal.uncc.edu/alblanch/SOVC.pdf. http://www.dcs.napier.ac.uk/~mm/socbytes/feb2002_i/9.html Castells, M. The Rise of the Network Society. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. Castells, M. The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Chan, A. Collaborative News Networks: Distributed Editing, Collective Action, and the Construction of Online News on Slashdot.org. Thesis M.Sc. at MIT’s Comparative Media Studies, 2002). http://www.marketing.unsw.edu.au/HTML/mktresearch/workingpapers/Cowley_Rossiter02_6.pdf http://www.xdreze.org/vitae1.pfd Du Gay, P.& Pryke, M. Cultural Economy. London: Sage Publications, 2002. Dyer, R., Stars (Revised). London: British Film Institute, 1998. Hagel, J. & Armstrong, A. Net Gain: Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities. USA: McKinsey & Company, Inc., 1997.; Hebditch, D. and Anning, N. p*rn Gold: Inside the p*rnography Business. London: Faber & Faber, 1988. Jenkins, H. “Interactive audiences?” In Harries, D., ed. The New Media Book. London: British Film Institute, 2002. Kottler, P. Marketing Management: The Millennium Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. Mayzlin, D. Promotional Chat on the Internet. PhD dissertation, MIT, Sloan School of Management, 2001. Oram, A. Peer-To-Peer: Harnessing the Power of Disruptive Technologies. Sebastopol: O’Reilly & Associates, 2001. O’Toole, L. p*rnocopia: p*rn, Sex, Technology and Desire. London: Serpent’s Tail, 1998. Pine, J. and Gilmore, J. The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999. Powell, W. “Neither Market nor Hierarchy: Network Forms of Organization.” Research in Organizational Behavior, 12, 1990: 295-336. Schmitt, B. & Simonson, A. Marketing Aesthetics: The Strategic Management of Brands, Identity, and Image. New York: The Free Press, 1997. Slater, D. Consumer Culture and Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997.Slater, D. and Tonkiss, F. Market Society: Markets and Modern Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001. http://www.stanford.edu/~woodyp/papers/capitalist_firm.pdf Stone, A. R. The War of Desire and Technology at the Close of the Mechanical Age. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996. Sunstein C. Behavioral Law and Economics. Cambridge University Press, 2000. Thompson, J.B. The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of the Media. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995. Watts, D. and Strogatz, S. “Collective Dynamics of ‘Small-World’ Networks.” Nature, 393, 1998: 440-442. Williams, L. Hard Core: Power, Pleasure and the ‘Frenzy of the Visible’. London: Pandora Press, 1990. MLA Style Van der Graf, Shenja. "Blogging Business: SuicideGirls.com." M/C Journal 7.4 (2004). 10 October 2004 <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0410/07_suicide.php>. APA Style Van der Graf, S. (2004 Oct 11). Blogging Business: SuicideGirls.com, M/C Journal, 7(4). Retrieved Oct 10 2004 from <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0410/07_suicide.php>

Abstract:

[Editors’ note: this lyric essay was presented as the keynote address at Edith Cowan University’s CREATEC symposium on the theme Catastrophe and Creativity in November 2012, and represents excerpts from the author’s publication Threading Light: Explorations in Loss and Poetry. Regina, SK: Hagios Press, 2011. Reproduced with the author’s permission].Essay and verse and anecdote are the ways I have chosen to apprentice myself to loss, grief, faith, memory, and the stories we use to tie and untie them. Cat’s cradle, Celtic lines, bends and hitches are familiar: however, when I write about loss, I find there are knots I cannot tie or release, challenging both my imagination and my craft. Over the last decade, I have been learning that writing poetry is also the art of tying together light and dark, grief and joy, of grasping and releasing. Language is a hinge that connects us with the flesh of our experience; it is also residue, the ash of memory and imagination. (Threading Light 7) ———Greek katastrophé overturning, sudden turn, from kata down + strophe ‘turning” from strephein to turn.Loss and catastrophe catapult us into the liminal, into a threshold space. We walk between land we have known and the open sea. ———Mnemosyne, the mother of the nine Muses, the personification of memory, makes anthropologists of us all. When Hermes picked up the lyre, it was to her—to Remembrance —that he sang the first song. Without remembrance, oral or written, we have no place to begin. Stone, amulet, photograph, charm bracelet, cufflink, fish story, house, facial expression, tape recorder, verse, or the same old traveling salesman joke—we have places and means to try to store memories. Memories ground us, even as we know they are fleeting and flawed constructions that slip through our consciousness; ghosts of ghosts. One cold winter, I stayed in a guest room in my mother’s apartment complex for three days. Because she had lost her sight, I sat at the table in her overheated and stuffy kitchen with the frozen slider window and tried to describe photographs as she tried to recall names and events. I emptied out the dusty closet she’d ignored since my father left, and we talked about knitting patterns, the cost of her mother’s milk glass bowl, the old clothes she could only know by rubbing the fabric through her fingers. I climbed on a chair to reach a serving dish she wanted me to have, and we laughed hysterically when I read aloud the handwritten note inside: save for Annette, in a script not hers. It’s okay, she said; I want all this gone. To all you kids. Take everything you can. When I pop off, I don’t want any belongings. Our family had moved frequently, and my belongings always fit in a single box; as a student, in the back of a car or inside a backpack. Now, in her ninth decade, my mother wanted to return to the simplicity she, too, recalled from her days on a small farm outside a small town. On her deathbed, she insisted on having her head shaved, and frequently the nursing staff came into the room to find she had stripped off her johnny shirt and her covers. The philosopher Simone Weil said that all we possess in the world is the power to say “I” (Gravity 119).Memory is a cracked bowl, and it fills endlessly as it empties. Memory is what we create out of what we have at hand—other people’s accounts, objects, flawed stories of our own creation, second-hand tales handed down like an old watch. Annie Dillard says as a life’s work, she’d remember everything–everything against loss, and go through life like a plankton net. I prefer the image of the bowl—its capacity to feed us, the humility it suggests, its enduring shape, its rich symbolism. Its hope. To write is to fashion a bowl, perhaps, but we know, finally, the bowl cannot hold everything. (Threading Light 78–80) ———Man is the sire of sorrow, sang Joni Mitchell. Like joy, sorrow begins at birth: we are born into both. The desert fathers believed—in fact, many of certain faiths continue to believe—that penthos is mourning for lost salvation. Penthus was the last god to be given his assignment from Zeus: he was to be responsible for grieving and loss. Eros, the son of Aphrodite, was the god of love and desire. The two can be seen in concert with one another, each mirroring the other’s extreme, each demanding of us the farthest reach of our being. Nietzsche, through Zarathustra, phrased it another way: “Did you ever say Yes to one joy? O my friends, then you have also said Yes to all Woe as well. All things are chained, entwined together, all things are in love.” (Threading Light 92) ———We are that brief crack of light, that cradle rocking. We can aspire to a heaven, or a state of forgiveness; we can ask for redemption and hope for freedom from suffering for ourselves and our loved ones; we may create children or works of art in the vague hope that we will leave something behind when we go. But regardless, we know that there is a wall or a dark curtain or a void against which we direct or redirect our lives. We hide from it, we embrace it; we taunt it; we flout it. We write macabre jokes, we play hide and seek, we walk with bated breath, scream in movies, or howl in the wilderness. We despair when we learn of premature or sudden death; we are reminded daily—an avalanche, an aneurysm, a shocking diagnosis, a child’s bicycle in the intersection—that our illusions of control, that youthful sense of invincibility we have clung to, our last-ditch religious conversions, our versions of Pascal’s bargain, nothing stops the carriage from stopping for us.We are fortunate if our awareness calls forth our humanity. We learn, as Aristotle reminded us, about our capacity for fear and pity. Seeing others as vulnerable in their pain or weakness, we see our own frailties. As I read the poetry of Donne or Rumi, or verse created by the translator of Holocaust stories, Lois Olena, or the work of poet Sharon Olds as she recounts the daily horror of her youth, I can become open to pity, or—to use the more contemporary word—compassion. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum argues that works of art are not only a primary means for an individual to express her humanity through catharsis, as Aristotle claimed, but, because of the attunement to others and to the world that creation invites, the process can sow the seeds of social justice. Art grounds our grief in form; it connects us to one another and to the world. And the more we acquaint ourselves with works of art—in music, painting, theatre, literature—the more we open ourselves to complex and nuanced understandings of our human capacities for grief. Why else do we turn to a stirring poem when we are mourning? Why else do we sing? When my parents died, I came home from the library with stacks of poetry and memoirs about loss. How does your story dovetail with mine? I wanted to know. How large is this room—this country—of grief and how might I see it, feel the texture on its walls, the ice of its waters? I was in a foreign land, knew so little of its language, and wanted to be present and raw and vulnerable in its climate and geography. Writing and reading were my way not to squander my hours of pain. While it was difficult to live inside that country, it was more difficult not to. In learning to know graveyards as places of comfort and perspective, Mnemosyne’s territory with her markers of memory guarded by crow, leaf, and human footfall, with storehouses of vast and deep tapestries of stories whispered, sung, or silent, I am cultivating the practice of walking on common ground. Our losses are really our winter-enduring foliage, Rilke writes. They are place and settlement, foundation and soil, and home. (Threading Light 86–88) ———The loseability of our small and larger worlds allows us to see their gifts, their preciousness.Loseability allows us to pay attention. ———“A faith-based life, a Trappistine nun said to me, aims for transformation of the soul through compunction—not only a state of regret and remorse for our inadequacies before God, but also living inside a deeper sorrow, a yearning for a union with the divine. Compunction, according to a Christian encyclopaedia, is constructive only if it leads to repentance, reconciliation, and sanctification. Would you consider this work you are doing, the Trappistine wrote, to be a spiritual journey?Initially, I ducked her question; it was a good one. Like Neruda, I don’t know where the poetry comes from, a winter or a river. But like many poets, I feel the inadequacy of language to translate pain and beauty, the yearning for an embodied understanding of phenomena that is assensitive and soul-jolting as the contacts of eye-to-eye and skin-to-skin. While I do not worship a god, I do long for an impossible union with the world—a way to acknowledge the gift that is my life. Resonance: a search for the divine in the everyday. And more so. Writing is a full-bodied, sensory, immersive activity that asks me to give myself over to phenomena, that calls forth deep joy and deep sorrow sometimes so profound that I am gutted by my inadequacy. I am pierced, dumbstruck. Lyric language is the crayon I use, and poetry is my secular compunction...Poets—indeed, all writers—are often humbled by what we cannot do, pierced as we are by—what? I suggest mystery, impossibility, wonder, reverence, grief, desire, joy, our simple gratitude and despair. I speak of the soul and seven people rise from their chairs and leave the room, writes Mary Oliver (4). Eros and penthos working in concert. We have to sign on for the whole package, and that’s what both empties us out, and fills us up. The practice of poetry is our inadequate means of seeking the gift of tears. We cultivate awe, wonder, the exquisite pain of seeing and knowing deeply the abundant and the fleeting in our lives. Yes, it is a spiritual path. It has to do with the soul, and the sacred—our venerating the world given to us. Whether we are inside a belief system that has or does not have a god makes no difference. Seven others lean forward to listen. (Threading Light 98–100)———The capacity to give one’s attention to a sufferer is a rare thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. – Simone Weil (169)I can look at the lines and shades on the page clipped to the easel, deer tracks in the snow, or flecks of light on a summer sidewalk. Or at the moon as it moves from new to full. Or I can read the poetry of Paul Celan.Celan’s poem “Tenebrae” takes its title from high Christian services in which lighting, usually from candles, is gradually extinguished so that by the end of the service, the church is in total darkness. Considering Celan’s—Antschel’s—history as a Romanian Jew whose parents were killed in the Nazi death camps, and his subsequent years tortured by the agony of his grief, we are not surprised to learn he chose German, his mother’s language, to create his poetry: it might have been his act of defiance, his way of using shadow and light against the other. The poet’s deep grief, his profound awareness of loss, looks unflinchingly at the past, at the piles of bodies. The language has become a prism, reflecting penetrating shafts of shadow: in the shine of blood, the darkest of the dark. Enlinked, enlaced, and enamoured. We don’t always have names for the shades of sorrows and joys we live inside, but we know that each defines and depends upon the other. Inside the core shadow of grief we recognise our shared mortality, and only in that recognition—we are not alone—can hope be engendered. In the exquisite pure spot of light we associate with love and joy, we may be temporarily blinded, but if we look beyond, and we draw on what we know, we feel the presence of the shadows that have intensified what appears to us as light. Light and dark—even in what we may think are their purest state—are transitory pauses in the shape of being. Decades ago my well-meaning mother, a nurse, gave me pills to dull the pain of losing my fiancé who had shot himself; now, years later, knowing so many deaths, and more imminent, I would choose the bittersweet tenderness of being fully inside grief—awake, raw, open—feeling its walls, its every rough surface, its every degree of light and dark. It is love/loss, light/dark, a fusion that brings me home to the world. (Threading Light 100–101) ———Loss can trigger and inspire creativity, not only at the individual level but at the public level, whether we are marching in Idle No More demonstrations, re-building a shelter, or re-building a life. We use art to weep, to howl, to reach for something that matters, something that means. And sometimes it may mean that all we learn from it is that nothing lasts. And then, what? What do we do then? ———The wisdom of Epictetus, the Stoic, can offer solace, but I know it will take time to catch up with him. Nothing can be taken from us, he claims, because there is nothing to lose: what we lose—lover, friend, hope, father, dream, keys, faith, mother—has merely been returned to where it (or they) came from. We live in samsara, Zen masters remind us, inside a cycle of suffering that results from a belief in the permanence of self and of others. Our perception of reality is narrow; we must broaden it to include all phenomena, to recognise the interdependence of lives, the planet, and beyond, into galaxies. A lot for a mortal to get her head around. And yet, as so many poets have wondered, is that not where imagination is born—in the struggle and practice of listening, attending, and putting ourselves inside the now that all phenomena share? Can I imagine the rush of air under the loon that passes over my house toward the ocean every morning at dawn? The hot dust under the cracked feet of that child on the outskirts of Darwin? The gut-hauling terror of an Afghan woman whose family’s blood is being spilled? Thich Nhat Hanh says that we are only alive when we live the sufferings and the joys of others. He writes: Having seen the reality of interdependence and entered deeply into its reality, nothing can oppress you any longer. You are liberated. Sit in the lotus position, observe your breath, and ask one who has died for others. (66)Our breath is a delicate thread, and it contains multitudes. I hear an echo, yes. The practice of poetry—my own spiritual and philosophical practice, my own sackcloth and candle—has allowed me a glimpse not only into the lives of others, sentient or not, here, afar, or long dead, but it has deepened and broadened my capacity for breath. Attention to breath grounds me and forces me to attend, pulls me into my body as flesh. When I see my flesh as part of the earth, as part of all flesh, as Morris Berman claims, I come to see myself as part of something larger. (Threading Light 134–135) ———We think of loss as a dark time, and yet it opens us, deepens us.Close attention to loss—our own and others’—cultivates compassion.As artists we’re already predisposed to look and listen closely. We taste things, we touch things, we smell them. We lie on the ground like Mary Oliver looking at that grasshopper. We fill our ears with music that not everyone slows down to hear. We fall in love with ideas, with people, with places, with beauty, with tragedy, and I think we desire some kind of fusion, a deeper connection than everyday allows us. We want to BE that grasshopper, enter that devastation, to honour it. We long, I think, to be present.When we are present, even in catastrophe, we are fully alive. It seems counter-intuitive, but the more fully we engage with our losses—the harder we look, the more we soften into compassion—the more we cultivate resilience. ———Resilience consists of three features—persistence, adaptability transformability—each interacting from local to global scales. – Carl FolkeResilent people and resilient systems find meaning and purpose in loss. We set aside our own egos and we try to learn to listen and to see, to open up. Resilience is fundamentally an act of optimism. This is not the same, however, as being naïve. Optimism is the difference between “why me?” and “why not me?” Optimism is present when we are learning to think larger than ourselves. Resilience asks us to keep moving. Sometimes with loss there is a moment or two—or a month, a year, who knows?—where we, as humans, believe that we are standing still, we’re stuck, we’re in stasis. But we aren’t. Everything is always moving and everything is always in relation. What we mistake for stasis in a system is the system taking stock, transforming, doing things underneath the surface, preparing to rebuild, create, recreate. Leonard Cohen reminded us there’s a crack in everything, and that’s how the light gets in. But what we often don’t realize is that it’s we—the human race, our own possibilities, our own creativity—who are that light. We are resilient when we have agency, support, community we can draw on. When we have hope. ———FortuneFeet to carry you past acres of grapevines, awnings that opento a hall of paperbarks. A dog to circle you, look behind, point ahead. A hip that bends, allows you to slidebetween wire and wooden bars of the fence. A twinge rides with that hip, and sometimes the remnant of a fall bloomsin your right foot. Hands to grip a stick for climbing, to rest your weight when you turn to look below. On your left hand,a story: others see it as a scar. On the other, a newer tale; a bone-white lump. Below, mist disappears; a nichein the world opens to its long green history. Hills furrow into their dark harbours. Horses, snatches of inhale and whiffle.Mutterings of men, a cow’s long bellow, soft thud of feet along the hill. You turn at the sound.The dog swallows a cry. Stays; shakes until the noise recedes. After a time, she walks on three legs,tests the paw of the fourth in the dust. You may never know how she was wounded. She remembers your bodyby scent, voice, perhaps the taste of contraband food at the door of the house. Story of human and dog, you begin—but the wordyour fingers make is god. What last year was her silken newborn fur is now sunbleached, basket dry. Feet, hips, hands, paws, lapwings,mockingbirds, quickening, longing: how eucalypts reach to give shade, and tiny tight grapes cling to vines that align on a slope as smoothlyas the moon follows you, as intention always leans toward good. To know bones of the earth are as true as a point of light: tendernesswhere you bend and press can whisper grace, sorrow’s last line, into all that might have been,so much that is. (Threading Light 115–116) Acknowledgments The author would like to thank Dr. Lekkie Hopkins and Dr. John Ryan for the opportunity to speak (via video) to the 2012 CREATEC Symposium Catastrophe and Creativity, to Dr. Hopkins for her eloquent and memorable paper in response to my work on creativity and research, and to Dr. Ryan for his support. The presentation was recorded and edited by Paul Poirier at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. My thanks go to Edith Cowan and Mount Saint Vincent Universities. ReferencesBerman, Morris. Coming to Our Senses. New York: Bantam, 1990.Dillard, Annie. For the Time Being. New York: Vintage Books, 2000.Felstiner, John. Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001.Folke, Carl. "On Resilience." Seed Magazine. 13 Dec. 2010. 22 Mar. 2013 ‹http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/on_resilience›.Franck, Frederick. Zen Seeing, Zen Drawing. New York: Bantam Books, 1993.Hanh, Thich Nhat. The Miracle of Mindfulness. Boston: Beacon Press, 1976.Hausherr, Irenee. Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East. Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1982.Neilsen Glenn, Lorri. Threading Light: Explorations in Loss and Poetry. Regina, SK: Hagios Press, 2011. Nietzsche, Frederick. Thus Spake Zarathustra. New York: Penguin, 1978. Nussbaum, Martha. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Oliver, Mary. “The Word.” What Do We Know. Boston: DaCapo Press, 2002.Rilke, Rainer Maria. Duino Elegies and the Sonnets to Orpheus. (Tenth Elegy). Ed. Stephen Mitchell. New York: Random House/Vintage Editions, 2009.Weil, Simone. The Need for Roots. London: Taylor & Francis, 2005 (1952).Weil, Simone. Gravity and Grace. London: Routledge, 2004.Further ReadingChodron, Pema. Practicing Peace in Times of War. Boston: Shambhala, 2006.Cleary, Thomas (trans.) The Essential Tao: An Initiation into the Heart of Taoism through Tao de Ching and the Teachings of Chuang Tzu. Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 1993.Dalai Lama (H H the 14th) and Venerable Chan Master Sheng-yen. Meeting of Minds: A Dialogue on Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism. New York: Dharma Drum Publications, 1999. Hirshfield, Jane. "Language Wakes Up in the Morning: A Meander toward Writing." Alaska Quarterly Review. 21.1 (2003).Hirshfield, Jane. Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. Lao Tzu. Tao Te Ching. Trans. Arthur Waley. Chatham: Wordsworth Editions, 1997. Neilsen, Lorri. "Lyric Inquiry." Handbook of the Arts in Qualitative Research. Eds. J. Gary Knowles and Ardra Cole. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 2008. 88–98. Ross, Maggie. The Fire and the Furnace: The Way of Tears and Fire. York: Paulist Press, 1987.

Abstract:

In his recent re-evaluation of McLuhanite theories for the information age, Digital McLuhan, Paul Levinson makes what at first glance appears to be a curious statement: he says that on the Web "the common denominator ... is the written word, as it is and has been with all things having to do with computers -- and will likely continue to be until such time, if ever, that the spoken word replaces the written as the vehicle of computer commands" (38). This, however, seems to directly contradict what any Web user has been able to experience for several years now: Web content has increasingly come to rely on graphics, at first still, now also often animated, and continues to include more and more audiovisual elements of various kinds. We don't even have to look at the current (and, hopefully, passing) phase of interminable Shockwave splash pages, which users have to endure while they wait to be transferred to the 'real' content of a site: even on as print-focussed a page as the one you're currently reading, you'll see graphical buttons to the left and at the bottom, for example. Other sites far surpass this for graphical content: it is hard to imagine what the official Olympics site or that of EXPO 2000 would look like in text-only versions. The drive towards more and more graphics has long been, well, visible. Already in 1997 (at a time when 33.6k modems were considered fast) Marshall considered the Internet to have entered its "graphic stage, a transitional media form that has made surfing the net feel like flipping through a glossy magazine or the interlinkages of a multimedia game or encyclopedia CD-ROMs"; to him this stage "relies on a construction that is textual and graphically enhanced through software overlays ... and highlighted by sample images, sound bites and occasionally short, moving images" (51). This historicised view mirrors a distinction made around the same time by Lovink, who divided users into "IBM-PC-modernists" still running text-based interfaces, and those enjoying the "Apple-Windows 95-postmodernism" of their graphical user interfaces (Lovink and Winkler 15). In the age of GUIs, in fact, 'text' in itself does not really exist on screen any more: everything from textual to graphical information consists of individual pixels in the same way, which is precisely what makes Levinson's initial statement appear so anachronistic. The move from 'text' to 'graphics and text' could thus be seen as a sign of the overall shift from the industrial to the information age -- a view not without precedent, since the transition from modernist to postmodernist times is similarly contemporaneous with the rise of graphic design as a form of communication as well as art. Beyond such broad strokes, we can also identify some of the finer details presented by the current state of graphics on the Web, however. Marshall's 'graphic stage', after all, was a 'transitional' one, and by now it seems that we might have passed it already, entering into a new aesthetic paradigm which appears to have borrowed many of its approaches from the realm of computer games: the new Web vision is shiny, colourful, animated, and increasingly also accompanied by sound effects. This is no surprise since the mass acceptance of personal computers themselves was largely driven by their use as a source of entertainment. Gaming and computers are inseparably interconnected, and the development of home computers' graphical capabilities in particular has long been driven almost exclusively by players' needs for better, faster, more realistic graphics. Of course, the way we interact with computers also owes a significant debt to games. Engagement in a dialogue with the machine, in which the computer displays both our own actions and its responses, representing us and itself simultaneously on screen, is the predominant mode of computing, and such a mode of engagement (dissolving the barriers between human mind and machinic computation) can now also be found in our interaction with the Web. Here, too, individual knowledge blends with the information available on the network as we immerse ourselves in hypertextual connectivity. As Talbott writes, "clearly, a generation raised on Adventure and video games -- where every door conceals a treasure or a monster worth pursuing in frenetic style -- has its own way of appreciating the hypertext interface" (13); not only has the Web taken on the aesthetics of computer gaming, then, but using the Web itself exhibits aspects of participation in a global 'knowledge game'. Talbott means to criticise this when he writes that thus "the doctrines of endless Enlightenment and Progress become the compelling subtext of a universal video game few can resist playing" (196), but however we may choose to evaluate this game, the observation itself is sound. One possible reason for taking a critical view of this development is that computer and video games rarely present more than the appearance of participation; while players may have a feeling of control over features of the game, the game itself usually remains entirely unaffected and ready for a restart at any moment. Web users might similarly feel empowered by the wealth of information to which they have gained access online, without actually making use of that information to form new knowledge for themselves. This is a matter for the individual user, however; where they have a true interest in the information they seek, we can have every confidence that they will process it to their advantage, too. Beyond this, the skills of information seeking learnt from Web use might also have overall benefits for users, as a kind of 'mind-eye coordination' similar to the 'hand-eye coordination' benefits often attributed to the playing of action games. The ability to figure out unknown problems, the desire to understand and gain control of a situation, which they can learn from computer games, is likely to help them better understand the complexity and interconnectedness of anything they might learn: "it could ... well be true that the cross-linking inherent in hypertext encourages people to see the connections among different aspects of the world so that they will get less fragmented knowledge" (Nielsen 190). The increasingly graphical nature of Web content could appear to work against this, however: "extensions of traditional hyperTEXT systems to encompass hyperMEDIA introduces [sic] a new dimension. ... The picture that 'speaks a thousand words' may say a thousand different words to different viewers. Pictures or graphics lend themselves much more than does text to multiple interpretations", as McAleese claims (12-13) -- but perhaps this overrates significantly the ability of text to anchor down meaning to any one point. Rather, it is questionable whether text and images really are that different from one another -- viewed from a historical perspective, certainly, opinions are divided, it seems: "the medieval church feared the power of the visual image because of the way it appeared to licence the imagination and the consideration of alternatives. Obversely, contemporary cultural critics fear that the abandonment of the written word in favour of graphics is stifling critical and creative powers" (Moody 60) -- take, for example, the commonly held view that movies made from novels limit the reader's imagination to the particular portrayal of events chosen for the film. In fact, there are good reasons to believe that both text and images (especially when they are increasingly easy to manipulate by digital means, thus losing once and for all their claim to photographic 'realism') can 'say a thousand different words to different viewers' -- indeed, traditional photography has also been described as 'writing with light'. As Levinson notes, therefore, "once the photograph is converted to a digital format, it is as amenable to manipulation, as divorced from the reality it purports to represent, as the words which appear on the same screen. On that score, the Internet's co-option of photography -- the rendering of the formerly analogue image as its content -- is at least as profound as the Internet's promotion of written communication" (43), and this, then, may perhaps begin to provide a resolution to his overall preference for writing as the predominant Internet communication form, as quoted above: online writing now includes in almost equal measure 'print' text and graphical images, both of which are of course graphically rendered on screen by the computer anyway; they combine into a new form of writing not unlike ancient hieroglyphics. On the Web, writing has come full circle: from the iconographic representations of the earliest civilisations through their simplification and solidification into the various alphabets back to a new online iconography. This also demonstrates the strong Western bias of this technology, of course: had computers emerged from Chinese or Japanese culture, for example -- where alphabets in the literal sense don't exist -- chances are they would never have existed in a text-only form. Now that we have passed the alphabetic stage to re-enter an era of iconography, then, it remains to be seen how this change along with our overall "'immersion' in hypertext will affect the way that we mentally structure our world. Linear argumentation is more a consequence of alphabetic writing than of printed books and it remains to be seen if hypertext presentation will significantly erode this predominant convention for mentally ordering our world" (McKnight et al. 41). Perhaps the computer game experience (where a blending of text and graphics had begun some time before the Web) can provide some early pointers already, then. The game-like nature of information search and usage online might help to undermine some of the more heavily encrusted structures of information dissemination that are still dominant: "we are promised, on the information 'library' side, less of the dogmatic and more of the ludic, less of the canonical and more of the festive. Fewer arguments from authority, through more juxtaposition of authorities" (Debray 146). This is also supported by the fact that there usually exists no one central authority, no one central site, in any field of information covered by the Web, but that there rather is a multiplicity of sources and viewpoints with varying claims to 'authority' and 'objectivity'; rather than rely on authorities to determine what is accepted knowledge, Web users must, and do, distil their own knowledge from the information they find in their searches. Kumon and Aizu's notion that from the industrial-age "wealth game" we have now moved into the "wisdom game" (320) sums up this view. However, for all the ludic exuberance of this game, we should also be concerned that, as in any game, we are also likely to see winners and losers. Those unaware of the rules of the game, and people who are prevented from playing for personal or socioeconomic reasons (the increased use of graphics will make it much more difficult for certain disabled readers to use the Web, for example) must not be left out of it. In gaming terminology, perhaps the formation of teams including such disadvantaged people is the answer? References Debray, Régis. "The Book as Symbolic Object." The Future of the Book. Ed. Geoffrey Nunberg. Berkeley: U of California P, 1996. 139-51. Kumon, Shumpei, and Izumi Aizu. "Co-Emulation: The Case for a Global Hypernetwork Society." Global Networks: Computers and International Communication. Ed. Linda M. Harasim. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT P, 1994. 311-26. Levinson, Paul. Digital McLuhan: A Guide to the Information Millennium. London: Routledge, 1999. Lovink, Geert, and Hartmut Winkler. "The Computer: Medium or Calculating Machine." Convergence 3.2 (1997): 10-18. Marshall, P. David. "The Commodity and the Internet: Interactivity and the Generation of Audience Commodity." Media International Australia 83 (Feb. 1997): 51-62. McAleese, Ray. "Navigation and Browsing in Hypertext." Hypertext: Theory into Practice. Ed. Ray McAleese. Oxford: Intellect, 1993. 5- 38. McKnight, Cliff, Andrew Dillon, and John Richardson. Hypertext in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. Moody, Nickianne. "Interacting with the Divine Comedy." Fractal Dreams: New Media in Social Context. Ed. Jon Dovey. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1996. 59-77. Nielsen, Jakob. Hypertext and Hypermedia. Boston: Academic P, 1990. Talbott, Stephen L. The Future Does Not Compute: Transcending the Machines in Our Midst. Sebastopol, Calif.: O'Reilly and Associates, 1995. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Axel Bruns. "The Knowledge Adventure: Game Aesthetics and Web Hieroglyphics." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.5 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/adventure.php>. Chicago style: Axel Bruns, "The Knowledge Adventure: Game Aesthetics and Web Hieroglyphics," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 5 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/adventure.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: AxeM/C: A Journal of Media and Culture l Bruns. (2000) The knowledge adventure: game aesthetics and Web hieroglyphics. 3(5). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0010/adventure.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

Halfway through the 2006 memoir comic Fun Home, the reader encounters a photograph that the book’s author, Alison Bechdel, found in a box of family snapshots shortly after her father’s death. The picture—“literally the core of the book, the centrefold” (Bechdel qtd. in Chute “Interview” 1006)—of Alison’s teenaged babysitter, Roy, erotically reclining on a bed in only his underwear, is the most tangible and direct evidence of her father’s sexual affairs with teenage boys, more confronting than his own earlier confession. Through this image, and a rich archive of familial texts, Bechdel chronicles her father’s thwarted desires and ambitions, probable suicide, and her own sexual and artistic coming of age.Bruce Bechdel, a married school teacher and part-time funeral director, was also an avid amateur historical restorer and connoisseur of modernist literature. Shortly after Alison came out to her parents at nineteen, Bruce was hit by a truck in what his daughter believes was an act of suicide. In Fun Home, Bechdel reads her family history suspiciously, plumbing family snapshots, letters, and favoured novels, interpreting against the grain, to trace her queer genealogy. Ultimately, she inverts this suspicious and interrogative reading, using the evidence she has gathered in order to read her father’s sexuality positively and embrace her queer and artistic inheritance from him. In The New York Times Magazine, in 2004, Charles McGrath made the suggestion that comics were “the new literary form” (24). Although comics have not yet reached widespread mainstream acceptance as a medium of merit, the burgeoning field of comics scholarship over the last fifteen years, the 2007 adaptation of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis into a feature film, and the addition of comics to the Best American series all testify to the widening popularity and status of the form. Memoir comics have established themselves, as Hillary Chute notes, as “the dominant mode of contemporary work” (Graphic 17). Many of these autobiographical works, including Fun Home, recount traumatic histories, employing the medium’s unique capacity to evoke the fractured and repetitive experience of the traumatised through panel structure and use of images. Comics articulate “what wasn’t permitted to be said or imagined, defying the ordinary processes of thought” (Said qtd. in Whitlock 967). The hand-drawn nature of comics emphasises the subjectivity of perception and memory, making it a particularly powerful medium for personal histories. The clear mediation of a history by the artist’s hand complicates truth claims. Comics open up avenues for both suspicious and restorative readings because their form suggests that history is always constructed and therefore not able to be confirmed as “ultimately truthful,” but also that there is no ultimate truth to be unveiled. No narrative is unmediated; a timeline is not more “pure” than a fleshed out narrative text. All narratives exclude information in order to craft a comprehensible series of events. Bechdel’s role as a suspicious reader of her father and of her own history resonates through her role as a historian and her interrogation of the ethical concerns of referential writing.Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s Touching Feeling: Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity critiques the hermeneutics of suspicion from a queer theory perspective, instead advocating reparative reading as a critical strategy. The hermeneutics of suspicion describes “the well-oiled machine of ideology critique” that has become the primary mode of critical reading over the last thirty or so years, suspiciously interpreting texts to uncover their hidden ideological biases (Felski, Uses 1). Reparative reading, on the other hand, moves away from this paranoid mode, instead valuing pleasure and “positive affects like joy and excitement” (Vincent). Sedgwick does not wholly reject suspicious reading, suggesting that it “represent[s] a way, among other ways, of seeking, finding, and organizing knowledge. Paranoia knows some things well and others poorly” (Touching 129). Felski, paraphrasing Ricoeur, notes that the hermeneutics of suspicion “adopts an adversarial sensibility to probe for concealed, repressed, or disavowed meanings” (“Suspicious” 216). In this fashion, Bechdel employs suspicious strategies to reveal her father’s hidden desires and transgressions that were obscured in the standard version of her family narrative, but ultimately moves away from such techniques to joyfully embrace her inheritance from him. Sedgwick notes that paranoid readings may only reveal that which is already known:While there is plenty of hidden violence that requires exposure there is also, and increasingly, an ethos where forms of violence that are hypervisible from the start may be offered as an exemplary spectacle rather than remain to be unveiled as a scandalous secret. (Touching 139)This is contrary to suspicious reading’s assumption that violence is culturally shunned, hidden, and in need of “unveiling” in contemporary Western culture. It would be too obvious for Bechdel to condemn her father: gay men have been unfairly misrepresented in the American popular imagination for decades, if not longer. Through her reparative reading of him, she rejects this single-minded reduction of people to one negative type. She accepts both her father’s weaknesses and her debts to him. A reading which only sought to publicise Bruce’s hom*osexual affairs would lack the great depth that Bechdel finds in the slippage between her father’s identity and her own.Bechdel’s embrace of Bruce’s failings as a father, a husband, and an artist, her revisioning of his death as a positive, creative act full of agency, and her characterisation of him as a supportive forerunner, “there to catch [Alison] as [she] leapt,” (Bechdel 232) moves his story away from archetypal narratives of hom*osexual tragedy. Bechdel’s memoir ends with (and enacts through its virtuoso execution) her own success, and the support of those who came before her. This move mirrors Joseph Litvak’s suggestion that “the importance of ‘mistakes’ in queer reading and writing […] has a lot to do with loosening the traumatic, inevitable-seeming connection between mistakes and humiliation […] Doesn’t reading queer mean learning, among other things, that mistakes can be good rather than bad surprises?” (Sedgwick Touching 146–7).Fun Home is saturated with intertextual references and archival materials that attempt to piece together the memoir’s fractured and hidden histories. The construction of this personal history works by including familial and historical records to register the trauma of the Bechdels’ personal tragedy. The archival texts are meticulously hand-drawn, their time-worn and ragged physicality maintained to emphasise the referentiality of these documents. Bechdel’s use of realistically drawn family photographs, complete with photo corners, suggests a family photograph album, although rather than establishing a censored and idealistic narrative, as most family albums do, the photographs are read and reproduced for their suppressed and destabilising content. Bechdel describes them as “particularly mythic” (Chute “Interview” 1009), and she plunders this symbolic richness to rewrite her family history. The archival documents function as primary texts, which stand in opposition to the deadly secrecy of her childhood home: they are concrete and evidentiary. Bechdel reads her father’s letters and photographs (and their gothic revival house) for sexual and artistic evidence, “read[ing] the text against the grain in order to draw out what it refuses to own up to” (Felski “Suspicious” 23). She interprets his letters’ baroque lyrical flourishes as indications both of his semi-repressed hom*osexuality and of the artistic sensibility that she would inherit and refine.Suspicion of the entire historical project marks the memoir. Philippe Lejeune describes the “Autobiographical Pact” as “a contract of identity that is sealed by the proper name” of the author (19). Bechdel does not challenge this pact fundamentally—the authoritative narrative voice of her book structures it to be read as historically truthful—but she does challenge and complicate the apparent simplicity of this referential model. Bechdel’s discussion of the referential failings of her childhood diary making—“the troubled gap between word and meaning”—casts a suspicious eye over the rest of the memoir’s historical project (Bechdel 143). She asks how language can adequately articulate experience or refer to the external world in an environment defined by secrets and silence. At the time of her childhood, it cannot—the claim to full disclosure that the memoir ultimately makes is predicated on distance and time. Bechdel simultaneously makes a claim for the historical veracity of her narrative and destabilises our assumptions around the idea of factual and retrospective truth:When I was ten, I was obsessed with making sure my diary entries bore no false witness. But as I aged, hard facts gave way to vagaries of emotion and opinion. False humility, overwrought penmanship, and self-disgust began to cloud my testimony […] until […] the truth is barely perceptible behind a hedge of qualifiers, encryption, and stray punctuation. (Bechdel 169)That which is “unrepresentable” is simultaneously represented and denied. The comics medium itself, with its simultaneous graphic and textual representation, suggests the unreliability of any one means of representation. Of Bechdel’s diaries, Jared Gardner notes, “what develops over the course of her diary […] is an increasing sense that text and image are each alone inadequate to the task, and that some merger of the two is required to tell the story of the truth, and the truth of the story” (“Archives” 3).As the boyishly dressed Alison urges her father, applying scare-quoted “bronzer,” to hurry up, Bechdel narrates, “my father began to seem morally suspect to me long before I knew that he actually had a dark secret” (16). Alison is presented as her father’s binary opposite, “butch to his nelly. Utilitarian to his aesthete,” (15) and, as a teenager, frames his love of art and extravagance as debauched. This clear distinction soon becomes blurred, as Alison and Bruce’s similarities begin to overwhelm their differences. The huge drawn hand shown holding the photograph of Roy, in the memoir’s “centrefold,” more than twice life-size, reproduces the reader’s hand holding the book. We are placed in Bechdel’s, and by extension her father’s, role, as the illicit and transgressive voyeurs of the erotic spectacle of Roy’s body, and as the possessors and consumers of hidden, troubling texts. At this point, Bechdel begins to take her queer reading of this family archive and use it to establish a strong connection between her initially unsympathetic father and herself. Despite his neglect of his children, and his self-involvement, Bechdel claims him as her spiritual and creative father, as well as her biological one. This reparative embrace moves Bruce from the role of criticised outsider in Alison’s world to one of queer predecessor. Bechdel figures herself and her father as doubled aesthetic and erotic observers and appreciators. Ann Cvetkovich suggests that “mimicking her father as witness to the image, Alison is brought closer to him only at the risk of replicating his illicit sexual desires” (118). For Alison, consuming her father’s texts connects her with him in a positive yet troubling way: “My father’s end was my beginning. Or more precisely, […] the end of his lie coincided with the beginning of my truth” (Bechdel 116–17). The final panel of the same chapter depicts Alison’s hands holding drawn photos of herself at twenty-one and Bruce at twenty-two. The snapshots overlap, and Bechdel lists the similarities between the photographs, concluding, “it’s about as close as a translation can get” (120). Through the “vast network of transversals” (102) that is their life together, Alison and Bruce are, paradoxically, twinned “inversions of one another” (98). Sedgwick suggests that “inversion models […] locate gay people—whether biologically or culturally—at the threshold between genders” (Epistemology 88). Bechdel’s focus on Proust’s “antiquated clinical term” both neatly fits her thematic expression of Alison and Bruce’s relationship as doubles (“Not only were we inverts. We were inversions of one another”) and situates them in a space of possibility and liminality (97-98).Bechdel rejects a wholly suspicious approach by maintaining and embracing the aporia in her and her father’s story, an essential element of memory. According to Chute, Fun Home shows “that the form of comics crucially retains the insolvable gaps of family history” (Graphic 175). Rejecting suspicion involves embracing ambiguity and unresolvability. It concedes that there is no one authentic truth to be neatly revealed and resolved. Fun Home’s “spatial and semantic gaps […] express a critical unknowability or undecidability” (Chute Graphic 182). Bechdel allows the gaps in her narrative to remain, refusing to “pretend to know” Bruce’s “erotic truth” (230), an act to which suspicious reading is diametrically opposed. Suspicious reading wishes to close all gaps, to articulate silences and literalise mysteries, and Bechdel’s narrative progressively moves away from this mode. The medium of comics uses words and images together, simultaneously separate and united. Similarly, Alison and Bruce are presented as opposites: butch/sissy, artist/dilettante. Yet the memoir’s conclusion presents Alison and Bruce in a loving, reciprocal relationship. The final page of the book has two frames: one of Bruce’s perspective in the moment before his death, and one showing him contentedly playing with a young Alison in a swimming pool—death contrasted with life. The gaps in the narrative are not closed but embraced. Bechdel’s “tricky reverse narration” (232) suggests a complex mode of reading that allows both Bechdel and the reader to perceive Bruce as a positive forebear. Comics as a medium pay particular visual attention to absence and silence. The gutter, the space between panels, functions in a way that is not quite paralleled by silence in speech and music, and spaces and line breaks in text—after all, there are still blank spaces between words and elements of the image within the comics panel. The gutter is the space where closure occurs, allowing readers to infer causality and often the passing of time (McCloud 5). The gutters in this book echo the many gaps in knowledge and presence that mark the narrative. Fun Home is impelled by absence on a practical level: the absence of the dead parent, the absence of a past that was unspoken of and yet informed every element of Alison’s childhood.Bechdel’s hyper-literate narration steers the reader through the memoir and acknowledges its own aporia. Fun Home “does not seek to preserve the past as it was, as its archival obsession might suggest, but rather to circulate ideas about the past with gaps fully intact” (Chute Graphic 180). Bechdel, while making her own interpretation of her father’s death clear, does not insist on her reading. While Bruce attempted to restore his home into a perfect, hermetically sealed simulacrum of nineteenth-century domestic glamour, Bechdel creates a postmodern text that slips easily between a multiplicity of time periods, opening up the absences, failures, and humiliations of her story. Chute argues:Bruce Bechdel wants the past to be whole; Alison Bechdel makes it free-floating […] She animates the past in a book that is […] a counterarchitecture to the stifling, shame-filled house in which she grew up: she animates and releases its histories, circulating them and giving them life even when they devolve on death. (Graphic 216)Bechdel employs a literary process of detection in the revelation of both of their sexualities. Her archive is constructed like an evidence file; through layered tableaux of letters, novels and photographs, we see how Bruce’s obsessive love of avant-garde literature functions as an emblem of his hidden desire; Alison discovers her sexuality through the memoirs of Colette and the seminal gay pride manifestos of the late 1970s. Watson suggests that the “panels, gutters, and page, as bounded and delimited visual space, allow texturing of the two-dimensional image through collage, counterpoint, the superimposition of multiple media, and self-referential gestures […] Bechdel's rich exploitation of visual possibilities places Fun Home at an autobiographical interface where disparate modes of self-inscription intersect and comment upon one another” (32).Alison’s role as a literary and literal detective of concealed sexualities and of texts is particularly evident in the scene when she realises that she is gay. Wearing a plaid trench coat with the collar turned up like a private eye, she stands in the campus bookshop reading a copy of Word is Out, with a shadowy figure in the background (one whose silhouette resembles her father’s teenaged lover, Roy), and a speech bubble with a single exclamation mark articulating her realisation. While “the classic detective novel […] depends on […] a double plot, telling the story of a crime via the story of its investigation” (Felski “Suspicious” 225), Fun Home tells the story of Alison’s coming out and genesis as an artist through the story of her father’s brief life and thwarted desires. On the memoir’s final page, revisioning the artifactual photograph that begins her final chapter, Bechdel reclaims her father from what a cool reading of the historical record (adultery with adolescents, verbally abusive, emotionally distant) might encourage readers to superficially assume. Cvetkovich articulates the way Fun Home uses:Ordinary experience as an opening onto revisionist histories that avoid the emotional simplifications that can sometimes accompany representations of even the most unassimilable historical traumas […] Bechdel refuses easy distinctions between heroes and perpetrators, but doing so via a figure who represents a highly stigmatised sexuality is a bold move. (125)Rejecting paranoid strategies, Bechdel is less interested in classification and condemnation of her father than she is in her own tangled relation to him. She adopts a reparative strategy by focusing on the strands of joy and identification in her history with her father, rather than simply making a paranoid attack on his character.She occludes the negative possibilities and connotations of her father’s story to end on a largely positive note: “But in the tricky reverse narration that impels our entwined stories, he was there to catch me when I leapt” (232). In the final moment of her text Bechdel moves away from the memoir’s earlier destabilising actions, which forced the reader to regard Bruce with suspicion, as the keeper of destructive secrets and as a menacing presence in the Bechdels’ family life. The final image is of complete trust and support. His death is rendered not as chaotic and violent as it historically was, but calm, controlled, beneficent. Bechdel has commented, “I think it’s part of my father’s brilliance, the fact that his death was so ambiguous […] The idea that he could pull that off. That it was his last great wheeze. I want to believe that he went out triumphantly” (qtd. in Burkeman). The revisioning of Bruce’s death as a suicide and the reverse narration which establishes the accomplished artist and writer Bechdel’s creative and literary debt to him function as a redemption.Bechdel queers her suspicious reading of her family history in order to reparatively reclaim her father’s historical and personal connection with herself. The narrative testifies to Bruce’s failings as a father and husband, and confesses to Alison’s own complicity in her father’s transgressive desires and artistic interest, and to her inability to represent the past authoritatively and with complete accuracy. Bechdel both engages in and ultimately rejects a suspicious interpretation of her family and personal history. As Gardner notes, “only by allowing the past to bleed into history, fact to bleed into fiction, image into text, might we begin to allow our own pain to bleed into the other, and more urgently, the pain of the other to bleed into ourselves” (“Autobiography’s” 23). Suspicion itself is queered in the reparative revisioning of Bruce’s life and death, and in the “tricky reverse narration” (232) of the künstlerroman’s joyful conclusion.ReferencesBechdel, Alison. Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. New York: Mariner Books, 2007. Burkeman, Oliver. “A life stripped bare.” The Guardian 16 Oct. 2006: G2 16.Cvetkovich, Ann. “Drawing the Archive in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.” Women’s Studies Quarterly 36.1/2 (2008): 111–29. Chute, Hillary L. Graphic Women: Life Narrative and Contemporary Comics. New York: Columbia UP, 2010. ---. “Interview with Alison Bechdel.” MFS Modern Fiction Studies 52.4 (2006): 1004–13. Felski, Rita. Uses of Literature. Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.---. “Suspicious Minds.” Poetics Today 32:3 (2011): 215–34. Gardner, Jared. “Archives, Collectors, and the New Media Work of Comics.” MFS Modern Fiction Studies 52.4 (2006): 787–806. ---. “Autobiography’s Biography 1972-2007.” Biography 31.1 (2008): 1–26. Lejeune, Philippe. On Autobiography. Ed. Paul John Eakin. Trans. Katherine Leary. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989. McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994. McGrath, Charles. “Not Funnies.” New York Times Magazine 11 Jul. 2004: 24–56. Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. ---. Touching Feeling. Durham : Duke University Press, 2003. Vincent, J. Keith. “Affect and Reparative Reading.” Honoring Eve. Ed. J. Keith Vincent. Affect and Reparative Reading. Boston University College of Arts and Sciences. October 31 2009. 25 May 2011. ‹http://www.bu.edu/honoringeve/panels/affect-and-reparative-reading/?›.Watson, Julia. “Autographic disclosures and genealogies of desire in Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.” Biography 31.1 (2008): 27–59. Whitlock, Gillian. “Autographics: The Seeing “I” of the Comics.” Modern Fiction Studies 52.4 (2006): 965–79.

Abstract:

Introduction For some time now there has been a strong critical framework that identifies a significant shift in the politics of hom*osexuality in the Anglo-oriented West over the last fifteen to twenty years. In this article I draw on this framework to describe the current moment in the Australian cultural politics of hom*osexuality. I focus on the issue of same-sex marriage as a key indicator of the currently emerging era. I then turn to two Australian texts about marriage that were produced in “the period before” this time, with the aim of recovering what has been partially lost from current formations of GLBT politics and from available memories of the past. Critical Histories Lisa Duggan’s term “the new hom*onormativity” is the frame that has gained widest currency among writers who point to the incorporation of certain versions of hom*osexuality into the neo-liberal (U.S.) mainstream. She identifies a sexual politics that “does not contest dominant heteronormative assumptions and institutions, but upholds and sustains them, while promising the possibility of a demobilized gay constituency and a privatized, depoliticized gay culture anchored in domesticity and consumption” (50). More recently, writing of the period inaugurated by the so-called “war on terror” and following Duggan, Jasbir Puar has introduced the term “hom*onationalism” to refer to “a collusion between hom*osexuality and American nationalism that is generated both by national rhetorics of patriotic inclusion and by gay and queer subjects themselves” (39). Damien Riggs adds the claims of Indigenous peoples in ongoing colonial contexts to the ground from which contemporary GLBT political claims can be critiqued. He concludes that while “queer people” will need to continue to struggle for rights, it is likely that cultural intelligibility “as a subject of the nation” will be extended only to those “who are established through the language of the nation (i.e., one that is founded upon the denial of colonial violence)” (97). Most writers who follow these kinds of critical analyses refer to the discursive place of hom*osexual couples and families, specifically marriage. For Duggan it was the increasing focus on “full gay access to marriage and military service” that defined hom*onormativity (50). Puar allows for a diversity of meanings of same-sex marriage, but claims that for many it is “a demand for reinstatement of white privileges and rights—rights of property and inheritance in particular” (29; see also Riggs 66–70). Of course not all authors locate the political focus on same-sex marriage and its effects as a conservative affair. British scholar Jeffrey Weeks stresses what “we” have gained and celebrates the rise of the discourse of human rights in relation to sexuality. “The very ordinariness of recognized same-sex unions in a culture which until recently cast hom*osexuality into secret corners and dark whispers is surely the most extraordinary achievement of all” (198), he writes. Australian historian Graham Willett takes a similar approach in his assessment of recent Australian history. Noting the near achievement of “the legal equality agenda for gay people” (“hom*os” 187), he notes that “the gay and lesbian movement went on reshaping Australian values and culture and society through the Howard years” (193). In his account it did this in spite of, and untainted by, the dominance of Howard's values and programs. The Howard period was “littered with episodes of insult and discrimination … [as the] government tried to stem the tide of gay, lesbian and transgender rights that had been flowing so strongly since 1969”, Willett writes (188). My own analysis of the Howard years acknowledges the significant progress made in law reform relating to same-sex couples and lesbian and gay parents but draws attention to its mutual constitution with the dominance of the white, patriarchal, neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideologies which dominated social and political life (2013 forthcoming). I argue that the costs of reform, fought for predominantly by white and middle class lesbians and gay men deploying hom*onormative discourses, included the creation of new identities—single lesbians and gays whose identity did not fit mainstream notions, non-monogamous couples and bad mothers—which were positioned on the illegitimate side of the newly enfranchised. Further the success of the reforms marginalised critical perspectives that are, for many, necessary tools for survival in socially conservative neoliberal times. Same-Sex Marriage in Australia The focus on same-sex marriage in the Australian context was initiated in April 2004 by then Prime Minister Howard. An election was looming and two same-sex couples were seeking recognition of their Canadian marriages through the courts. With little warning, Howard announced that he would amend the Federal Marriage Act to specify that marriage could only take place between a man and a woman. His amendment also prevented the recognition of same-sex marriages undertaken overseas. Legislation was rushed through the parliament in August of that year. In response, Australian Marriage Equality was formed in 2004 and remains at the centre of the GLBT movement. Since that time political rallies in support of marriage equality have been held regularly and the issue has become the key vehicle through which gay politics is understood. Australians across the board increasingly support same-sex marriage (over 60% in 2012) and a growing majority of gay and lesbian people would marry if they could (54% in 2010) (AME). Carol Johnson et al. note that while there are some critiques, most GLBT people see marriage “as a major equality issue” (Johnson, Maddison and Partridge 37). The degree to which Howard’s move changed the terrain of GLBT politics cannot be underestimated. The idea and practice of (non-legal) hom*osexual marriage in Australia is not new. And some individuals, publicly and privately, were calling for legal marriage for same-sex couples before 2004 (e.g. Baird, “Kerryn and Jackie”). But before 2004 legal marriage did not inspire great interest among GLBT people nor have great support among them. Only weeks before Howard’s announcement, Victorian legal academic and co-convenor of the Victorian Gay & Lesbian Rights Lobby Miranda Stewart concluded an article about same-sex relationship law reform in Victoria with a call to “begin the debate about gay marriage” (80, emphasis added). She noted that the growing number of Australian couples married overseas would influence thinking about marriage in Australia. She also asked “do we really want to be part of that ‘old edifice’ of marriage?” (80). Late in 2003 the co-convenors of the NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby declared that “many members of our community are not interested in marriage” and argued that there were more pressing, and more practical, issues for the Lobby to be focused on (Cerise and McGrory 5). In 2001 Jenni Millbank and Wayne Morgan, two leading legal academics and activists in the arena of same-sex relationship politics in Australia, wrote that “The notion of ‘same-sex marriage’ is quite alien to Australia” (Millbank and Morgan, 295). They pointed to the then legal recognition of heterosexual de facto relationships as the specific context in Australia, which meant that marriage was not viewed as "paradigmatic" (296). In 1998 a community consultation conducted by the Equal Opportunity Commission in Victoria found that “legalising marriage for same-sex couples did not enjoy broad based support from either the community at large or the gay and lesbian community” (Stewart 76). Alongside this general lack of interest in marriage, from the early-mid 1990s gay and lesbian rights groups in each state and territory began to think about, if not campaign for, law reform to give same-sex couples the same entitlements as heterosexual de facto couples. The eventual campaigns differed from state to state, and included moments of high profile public activity, but were in the main low key affairs that met with broadly sympathetic responses from state and territory ALP governments (Millbank). The previous reforms in every state that accorded heterosexual de facto couples near equality with married couples meant that gay and lesbian couples in Australia could gain most of the privileges available to heterosexual couples without having to encroach on the sacred territory (and federal domain) of marriage. In 2004 when Howard announced his marriage bill only South Australia had not reformed its law. Notwithstanding these reforms, there were matters relating to lesbian and gay parenting that remained in need of reform in nearly every jurisdiction. Further, Howard’s aggressive move in 2004 had been preceded by his dogged refusal to consider any federal legislation to remove discrimination. But in 2008 the new Rudd government enacted legislation to remove all discrimination against same-sex couples in federal law, with marriage and (ironically) the lack of anti-discrimination legislation on the grounds of sexuality the exceptions, and at the time of writing most states have made or will soon implement the reforms that give full lesbian and gay parenting rights. In his comprehensive account of gay politics from the 1950s onwards, published in 2000, Graham Willett does not mention marriage at all, and deals with the moves to recognise same-sex relationships in one sixteen line paragraph (Living 249). Willett’s book concludes with the decriminalisation of sex between men across every state of Australia. It was written just as the demand for relationship reform was becoming the central issue of GLBT politics. In this sense, the book marks the end of one era of hom*osexual politics and the beginning of the next which, after 2004, became organised around the desire for marriage. This understanding of the recent gay past has become common sense. In a recent article in the Adelaide gay paper blaze a young male journalist wrote of the time since the early 1970s that “the gay rights movement has shifted from the issue of decriminalising hom*osexuality nationwide to now lobbying for full equal rights for gay people” (Dunkin 3). While this (reductive and male-focused) characterisation is not the only one possible, I simply note that this view of past and future progress has wide currency. The shift of attention in this period to the demand for marriage is an intensification and narrowing of political focus in a period of almost universal turn by state and federal governments to neoliberalism and an uneven turn to neo-conservatism, directions which have detrimental effects on the lives of many people already marginalised by discourses of sexuality, race, class, gender, migration status, (dis)ability and so on. While the shift to the focus on marriage from 2004 might be understood as the logical final step in gaining equal status for gay and lesbian relationships (albeit one with little enthusiasm from the GLBT political communities before 2004), the initiation of this shift by Prime Minister Howard, with little preparatory debate in the LGBT political communities, meant that the issue emerged onto the Australian political agenda in terms defined by the (neo)conservative side of politics. Further, it is an example of identity politics which, as Lisa Duggan has observed in the US case, is “increasingly divorced from any critique of global capitalism” and settles for “a stripped-down equality, paradoxically imagined as compatible with persistent overall inequality” (xx). Brides before Marriage In the last part of this article I turn to two texts produced early in 1994—an activist document and an ephemeral performance during the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade. If we point only to the end of the era of (de)criminalisation, then the year 1997, when the last state, Tasmania, decriminalised male hom*osex, marks the shift from one era of the regulation of hom*osexuality to another. But 1994 bore the seeds of the new era too. Of course attempts to identify a single year as the border between one era and the next are rhetorical devices. But some significant events in 1994 make it a year of note. The Australian films Priscilla: Queen of the Desert and The Sum of Us were both released in 1994, marking particular Australian contributions to the growing presence of gay and lesbian characters in Western popular culture (e.g. Hamer and Budge). 1994 was the UN International Year of the Family (IYF) and the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras chose the theme “We are Family” and published endorsem*nt from both Prime Minister Keating and the federal opposition leader John Hewson in their program. In 1994 the ACT became the first Australian jurisdiction to pass legislation that recognised the rights and entitlements of same-sex couples, albeit in a very limited and preliminary form (Millbank 29). The NSW Gay and Lesbian Rights Lobby's (GLRL) 1994 discussion paper, The Bride Wore Pink, can be pinpointed as the formal start to community-based activism for the legal recognition of same-sex relationships. It was a revision of an earlier version that had been the basis for discussion among (largely inner Sydney) gay and lesbian communities where there had been lively debate and dissent (Zetlein, Lesbian Bodies 48–57). The 1994 version recommended that the NSW government amend the existing definition of de facto in various pieces of legislation to include lesbian and gay relationships and close non-cohabiting interdependent relationships as well. This was judged to be politically feasible. In 1999 NSW became the first state to implement wide ranging reforms of this nature although these were narrower than called for by the GLRL, “including lesser number of Acts amended and narrower application and definition of the non-couple category” (Millbank 10). My concern here is not with the politics that preceded or followed the 1994 version of The Bride, but with the document itself. Notwithstanding its status for some as a document of limited political vision, The Bride bore clear traces of the feminist and liberationist thinking, the experiences of the AIDS crisis in Sydney, and the disagreements about relationships within lesbian and gay communities that characterised the milieu from which it emerged. Marriage was clearly rejected, for reasons of political impossibility but also in light of a list of criticisms of its implication in patriarchal hierarchies of relationship value (31–2). Feminist analysis of relationships was apparent throughout the consideration of pros and cons of different legislative options. Conflict and differences of opinion were evident. So was humour. The proliferation of lesbian and gay commitment ceremonies was listed as both a pro and a con of marriage. On the one hand "just think about the prezzies” (31); on the other, “what will you wear” (32). As well as recommending change to the definition of de facto, The Bride recommended the allocation of state funds to consider “the appropriateness or otherwise of bestowing entitlements on the basis of relationships,” “the focusing on monogamy, exclusivity and blood relations” and the need for broader definitions of “relationships” in state legislation (3). In a gesture towards a political agenda beyond narrowly defined lesbian and gay interests, The Bride also recommended that “the lesbian and gay community join together with other groups to lobby for the removal of the cohabitation rule in the Social Security Act 1991” (federal legislation) (34). This measure would mean that the payment of benefits and pensions would not be judged in the basis of a person’s relationship status. While these radical recommendations may not have been energetically pursued by the GLRL, their presence in The Bride records their currency at the time. The other text I wish to excavate from 1994 is the “flotilla of lesbian brides” in the 1994 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. These lesbians later appeared in the April 1994 issue of Sydney lesbian magazine Lesbians on the Loose, and they have a public afterlife in a photo by Sydney photographer C Moore Hardy held in the City of Sydney archives (City of Sydney). The group of between a dozen and twenty lesbians (it is hard to tell from the photos) was dressed in waist-to-ankle tulle skirts, white bras and white top hats. Many wore black boots. Unshaven underarm hair is clearly visible. Many wore long necklaces around their necks and the magazine photo makes clear that one bride has a black whip tucked into the band of her skirt. In an article about lesbians and legal recognition of their relationships published in 1995, Sarah Zetlein referred to the brides as “chicks in white satin” (“Chicks”). This chick was a figure that refused the binary distinction between being inside and outside the law, which Zetlein argued characterised thinking about the then emerging possibilities of the legal recognition of lesbian (and gay) relationships. Zetlein wrote that “the chick in white satin”: Represents a politics which moves beyond the concerns of one’s own identity and demands for inclusion to exclusion to a radical reconceptualisation of social relations. She de(con)structs and (re) constructs. … The chick in white satin’s resistance often lies in her exposure and manipulation of her regulation. It is not so much a matter of saying ‘no’ to marriage outright, or arguing only for a ‘piecemeal’ approach to legal relationship regulation, or lobbying for de facto inclusion as was recommended by The Bride Wore Pink, but perverting the understanding of what these legally-sanctioned sexual, social and economic relationships mean, hence undermining their shaky straight foundations.(“Chicks” 56–57) Looking back to 1994 from a time nearly twenty years later when (straight) lesbian brides are celebrated by GLBT culture, incorporated into the mainstream and constitute a market al.ready anticipated by “the wedding industrial complex” (Ingraham), the “flotilla of lesbian brides” can be read as a prescient queer negotiation of their time. It would be a mistake to read the brides only in terms of a nascent interest in legally endorsed same-sex marriage. In my own limited experience, some lesbians have always had a thing for dressing up in wedding garb—as brides or bridesmaids. The lesbian brides marching group gave expression to this desire in queer ways. The brides were not paired into couples. Zetlein writes that “the chick in white satin … [has] a veritable posse of her girlfriends with her (and they are all the brides)” (“Chicks” 63, original emphasis). Their costumes were recognisably bridal but also recognisably parodic and subverting; white but hardly innocent; the tulle and bras were feminine but the top hats were accessories conventionally worn by the groom and his men; the underarm hair a sign of feminist body politics. The whip signalled the lesbian underground sexual culture that flourished in Sydney in the early 1990s (O’Sullivan). The black boots were both lesbian street fashion and sensible shoes for marching! Conclusion It would be incorrect to say that GLBT politics and lesbian and gay couples who desire legal marriage in post-2004 Australia bear no trace of the history of ambivalence, critique and parody of marriage and weddings that have come before. The multiple voices in the 2011 collection of “Australian perspectives on same-sex marriage” (Marsh) put the lie to this claim. But in a climate where our radical pasts are repeatedly forgotten and lesbian and gay couples increasingly desire legal marriage, the political argument is hell-bent on inclusion in the mainstream. There seems to be little interest in a dance around the margins of inclusion/exclusion. I add my voice to the concern with the near exclusive focus on marriage and the terms on which it is sought. It is not a liberationist politics to which I have returned in recalling The Bride Wore Pink and the lesbian brides of the 1994 Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, but rather an attention to the differences in the diverse collective histories of non-heterosexual politics. The examples I elaborate are hardly cases of radical difference. But even these instances might remind us that “we” have never been on a single road to equality: there may be incommensurable differences between “us” as much as commonalities. They also remind that desires for inclusion and recognition by the state should be leavened with a strong dose of laughter as well as with critical political analysis. References Australian Marriage Equality (AME). “Public Opinion Nationally.” 22 Oct. 2012. ‹http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/wp/who-supports-equality/a-majority-of-australians-support-marriage-equality/›. Baird, Barbara. “The Politics of hom*osexuality in Howard's Australia.” Acts of Love and Lust: Sexuality in Australia from 1945-2010. Eds. Lisa Featherstone, Rebecca Jennings and Robert Reynolds. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2013 (forthcoming). —. “‘Kerryn and Jackie’: Thinking Historically about Lesbian Marriages.” Australian Historical Studies 126 (2005): 253–271. Butler, Judith. “Is Kinship Always Already Heterosexual?” Differences 13.1 (2002): 14–44. Cerise, Somali, and Rob McGrory. “Why Marriage Is Not a Priority.” Sydney Star Observer 28 Aug. 2003: 5. City of Sydney Archives [061\061352] (C. Moore Hardy Collection). ‹http://www.dictionaryofsydney.org//image/40440?zoom_highlight=c+moore+hardy›. Duggan Lisa. The Twilight of Equality?: Neoliberalism, Cultural politics, and the Attack on Democracy. Boston: Beacon Press, 2003. Dunkin, Alex. “Hunter to Speak at Dr Duncan Memorial.” blaze 290 (August 2012): 3. Hamer, Diane, and Belinda Budege, Eds. The Good Bad And The Gorgeous: Popular Culture's Romance With Lesbianism. London: Pandora, 1994. Ingraham, Chrys. White Weddings: Romancing Heterosexuality in Popular Culture, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 2008. Johnson, Carol, and Sarah Maddison, and Emma Partridge. “Australia: Parties, Federalism and Rights Agendas.” The Lesbian and Gay Movement and the State. Ed. Manon Tremblay, David Paternotte and Carol Johnson. Surrey: Ashgate, 2011. 27–42. Lesbian and Gay Legal Rights Service. The Bride Wore Pink, 2nd ed. Sydney: GLRL, 1994. Marsh, Victor, ed. Speak Now: Australian Perspectives on Same-Sex Marriage. Melbourne: Clouds of Mgaellan, 2011. Millbank Jenni, “Recognition of Lesbian and Gay Families in Australian Law—Part one: Couples.” Federal Law Review 34 (2006): 1–44Millbank, Jenni, and Wayne Morgan. “Let Them Eat Cake and Ice Cream: Wanting Something ‘More’ from the Relationship Recognition Menu.” Legal Recognition of Same-Sex Partnerships: A Study of National, European and International Law. Ed. Robert Wintermute and Mads Andenaes. Portland: Hart Publishing, 2001. 295–316. O'Sullivan Kimberley. “Dangerous Desire: Lesbianism as Sex or Politics.” Ed. Jill Julius Matthews. Sex in Public: Australian Sexual Cultures Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1997. 120–23. Puar, Jasbir K. Terrorist Assemblages: hom*onationalism in Queer Times. Durham: Duke UP, 2007 Stewart, Miranda, “It’s a Queer Thing: Campaigning for Equality and Social Justice for Lesbians and Gay Men”. Alternative Law Journal 29.2 (April 2004): 75–80. Walker, Kristen. “The Same-Sex Marriage Debate in Australia.” The International Journal of Human Rights 11.1–2 (2007): 109–130. Weeks, Jeffrey. The World We Have Won: The Remaking of Erotic and Intimate Life. Abindgdon: Routledge, 2007. Willett, Graham. Living Out Loud: A History of Gay and Lesbian Activism in Australia. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2000. Willett, Graham. “Howard and the hom*os.” Social Movement Studies 9.2 (2010): 187–199. Zetlein, Sarah. Lesbian Bodies Before the Law: Intimate Relations and Regulatory Fictions. Honours Thesis, University of Adelaide, 1994. —. “Lesbian Bodies before the Law: Chicks in White Satin.” Australian Feminist Law Journal 5 (1995): 48–63.

Abstract:

This article forwards a new way of thinking about p*rnography, based on the changing work practices of web-based and film/video amateur p*rn producers and their spectators. Their efforts are not to be confused with individuals who pose for p*rn sites and simulate sex as glossy “amateurs” – bored housewives, horny freshmen, nasty teen virgins, battered Russian migrants, pregnant mommies, crude aunts or rapist uncles, etc. In most types of commercial p*rn, amateur roles are scripted, filmed and edited by producers who direct and pay models to enter their stage setups and sex scenes. Different from those are sexually driven media practitioners who make sex scenes to explore personal desires and respond to those of others. They use a variety of recording devices to capture moments, screen scenes privately or in small groups, or upload them on the web through webcams, live journals and web logs. Looking at the website of “p*rnblogger” Carly, for instance, we can see how the sexual body is revealed through daily online writing modes and feedback from other web users. Moreover, Carly masters the discourses of eroticism and p*rn theory as overlapping knowledge regimes of sexual representation. In an entry uploaded on March 26, 2004, she writes about Internet p*rn debates and the plight of children and parents. Moreover, in the same entry, she shows pictures of her collection of dild*s and how she uses them on her anal region. One could think of Carly’s body as inhabiting “performance strata” of p*rn cultures as they mediate real-life contexts. As explained by performance theorist Jon McKenzie in Perform or Else: From Discipline to Performance, strata are layers of forces and intensities that give form to matter by organizing small molecular entities into aggregations. The performance strata bundle a variety of cultural, organizational and technological performances as discursive and normative working methods. McKenzie explains that the agents of the performance strata harbor new forms of normativity, while they may also recognize cracks, fissures and “outside” discourses as agents in their force fields (176). The strata are solidified and disrupted by an attentiveness to the active-performative nature of language and bodily gestures, as we develop creativity in our dealings with art and technology, or new attitudes towards social-sexual networking and cultural vitality. Work ethics, the use of technological languages, social and intellectual curiosities, intermingle and intersect to become strata of power and knowledge. Whereas nation-state governments and capitalist p*rn industries are arguably organized by an older “discipline or punish” maxim (as consolidated empires decide to “push-down” content onto consumers, or punish consumers who access p*rn in surveilled places), amateur p*rnography thrives on a different type of exhibitionism and voyeurism. p*rnographers and voyeurs communicate with each other and learn how to articulate fluctuating sexual scenarios and p*rnographic roles. This new trend towards mutual communication and bonding is currently developed in two types of p*rnography, in web-based platforms for alternative p*rnography, where the exchanges can be complex and partly private; and in community theaters where the exchange is raw and carried out in public. A good example of the first type would be web sites where individuals collaborate in scripting, shooting, and responding to p*rnographic portraits. www.spread.com (note: no longer available online) is a good example such of such a p*rn site. The site was set up by Barbara DeGenevieve, Professor at the School of the Art Institute Chicago, in collaboration with Terry Pirtle, the web master and manager of the site. As the announcement read, the site is “… committed to the queer community, to serve a segment of that community that is under-represented in web p*rnography.” The ssspread.com site encourages queer and transgender people to submit p*rn scripts and organize film-shoots to act out scenarios. The outcome of this collaboration process is filmed and still-images are uploaded on the site on a weekly basis. For instance, in the “Road Side Service” slide-show, posted on October 30, 2003, Chicago-based singer Nomy Lamm acts out a macho-redneck scenario as a “male trucker” who receives a blowj*b from a “transman” partner, then penetrates the partner anally with a dild* on the hood of the vehicle, only to finally reveal her co*ck to be in the form of an amputated leg. De Genevieve explains the collaboration process with participants in an interview: I usually collaborate with the people that I am filming, and I ask them ahead of time to carefully consider what they want to do in the session. Very often, I just leave the scene up them, or they come up with a scenario that we have discussed beforehand. I will add something to it or ask them to do something slightly different. But, of course, I myself could never come up with the variety of scenarios that they come up with. A lot of people I shoot are young and into punk aesthetics. The environments they live in are definitely not mainstream, and this becomes part of the ambience of a shoot. Yesterday, I shot in a model’s kitchen. It was a pretty chaotic environment with dishes in the sink, food remnants on the countertops and floors, and stuff all over the place. There was another shoot a couple months ago in a room where I literally couldn’t see the floor for the clothes, CDs, magazines, over-flowing ashtrays, sex toys, pillows… But I find these living spaces really fascinating because these are the places where people really have sex. ” (DeGenevieve, 2002) www.spread.com also encourages social activities between members. Moreover, the site contains links to p*rnographic stories in the “Story Lounge” area. The “Articles and Interviews” area has interviews with sex scholars and activists such as Shannon Bell and Annie Sprinkle. The members also give feedback to weekly still-images by writing messages on the messageboard. This is an important development in the history of p*rnography, as spectators may be increasingly interested in giving feedback to producers to complement their habits of voyeuristic specatorship and masturbation. The model of amateur p*rn is thus an important challenge for the commercial p*rn industries, which for the most part construct an imagined audience of quietly masturbating and org*smic voyeurs. This is the normative impulse in commercial p*rnography, exemplified in the tendency to show extreme close-ups of human intercourse or sex with underage models. These normative elements are contested by the growing masses of alternative p*rnographers, who crack the system while marking symbolically varied p*rn movies and diverse body types as “ordinary”. A parallel development to web-based producers would be amateur p*rnographers screening their works in community centers or arthouse theaters, where voyeurs once again are invited to watch and share responses. This development has started to gain attention in the US mass media with TV and film critics expressing both revulsion and propulsion towards this trend (Dana 2002). In the Boston area, for instance, Kim Airs and the arthouse theater Coolidge Corner Cinema have started to organize annual screenings of amateur p*rn movies. The event, entitled You Oughta Be in Pictures, brings together home-made p*rn movies and low-budget movies made by artists and filmmakers. The appeal of the event lies exactly in the communication between makers and viewers, the untrained screen-performers and filmmakers, whose movies cause exhilarating responses in the audiences. Audiences in this screening are large and loud, at times shouting out their reactions, or laughing at how the filmmakers conceive of sexual positions and camera angles. In some movies, the scenes fail to be explicit or dynamic at all. For example, a female masturbation scene shows a moving hand on a hidden vagin*, where the soundtrack consists of quiet and camera-shy moaning. This is amateur p*rn, a bundle of an “ordinary” person’s sexual efforts and their representation. As the above example demonstrates, amateur p*rn does not always cater to arousal or masturbation, but can nevertheless trigger fulfilling reactions in audiences, as screenings give producers an opportunity to interact with spectators and get immersed in changing feedback loops. One man in the audience of the 2002 screening of You Oughta Be in Pictures described his confused reaction: “I have seen p*rnography before. I’ve seen quite a bit of it. But this was unlike any of those experiences. I am not exactly sure what is different about it. But the response that it generated made me feel asexual” (Syme 2002). A female respondent emphasized the importance of humor in the implicit communication between the filmmakers and the viewers. She writes: “But I think it was the humor part that I really enjoyed. It allows you to step back from all the taboo-ness of sex. There is a give and take in the sense that some filmmakers will poke fun at audience response by deliberately putting extreme images on screen, while audience members will at points poke fun at the filmmaker’s attempt at ‘sexiness’ at certain intervals” (Yu, 2002). Amateur p*rnographers and their respondents are the everyday agents of mediated sex, exploring acts of media making and p*rn debates. Amateur p*rnographers assert their bodies as sexually active entities negotiating power structures through performative modes of awareness within media communities. Amateur p*rnographers live the era of Internet p*rn, indie media and globalization, inventing “peer-to-peer” languages of eroticism and small-scale economies as pockets of sexual health and experimentation. This is perhaps the long-awaited schooling of p*rnography, its rapid democratization, its turn to more diversified expressions of sexual-aesthetic lust. As was reported in a recent New York Times article, more women and queer producers are entering small-scale sex sites and industries, and making attempts to promote better working conditions for sex workers and media art” (Navarro, 2004). McKenzie predicts that there will be no “good schools” of performance to replace the “bad“ ones. There are only pockets of activism that assert a need to perform and be performed, as communication technologies are rapidly modifying the way we share knowledge and nurture the body. This article was first published as ‘the New Media Schooling of the Amateur p*rnographer’ in Spectator 24:1 (Spring 2004). An excerpt was also published in Freecooperation (SUNY Buffalo, April 2004). References Bisbee, Dana. “Real Candid Camera” Boston Herald. October 24, 2002. DeGenevieve, Barbara. Personal interview with author. Unpublished Text. October 9, 2002. McKenzie, Jon. 2001. Perform or Else. From Discipline to Performance. New York: Routledge, p. 176. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/20/national/20FEM.htmlhttp://www.p*rnblography.com/daily_grind/ Syme, Ewen, Personal Interview with Author. Unpublished Text. January 7, 2002. Yu, Titi, Personal Interview with Author. Unpublished Text. January 7, 2002. http://www.ssspread.com MLA Style Jacobs, Katrien. "The Amateur p*rnographer and the Glib Voyeur." M/C Journal 7.4 (2004). 10 October 2004 <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0410/06_amateur.php>. APA Style Jacobs, K. (2004 Oct 11). The Amateur p*rnographer and the Glib Voyeur, M/C Journal 7(4). Retrieved Oct 10 2004 from <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0410/06_amateur.php>

Abstract:

This essay originates out of our shared interest in genres and media forms used for identity practices that do not cohere into a narrative or a fixed representation of who someone is. It takes the current heightened visibility of drag as a mode of performance that explicitly engages with identity as a product materialized—but not completed—by the ongoing process of performance. We consider the new drag, which we define below, as a form of playing with identity that combines bodily practices (comportment and use of voice) and adornment (make-up, clothing, wigs, and accessories) with an array of media (photography, live performance, social media and television). Given the limited space available, we will not be engaging with the propositions made during earlier feminist and queer thinking that drag is not inherently subversive and may reinscribe gender and race norms through their hyperbolic recitation (Butler 230-37; hooks 145-56). While we think there is much to be gained from revisiting these critiques in light of the changes in conceptualisations of gender in queer subcultures, we are not interested in framing drag as subversive or resistant in relation to the norms of masculinity and femininity. Instead, we follow Eve Sedgwick’s interest in reparative practices adopted by queer-identified subjects who must learn to survive in a hostile culture (“Paranoid”) and trace two lines of analysis we identify in drag’s new found visibility that demonstrate the reparative potential of automedia.At time of writing, RuPaul’s Drag Race (RPDR) has truly hit the big time. Pop icon Christina Aguilera was a guest judge for the first episode of its tenth season (Daw “Christina”), and the latest episode of RuPaul’s All-Stars season three spin-off show was the most-watched of any show in its network’s history (Crowley). RuPaul Charles, the producer and star of RPDR, has just been honoured with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, decades after he began his career as a drag performer (Daw “RuPaul”). Drag queens are finally becoming part of American mainstream media and drag as an art form and a cultural practice is on its way to becoming part of discourse about gender and identity around the world, via powerful systems of digital mediation and distribution. RPDR’s success is a good way to think about how drag, a long-standing performance art form, is having a “break out” moment in popular culture. We argue here that RPDR is doing this within an automedia framework.What does automedia mean in the context of drag on television and social media? We understand automedia to be about the mediation of identity when identity is both a product of representation and a process that is continually becoming, expressed in the double meaning of the word “life” as biography and as process (Poletti “Queer Collages” 362; Poletti and Rak 6-7). In this essay we build on our shared interest in developing a critical mode that can respond to forms of automedia that explore “the possibility of identity in the absence of narration” (Rak 172). What might artists who work with predominantly non-narrative forms such as drag performance show us about the ongoing interconnection between technologies and subjectivities as they represent and think through what “life” looks like, on stage and off?Automedia names life as a process and a product that has the potential to queer temporality and normative forms of identification, what Jack Halberstam has called “queer time” (1). We understand Halberstam’s evocation of queer time as suitable for being thought through automedia because of their characterisation of queer as “a form of self-description in the past decade or so … [that] has the potential to open up new life narratives and alternative relations to time and space” (2). Queer time, Halberstam explains, comes from the collapse of the past and shaky relation to futurity gay men experienced during the height of the American AIDs crisis, but they also see queer time, significantly, as exceeding the terms of its arrival. Queer time could be about the “potentiality of a life unscripted by the conventions of family, inheritance, and child rearing” (2). Queer time, then, evokes the possibility of making a life narrative that does not have to follow a straight line or stay “on script,” and does not have to feature conventional milestones or touchstones in its unfolding. If queer time can be thought alongside automedia, within drag performances that are not about straight lives, narrative histories and straight time can come into view.Much has been written about drag as a performance that creates a public, for example, as part of a queer world-building project that shoots unpredictably through spaces beyond performance locations (Berlant and Warner 558). Halberstam’s shift to thinking of queer time as an opening of new life narratives and a different relation to time has similar potential when considering the work of RPDR as automedia, because the shift of drag performance away from clubs, parades and other queer spaces to television and the internet is accompanied by a concern, manifested in the work of RuPaul himself, with drag history and the management of drag memory. We argue that a concern with the relationship between time and identity in RPDR is an attempt to open up, through digital networked media, a queer understanding of time that is in relation to drag of the past, but not always in a linear way. The performances of season nine winner Sasha Velour, and Velour’s own preoccupation with drag history in her performances and art projects, is an indicator of the importance of connecting the twin senses of “life” as process and product found in automedia to performance and narration.The current visibility of drag in popular culture is characterised by a shifting relationship between drag and media: what was once a location-based, temporally specific form of performance which occurred in bars, has been radically changed through the increased contact between the media forms of performance, television and social media. While local drag queens are often the celebrities (or “superstars”) of their local subcultural scene, reality television (in the form of RPDR) and social media (particularly Instagram) have radically increased the visibility of some drag queens, turning them into international celebrities with hundreds of thousands of fans. These queens now speak to audiences far beyond their local communities, and to audiences who may not have any knowledge of the queer subcultures that have nurtured generations of drag performers. Under the auspices of RPDR, drag queens have gained a level of cultural visibility that produces fascinating, and complex, encounters between subcultural identity practices and mainstream media tropes. Amongst her many tasks—being fierce, flawless, hilarious, and able to turn out a consummate lip sync performance—the newly visible drag queen is also a teacher. Enacting RuPaul’s theory of identity from his song title—“We’re all born naked and the rest is drag” (“Born”)—drag queens who in some way embody or make use of RuPaul’s ideas have the potential to advance a queer perspective on identity as a process in keeping with Judith Butler’s influential theory of identity performativity (Butler 7-16). In so doing they can provide fresh insights into the social function of media platforms and their genres in the context of queer lives. They are what we call “new” drag queens, because of their access to technology and digital forms of image distribution. They can refer to classic drag queen performance culture, and they make use of classic drag performance as a genre, but their transnational media presence and access to more recent forms of identification to describe themselves, such as trans, genderqueer or nonbinary, mark their identity presentations and performance presences as a departure from other forms of drag.While there is clearly a lot to be said about drag’s “break out,” in this essay we focus on two elements of the “new media” drag that we think speak directly, and productively, to the larger question of how cultural critics can understand the connection between identity and mediation as mutually emergent phenomena. As a particularly striking practitioner of automediality, the new drag queen draws our attention to the way that drag performance is an automedial practice that creates “queer time” (Halberstam), making use of the changing status of camp as a practice for constructing, and mediating identity. In what follows we examine the statements about drag and the autobiographical statements presented by RuPaul Charles and Sasha Velour (the winner of RPDR Season Nine) to demonstrate automediality as a powerful practice for queer world-making and living.No One Ever Wins Snatch Game: RuPaul and TimeAs we have observed at the opening of this essay, queer time is an oppositional practice, a refusal of those who belong to queer communities to fall into step with straight ideas about history, futurity, reproduction and the heteronormative idea of family, and a way to understand how communities mark occasions, conceptualize the history and traditions of subcultures. Queer time has the potential to rethink daily living and history differently and to tell accounts of lives in a different way, to “open up new life narratives,” as Halberstam says (2). RuPaul Charles’s own life story could be understood as a way to open up new life narratives literally by constructing what a queer life and career could mean in the aftermath of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. His 1995 memoir, Lettin It All Hang Out, details RuPaul’s early career in 1980s Atlanta, Georgia and in New York as an often-difficult search for what would make him a star. RuPaul did not at first conceptualize himself as a drag star, but as a punk musician in Atlanta and then as part of the New York Club Kid community, which developed when New York clubs were in danger of closing because of fear of the AIDS epidemic (Flynn). RuPaul became adept at self-promotion and image-building while he was part of these rebellious punk and dance club subcultures that refused gender and lifestyle norms (Lettin 62-5). It might seem to be an unusual beginning for a drag star, but as RuPaul writes, “I always knew I was going to be star [but] I never thought it was going to be as a drag queen” (Lettin 64). There was no narrative of mainstream success that RuPaul—a gay, gender non-binary African-American man from the American Midwest—could follow.Since he was a drag performer too, RuPaul eventually “had an epiphany. Why couldn’t I [he] become a mainstream pop star in drag? Who said it couldn’t be done?” (Workin’ It 159). And he decided that rather than look for a model of success to follow, he would queer the mainstream model for success. As he observes, “I looked around at my favorite stars and realized that they were drag queens too. In fact every celebrity is a drag queen” (Lettin 129). Proceeding from the idea that all people are in fact drag artists—the source of RuPaul’s aformentioned catch-phrase and song title “We’re all born naked and the rest is drag” (“Born”), RuPaul moved the show business trajectory into queer time, making the “formula” for success the labour required of drag queens to create personae, entertain, promote themselves and make a successful living (and a life) in dangerous work environments—a process presented in his song “Supermodel” and its widely-cited lyric “You better work!” (“Supermodel”). The video for “Supermodel” shows RuPaul in his persona as Supermodel of the World, “working” as a performer and a member of the public in New York to underscore the different kinds of labour that is involved, and that this labour is necessary for anyone to become successful (“Supermodel” video).When RuPaul’s Drag Race began in 2010, RuPaul modelled the challenges in the show on his own career in an instance of automedia, where the non-narrative aspects of drag performance and contest challenges were connected to the performance of RuPaul’s own story. According to one of RuPaul’s friends who produces the show: “The first season, all the challenges were ‘Ru did this, so you did this.’ It was Ru’s philosophy” (Snetiker). As someone who was without models for success, RuPaul intends for RPDR to provide a model for others to follow. The goal of the show is the replication of RuPaul’s own career trajectory: the winners of RPDR are each crowned “America’s Next Drag Superstar,” because they have successfully learned from RuPaul’s own experiences so that they too can develop their careers as drag artists. This pattern has persisted on RPDR, where the contestants are often asked to participate in challenges that reflect RuPaul’s own struggles to become a star as a way to “train” them to develop their careers. Contestants have, like RuPaul himself, starred in low-budget films, played in a punk band, marketed their own perfume, commemorated the work of the New York Club Kids, and even planned the design and marketing of their own memoirs.RPDR contestants are also expected to know popular culture of the past and present, and they are judged on how well they understand their own “herstory” of the drag communities and queer culture. Snatch Game, a popular segment where contestants have to impersonate celebrities on a queer version of the Match Game series, is a double test. To succeed, contestants must understand how to impersonate celebrities past and present within a camp aesthetic. But the segment also tests how well drag queens understand the genre of game show television, a genre that no longer exists on television (except in the form of Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy), and that many of the RPDR contestants are not old enough to have seen, performing witty taglines and off-the-cuff jokes they hope will land in a very tight time frame. Sasha Velour, the winner of season nine, won praise for her work in the Snatch Game segment in episode six because, acting on advice from RuPaul, she played Marlene Dietrich and not her first choice, queer theorist Judith Butler (RuPaul’s). Sasha Velour was able to make Dietrich, a queer icon known for her film work in the 1920-1940s, humorous in the game show context, showing that she understands queer history, and that she is a skilful impersonator who understands how to navigate a genre that is part of RuPaul’s own life story. The queer time of RuPaul’s narrative is transmitted to a skill set future drag stars need to use: a narrative of a life becomes part of performance. RPDR is, in this sense, automedia in action as queens make their personae “live,” perform part of RuPaul’s “life” story, and get to “live” on the show for another week if they are successful. The point of Snatch Game is how well a queen can perform, how good she is at entertaining and educating audiences, and how well she deals with an archaic genre, that of the television game show. No one ever “wins” Snatch Game because that is not the point of it. But those who win the Snatch Game challenge often go on to win RPDR, because they have demonstrated improvisational skill, comic timing, knowledge of RuPaul’s own life narrative touchstones and entertained the audience.Performative Agency: The Drag Performance as Resource for Queer LivingVelour’s embodied performance in the Snatch Game of the love and knowledge of popular culture associated with camp, and its importance to the art of drag, highlights the multifaceted use of media as a resource for identity practices that characterizes drag as a form of automedia. Crucially, it exemplifies the complex way that media forms are heavily cited and replayed in new combinations in order to say something real about the ways of living of a specific artist or person. Sasha Velour’s impersonation of Dietrich is not one in which Velour’s persona disappears: indeed, she is highly commended by RuPaul, and fans, because her embodiment of Dietrich in the anachronous media environment of the Snatch Game works to further Velour’s unique persona and skill as a drag artist. Velour queers time with her Dietrich in order to demonstrate her unique sensibility and identity. Thus, reality TV, silent film, cabaret, improvisation and visual presentation are brought together in an embodied performance that advances Velour’s specific form of drag and is taken as a strong marker of who Sasha Velour is.But what exactly is Sasha Velour doing when she clarifies her identity by dressing as Marlene Dietrich and improvises the diva’s answers to questions on a game show? This element of drag is clearly connected to the aesthetics of camp that have a long tradition in gay and queer culture. Original theories of camp theorized it as a practice of taste and interpretation (Sontag)—camp described a relationship to the objects of popular culture that was subversive because it celebrated the artificiality of aesthetic forms, and was therefore ironizing. However, this understanding of camp does not adequately describe its role in postmodern culture or how some queer subcultures cultivate the use media forms for identity practices (O’Neill 21). In her re-casting of camp, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick argues:we need to [think of camp] not in terms of parody or even wit, but with more of an eye of its visceral, operatic power: the startling outcrops of overinvested erudition; the prodigal production of alternative histories; the ‘over’-attachment to fragmentary, marginal, waste, lost, or leftover cultural products; the richness of affective variety; and the irrepressible, cathartic fascination with ventriloquist forms of relation. (Sedgwick The Weather 66)This reframing of camp emphasises affect, attachment and forms of relation as ongoing processes for the making of queer life (a process), rather than as elements of queer identity (a product). For Sedgwick camp is a practice or process that mediates queerness in the context of a hostile mainstream media culture that does not connect queer ways of living with flourishing or positive outcomes (Sedgwick “Paranoid Reading” 28). In O’Neill’s account, camp does not involve attachment to the diva as a fixed identity whose characteristics can be adopted in irony or impersonation in which the individual disappears (16). Rather, it is the diva’s labour—her way of marshalling her talent to produce compelling performances, which come to be the hallmark of her career and identity—that is the site of queer identification. What RuPaul wittily refers to as a drag queen’s “charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent” (the acronym is important), O’Neill refers to as the diva’s “performative agency”—the primary “power to perform” (16, emphasis in original). This is the positive power of camp as form of automediation for queer world making: media forms provide resources that queer subjects can draw on in assembling a performance of identity as modes of embodiment and ways of being that can be cited (the specific posture of Dietrich, for example, which Velour mimics) and in terms of the affect required to marshal the performance itself.When she was crowned the winner of season nine of RPDR, Sasha Velour emphasised the drag queen’s performative agency itself as a resource for queer identity practices. After being announced the winner, Velour said: “Let’s change sh*t up. Let’s get all inspired by all this beauty, all this beauty, and change the motherf*cking world” (Queentheban). This narrative of the world-changing power of the beauty of drag refers to the visibility of the new drag queens, who through television and social media now have thousands of fans across the world. Yet, this narrative of the collective potential of drag is accompanied by Velour presenting her own autobiographical narrative that posits drag as an automedial practice whose “richness of affective variety” has been central to her coming to terms with the death of her mother from cancer. In interviews and in her magazine about drag (Velour: The Drag Magazine) Velour narrates the evolution of her drag and her identity as a “bald queen” whose signature look includes a clean-shaven head which is often unadorned or revealed in her performances as directly linked to her mother’s baldness brought on by treatment for cancer (WBUR).In an autobiographical photo-essay titled “Gone” published in Velour, Velour poses in a series of eight photographs which are accompanied by handwritten text reflecting on the role of drag in Velour’s grieving for her mother. In the introduction, the viewer is told that the “books and clothes” used in the photos belonged to Velour’s mother, Jane. The penultimate image shows Velour lying on grass in drag without a wig, looking up at the camera and is accompanied by nineteen statements elucidating what drag is, all of which are in keeping with Sedgwick’s reframing of camp practices as reparative strategies for queer lives: “Drag is for danger / Drag is for safety / Drag is for remembering / Drag is for recovering.” Affect, catharsis, and operatic power are narrated and visually rendered in the photo-essay, presenting drag as a highly personal form of automediation for Velour. The twentieth line defining drag appears on the final page, accompanied by a photograph of Velour from behind, her arms thrown back and tensile: “Drag is for dressing up / And this is my mother’s dress.”Taken together, Velour’s generic and highly personal descriptions of drag as a process and product that empowers individual and collective queer lives define drag as a form of automedia in which identity and living are a constant process of creativity and invention “where ideas about the self and what it means to live are tested, played with, rejected, and embraced” (Rak 177).Velour’s public statements and autobiographical works foreground how the power, investment, richness and catharsis encapsulated in drag performance offers an important antidote to the hostility to queer ways of being embodied by an assimilationist gay politics. In a recent interview, Velour commented on the increased visibility of her drag beyond her localised performances in “dive bars” in New York:When Drag Race came on television I feel like the gay community in general was focussed on […] dare I say, a kind of assimilation politics, showing straight people and the world at large that we are just like everyone else and I think drag offered a radical different saying [sic] and reminded people that there’s been this grand tradition of queer people and gay people saying ‘actually we’re fabulously different and this is why.’ (PopBuzz)Velour suggests that in its newly visible forms outside localised queer cultures, drag as a media spectacle offers an important alternative to the pressure for queer people to assimilate to dominant forms of living, those practices, forms of attachment and relation Halberstam associates with straight time.ConclusionThe queer time and performative agency enacted in drag provides a compelling example of non-narrative forms of identity work in which identity is continuously emerging through labour, innovation, and creativity (or—in RuPaul’s formulation—charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent). This creativity draws on popular culture as a resource and site of history for queer identities, an evocation of queer time. The queer time of drag as a performance genre has an increasing presence in media forms such as television, social media and print media, bringing autobiographical performances and narratives by drag artists into new venues. This multiple remediation of drag recasts queer cultural practices beyond localised subcultural contexts into the broader media cultures in order to amplify and celebrate queerness as a form of difference, and differing, as automediality.ReferencesBerlant, Lauren, and Michael Warner. “Sex in Public.” Critical Inquiry 24.2 (Winter 1998): 547-566.Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of Sex. 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New York: NYU P, 2005. 1-21.hooks, bell. “Is Paris Burning?” Black Looks: Race and Representation. Boston: South End, 1992.O’Neill, Edward. “The M-m-mama of Us All: Divas and the Cultural Logic of Late Ca(m)pitalism.” Camera Obscura 65.22 (2007): 11–37. Poletti, Anna, and Julie Rak, eds. “Introduction: Digital Dialogues.” Identity Technologies: Constructing the Self Online. Madison, WI: U of Wisconsin P, 2014. 1-25.Poletti, Anna. “Periperformative Life Narrative: Queer Collages.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 22.3 (2016): 359-379.PopBuzz. “Sasha Velour Talks All Stars 3, Riverdale and Life after Winning RuPaul’s Drag Race.” 16 Feb. 2018 <https://youtu.be/xyl5PIRZ_Hw>.Queentheban. “Sasha Velour vs Peppermint | ‘It's Not Right But It's Okay’ & Winner Announcement.” 23 Jun. 2017 <https://youtu.be/8RqTzzcOLq4>.Rak, Julie. “Life Writing versus Automedia: The Sims 3 Game as a Life Lab.” Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 38.2 (Spring 2015): 155-180.RuPaul. “Born Naked.” Born Naked. RuCo, Inc., 2014.———. Lettin It All Hang Out: An Autobiography. New York: Hyperion Books, 1999.———. “Supermodel (You Better Work).” Supermodel of the World. Tommy Boy, 1993.———. “Supermodel (You Better Work).” Dir. Randy Barbato. MTV, 1993. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw9LOrHU8JI>.———. Workin’ It!: RuPaul's Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Style. New York: HarperCollins, 2010.RuPaul’s Drag Race. RuPaul. World of Wonder Productions. Season 9, 2017.Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. The Weather in Proust. Durham and London: Duke UP, 2011.———. “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading; Or, You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Introduction Is about You.” Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction. Ed. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Durham: Duke UP, 1997. 1-37.Sontag, Susan. “Notes on ‘Camp’.” Camp: Queer Aesthetics and the Performing Subject: A Reader. Ed. Fabio Cleto. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1991. 53-65.Snetiker, Mark. “The Oral History of RuPaul.” Entertainment Weekly (2016). <http://rupaul.ew.com/>.WBUR. “Sasha Velour on Why Drag Is a ‘Political and Historical Art Form’.” 24 July 2017. <http://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2017/07/24/sasha-velour>.Velour, Sasha. “Gone (with Daphne Chan).” sashavelour.com. <http://sashavelour.com/work/#/daphnechan/>.

Abstract:

In a 1999 interview with the online magazine The AV Club, a subsidiary of satirical news website, The Onion, Bret Easton Ellis claimed: “I’ve never written a single scene that I can say took place, I’ve never written a line of dialogue that I’ve heard someone say or that I have said” (qtd. in Klein). Ten years later, in the same magazine, Ellis was reminded of this quote and asked why most of his novels have been perceived as veiled autobiographies. Ellis responded:Well, they are autobiographical in the sense that they reflect who I was at a particular moment in my life. There was talk of a memoir, and I realized why I couldn’t write a memoir, because the books are the memoir—they completely sum up how I was feeling, what I was thinking about, what my obsessions were, what I was fantasizing about, who I was, in a fictional context over the last 25 years or so (qtd. in Tobias).Despite any protestations to the contrary, Bret Easton Ellis’s novels have included various intentional and unintentional disclosures which reflect the author’s personal experiences. This pattern of self-disclosure became most overt in his most recent novel, Lunar Park (2005), in which the narrator shares a name, vocation and many aspects of his personal history with Ellis himself. After two decades and many assumptions made about Ellis’s personal life in the public media, it seems on the surface as if this novel uses disclosure as the site of closure for several rumours and relationships which have haunted his career. It is possible to see how this fictional text transgresses the boundaries between fiction and fact in an attempt to sever the feedback loop between the media’s representation of Ellis and the interpretation of his fictional texts. Yet it is important to note that with Ellis, there is always more beneath the surface. This is evident after only one chapter of Lunar Park when the novel changes form from an autobiography into a fictional ghost story, both of which are told by Bret Easton Ellis, a man who simultaneously reflects and refracts aspects of the real life author.Before analysing Lunar Park, it is helpful to consider the career trajectory which led to its creation. Bret Easton Ellis made his early fame writing semi-fictional accounts of rich, beautiful, young, yet ambitionless members of generation-X, growing up in the 1980s in America. His first novel, Less Than Zero (1985), chronicled the exploits of his protagonists as they drifted from party to party, from one meaningless sexual encounter to another; all while anesthetised on a co*cktail of Valium, Prozac, Percocet and various illegal drugs. The brutal realism of his narrative, coupled with the structure—short vignettes like snapshots and short chapters told in simplistic style—led the text to be hailed as the first “MTV Novel” (Annesley 90; see also: Freese).It is not difficult to discover the many similarities that exist between the creator of Less Than Zero and his fictional creation, Clay, the novel’s narrator-protagonist. Both grew up in Los Angeles and headed east to attend a small liberal-arts college. Both Ellis’s and Clay’s parents were divorced and both young men grew up living in a house with their mother and their two sisters. Ellis’s relationship with his father was, by all accounts, as strained as what is represented in the few meetings Clay has with his own father in Less Than Zero. In these scenes, Clay describes a brief, perfunctory lunch meeting in an expensive restaurant in which Clay’s father is too preoccupied by work to acknowledge his son’s presence.Ellis’s second novel, The Rules of Attraction (1987), is set at Camden College, the same college that Clay attends in Less Than Zero. At one point, Clay even guest-narrates a chapter of The Rules of Attraction; the phrase, “people are afraid to walk across campus after midnight” (205) recalls the opening line of Less Than Zero, “people are afraid to merge on highways in Los Angeles” (5). Camden bears quite a few similarities with Bennington College, the college which Ellis himself was attending when Less Than Zero was published and Ellis was catapulted into the limelight. Even Ellis himself has admitted that the book is, “a completely fictionalized portrait of a group of people, all summations of friends I knew” (qtd. in Tobias).The authenticity of Ellis’s narrative voice was considered as an insight which came from participation (A Conversation with Bret Easton Ellis). The depiction of disenfranchised youth in the Reagan era in America was so compelling because Ellis seemed to personify and even embody the malaise and listlessness of his narrators in his public performances and interviews. In the minds of many readers and critics, Ellis’s narrators were a fictional extrapolation of Ellis himself. The association of Ellis to his fictional narrators backfired when Ellis’s third novel, American Psycho (1991), was published. The novel was criticised for its detached depiction of Patrick Bateman, who narrates in minute detail his daily routine which includes an extensive beauty regime, lunchtimes and dinnertimes spent in extravagant New York restaurants, a relationship with a fiancée and a mistress, a job on Wall Street in which he seems to do no real “work,” and his night-time hobby where brutally murders women, homeless men, gay men and even a small child. Bateman’s choice of victims can be interpreted as unconsciously aimed at anyone why may threaten his dominant position as a wealthy, white, heterosexual male. While Bateman kills as many men as he does women, his male victims are killed quickly in sudden bursts of violence. Bateman’s female victims are the subject of brutal torture, prolonged violent sexualized attacks, and in many cases inhumane post-mortem disfigurement and dismemberment.The public reception of American Psycho has been analysed as much as the text itself, (see: Murphet; Brien). Because American Psycho is narrated in the first-person voice of Bateman, there is no escape from his subjectivity. Many, including the National Organization of Women, interpreted this lack of authorial comment as Ellis’s tacit agreement and acceptance of Bateman’s behaviour. Another similar interpretation was made by Roger Rosenblatt in his pre-publication review of American Psycho in which he forthrightly encourages readers to “Snuff this Book” (Rosenblatt). Rosenblatt finds no ironic critique in Ellis’s representation of Bateman, instead finding himself at a loss to understand Ellis’s intention in writing American Psycho, saying “one only assumes, Mr. Ellis disapproves. It's a bit hard to tell what Mr. Ellis intends exactly, because he languishes so comfortably in the swamp he purports to condemn” (n.p.).In much the same way as Ellis’s previous narrators had reflected his experience and opinions, Ellis was considered as accepting and even glorifying the actions of a misogynistic serial killer. Ellis himself has commented on the popularised “misreading” of his novel: “Because I never step in anywhere and say, ‘Hey, this is all wrong,’ people get upset. That’s outrageous to me! Who’s going to say that serial killing is wrong?! Isn’t that a given? There’s no need to say that” (qtd. in. Klein)Ellis himself was treated as if he had committed the actual crimes that Patrick Bateman describes. The irony being that, as I have argued elsewhere (Phillips), there are numerous signs within the text which point to the possibility that Patrick Bateman did not commit the crimes as he claims: he can be interpreted as an unreliable narrator. Although the unreliability is Bateman’s narration doesn’t remove the effect which the reader experiences, it does indicate a distance between the author and the narrator. This distance was overlooked by many critics who interpreted Ellis as agreeing and condoning Bateman’s views and actions.When Ellis’s fourth novel, Glamorama was published, the decadent lifestyle represented in the text was again considered to be a reflection of Ellis’s personal experience. The star-studded parties and glamorous night clubs seemed to be lifted straight out of Ellis’s experience (although, no-one would ever claim that Ellis was a fashion-model-turned-international-terrorist like his narrator, Victor). One reviewer notes that “even when Bret Easton Ellis writes about killer yuppies and terrorist fashion models, a lot of people still think he's writing about himself” (Waldren).With the critical tendency to read an autobiographical confession out of Ellis’s fictional works firmly in place, it is not hard to see why Ellis decided to make the narrator of his fifth novel, Lunar Park, none other than Bret Easton Ellis himself. It is my contention that Lunar Park is the site of disclosures based on the real life of Bret Easton Ellis. I believe that Ellis chose the form of a mock-autobiography-turned-ghost-story as the site of exorcism for the many ghosts which have haunted his career, namely, his public persona and the publication of American Psycho. Ultimately, it is the exorcism of a more personal ghost, namely his father Robert Martin Ellis which provides the most private disclosure in the text and therefore the most touching, truthful and abiding site of closure for the entire novel and for Ellis himself. For ease, I will refer to the narrator of Lunar Park as Bret and the author of Lunar Park as Ellis.On the surface, it appears that Lunar Park is an autobiographical memoir. In one of the many mixed reviews of the novel (see: Murray; "Behind Bret's Mask"; Hand), Steve Almond’s title describes how Ellis masquerading as Ellis “is not a pretty sight” (Almond). The opening chapter is told in autobiographical style and charts Bret’s meteoric rise from college student to member of the literary brat pack (alongside Jay McInerney and Tama Jancowitz), to reviled author of American Psycho (1991) reaching his washed-up, drug-addled and near-death nadir during the Glamorama (1998) book tour. However, careful reading of this chapter reveals that the real-life Ellis is obscuring as much about himself as he appears to be revealing. Although it takes the form of a candid disclosure of his personal life, there are elements of the narrator’s story which do not agree with the public record of the author Ellis.The fictional Bret claims to have attended Camden College, and that his manuscript for Less Than Zero was a college project, discovered by his professor. While the plot of this story does reflect Ellis’s actual experience, he has set Bret’s story at Camden College, the fictional setting of The Rules of Attraction. By adding an element of fiction into the autobiographical account, Ellis is indicating that he is not identical to his narrating counterpart. It also signifies the Bret that exists in the fictional space whereas Ellis resides in the “real world.”In Lunar Park, Bret also talks about his relationship with Jayne Dennis. Jayne is described as a model-turned-actress, an up and coming Hollywood superstar who in the 1980s performed in films alongside Keanu Reeves. Jayne is one of the truly fictional characters in Lunar Park. She doesn’t exist outside of the text, except in two websites which were established to promote the publication of Lunar Park in 2005 (www.jaynedennis.com and www.jayne-dennis.com). While Bret and Jayne are dating, Jayne falls pregnant. Bret begs her to have an abortion. When Jayne decides to keep the child, her relationship with Bret falls apart. Bret meets his son Robby only twice from birth until the age of 10. The relationship between the fictional Bret and the fictional Jayne creates Robby, a fictional offspring who shares a name with Robert Martin Ellis (Bret and Ellis’s father).Many have been tempted to participate in Ellis’s game, to sift fact from fiction in the opening chapter of Lunar Park. Holt and Abbot published a two page point-by-point analysis of where the real-life Ellis diverged from the fictional Bret. The promotional website established by Ellis’s publisher was named www.twobrets.com to invite such a comparison. Although this game is invited by Ellis, he has also publicly stated that there is more to Lunar Park than the comparison between himself and his fictional counterpart:My worry is that people will want to know what’s true and what’s not […] All the things that are in the book—my quote-unquote autobiography—I just don’t want to answer any of those questions. I don’t like demystifying the text (qtd. in Wyatt n.p.)Although Ellis refuses to demystify the text, one of the purposes of inserting himself into the text is to trap readers in this very game, and to confuse fact with fiction. Although the text opens with a chapter which reads like Ellis’s autobiography, careful reading of the textual Bret against the extra-textual Ellis reveals that this chapter contains almost as much fiction as the “ghost story” which fills the remaining 400-odd pages. This ghost story could have been told by any first-person narrator. By writing himself into the text, Ellis is writing his public persona into the fictional character of Bret. One of the effects of blurring the lines between public and private, reality and fiction is that Ellis’s real-life disclosures invite the reader to read the fictional text against their extra-textual knowledge of Ellis himself. In this way, Ellis is able to address the many ghosts which have haunted his career—most importantly the public reception of American Psycho and his public persona. A more personal ghost is the ghost of Ellis’s father who has been written into the text, literally haunting Bret’s home with messages from beyond the grave. Closure occurs when these ghosts have been exorcised. The question is: is Lunar Park Ellis’s attempt to close down the public debates, or to add more fuel to the fire?One of the areas in which Ellis seeks to find closure is in the controversy surrounding American Psycho. Ellis uses his fictional voice to re-write the discourse surrounding the creation and reception of the text. There are deliberate contradictions in Bret’s version of writing American Psycho. In Lunar Park, Bret describes the writing process of American Psycho. In an oddly ornate passage for Ellis (who seldom uses adverbs), Bret describes how he would “fearfully watch my hands as the pen swept across the yellow legal pads” (19) blaming the “spirit” of Patrick Bateman for visiting and causing the book to be written. When it was finished, the “spirit” was “disgustingly satisfied” and stopped “gleefully haunting” Bret’s dreams. This shift in writing style may be an indication of a shift from reality into a fictionalised account of the writing of American Psycho. Much of the plot of Lunar Park is taken up with the consequences of American Psycho, when a madman starts replicating crimes exactly as they appear in the novel. It is almost as if Patrick Bateman is haunting Bret and his family. When informed that his fictional violence has disrupted his quiet suburban existence, Bret laments, “this was the moment that detractors of the book had warned me about: if anything happened to anyone as a result of the publication of this novel, Bret Easton Ellis was to blame” (181-2). By the end of Lunar Park Bret decides to “kill” Patrick Bateman once and for all, by writing an epilogue in which Bateman is burnt alive.On the surface, it appears that Lunar Park is the site of an apology about American Psycho. However, this is not entirely the case. Much of Bret’s description of writing American Psycho is contradictory to Ellis’s personal accounts where he consciously researched the gruesome details of Bateman’s crimes using an FBI training manual (Rose). Although Patrick Bateman is destroyed by the end of Lunar Park, extra-textually, neither Bret nor Ellis is not entirely apologetic for his creation. Bret argues that American Psycho was “about society and manners and mores, and not about cutting up women. How could anyone who read the book not see this?” (182). Extra-textually, in an interview Ellis admitted that when he re-read “the violence sequences I was incredibly upset and shocked […] I can't believe that I wrote that. Looking back, I realize, God, you really sort of stepped over a line there” (qtd. in Wyatt n.p.). However, in that same interview, Ellis admits to lying to reporters if he feels that the reporter is “out to get” him. Therefore, Ellis’s apology may not actually be an apology at all.Lunar Park presents an explanation about how and why American Psycho was written. This explanation is much akin to claiming that “the devil made me do it”, by arguing that Bret was possessed by “the spirit of this madman” (18). While it may seem that this explanation is an attempt to close the vast amount of discussion surrounding why American Psycho was written, Ellis is actually using his fictional persona to address the public outcry about his most controversial novel, providing an apology for a text, which is really no apology at all. Ultimately, the reliability of Bret’s account depends on the reader’s knowledge of Ellis’s public persona. This interplay between the fictional Bret and the real-life Ellis can be seen in Lunar Park’s account of the Glamorama publicity tour. In Lunar Park, Bret describes his own version of the Glamorama book tour. For Bret, this tour functions as his personal nadir, the point in his life where he hits rock bottom and looks to Jayne Dennis as his saviour. Throughout the tour, Bret describes taking all manner of drugs. At one point, threatened by his erratic behaviour, Bret’s publishers asked a personal minder to join the book tour, reporting back on Bret’s actions which include picking at nonexistent scabs, sobbing at his appearance in a hotel mirror and locking himself in a bookstore bathroom for over an hour before emerging and claiming that he had a snake living in his mouth (32-33).The reality of the Glamorama book tour is not anywhere near as wild as that described by Bret in Lunar Park. In reviews and articles addressing the real-life Glamorama book tour, there are no descriptions of these events. One article, from the The Observer (Macdonald), does describe a meeting over lunch where Ellis admits to drinking way too much the night before and then having to deal with phone calls from fans he can’t remember giving his phone-number to. However, as previously mentioned, in that same article a friend of Ellis’s is quoted as saying that Ellis frequently lies to reporters. Bret’s fictional actions seem to confirm Ellis’s real life “party boy” persona. For Moran, “the name of the author [him]self can become merely an image, either used to market a literary product directly or as a kind of free floating signifier within contemporary culture” (61). Lunar Park is about all of the connotations of the name Bret Easton Ellis. It is also a subversion of those expectations. The fictional Glamorama book tour shows Ellis’s media persona taken to an extreme until it becomes a self-embodying parody. In Lunar Park, Ellis is deliberately amplifying his public persona, accepting that no amount of truthful disclosure will erase the image of Bret-the-party-boy. However, the remainder of the novel turns this image on its head by removing Bret from New York and placing him in middle-American suburbia, married, and with two children in tow.Ultimately, although the novel appears as a transgression of fact and fiction, Bret may be the most fictional of all of Ellis’s narrators (with the exception of Patrick Bateman). Bret is married where Ellis is single. Bret is heterosexual whereas Ellis is hom*osexual, and used the site of Lunar Park to confirm his hom*osexuality. Bret has children whereas Ellis is childless. Bret has settled down into the heartland of American suburbia, a wife and two children in tow whereas Ellis has made it clear that this lifestyle is not one he is seeking. The novel is presented as the site of Ellis’s personal disclosure, and yet only creates more fictional fodder for the public image of Ellis, there are elements of true and personal disclosures from Ellis life, which he is using the text as the site for his own brand of closure. The most genuine and heartfelt closure is achieved through Ellis’s disclosure of his relationship with his father.The death of Ellis’s father, Robert Martin Ellis has an impact on both the textual and extra-textual levels of Lunar Park. Textually, the novel takes the form of a ghost story, and it is Robert himself who is haunting Bret. These spectral disturbances manifest themselves in Bret’s house which slowly transforms into a representation of his childhood home. Bret also receives nightly e-mails from the bank in which his father’s ashes have been stored in a safe-deposit box. These e-mails contain an attached video file showing the last few moments of Robert Martin Ellis’s life. Bret never finds out who filmed the video. Extra-textually, the death of Robert Martin Ellis is clearly signified in the fact that Lunar Park is dedicated to him as well as Michael Wade Kaplan, two men close to Ellis who have died. The trope of fathers haunting their sons is further highlighted by Ellis’s inter-textual references to Shakespeare’s Hamlet including a quote in the epigraph: “From the table of my memory / I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records, / all saws of books, all forms, all pressures past / that youth and observation copied there” (1.5.98-101). The names of various geographical locations in Bret’s neighbourhood: Bret and Jayne live on Elsinore Lane, named for Elsinore castle, Bret also visits Fortinbras Mall, Osric hotel and Ophelia Boulevard. In Hamlet, the son is called upon by the ghost of his father to avenge his death. In Lunar Park, Bret is called upon to avenge himself against the wrongs inflicted upon him by his own father.The ambiguity of the relationships between fathers and sons is summarised in the closing passage of the novel. So, if you should see my son, tell him I say hello, be good, that I am thinking of him and that I know he’s watching over me somewhere, and not to worry: that he can always find me here, whenever he wants, right here, my arms held out and waiting, in the pages, behind the covers, at the end of Lunar Park (453).Although Bret earlier signals the reader to interpret this passage as a message from Bret to his son Robby (45), it is also possible to interpret is as a message from the fictional Robert Martin Ellis to the fictional Bret. In this reading, Lunar Park is not just a novel, a game or a post-modern deconstruction of the fact and fiction binary, it instead becomes an exorcism for the author. The process of writing Lunar Park to casts the spectre of the real-life Robert Martin Ellis out of his life to a place where Bret (and Ellis) can always find him. This relationship is the site not only of disclosure – reflecting Ellis’s own personal angst with his late father – but of closure, where Ellis has channelled his relationship and indeed exorcised his father into the text.Lunar Park contains several forms of disclosures, most of which transgress the line between fiction and fact. Lunar Park does not provide a closure from the tendency to read autobiography into Ellis’s texts, instead, chapter one provides as much fiction as fact, as evident in the discussions of American Psycho and the Glamorama book tour. Although chapter one presents in an autobiographical form, the remainder of the text reveals how fictional “Bret Easton Ellis” really is. Much of Lunar Park can be interpreted as a puzzle whose answer depends on the reader’s knowledge and understanding of the public perception, persona and profile of Bret Easton Ellis himself. Although seeming to provide closure on the surface, by playing with fiction and fact, Lunar Park only opens up more ground for discussion of Ellis, his novels, his persona and his fictional worlds. These are discussions I look forward to participating in, particularly as 2010 will see the publication of Ellis’s sixth novel (and sequel to Less Than Zero), Imperial Bedrooms.Although much of Ellis’s game in Lunar Park is to tease the reader by failing to provide true disclosures or meaningful and finite closure, the ending of the Lunar Park indicates the most honest, heartfelt and abiding closure for the text and for Ellis himself. Devoid of games and extra-textual riddles, the end of the novel is a message from a father to his son. By disclosing details of his troubled relationship with his father, both Ellis and his fictional counterpart Bret are able to exorcise the ghost of Robert Martin Ellis. As the novel closes, the ghost who haunts the text has indeed been exorcised and is now standing, with “arms held out and waiting, in the pages, behind the covers, at the end of Lunar Park” (453). ReferencesAlmond, Steve. "Ellis Masquerades as Ellis, and It Is Not a Pretty Sight." Boston Globe 14 Aug. 2005.Annesley, James. Blank Fictions: Consumerism, Culture and the Contemporary American Novel. London: Pluto Press, 1998."Behind Bret's Mask." Manchester Evening News 10 Oct. 2005.Brien, Donna Lee. "The Real Filth in American Psycho: A Critical Reassessment." M/C Journal 9.5 (2006). 30 Nov. 2009 < http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0610/01-brien.php >.Ellis, Bret Easton. Less than Zero. London: Vintage, 1985.–––. The Rules of Attraction. London: Vintage, 1987.–––. American Psycho. London: Picador, 1991.–––. Glamorama. New York: Knopf, 1998.–––. Lunar Park. New York: Knopf, 2005.Freese, Peter. "Bret Easton Ellis, Less than Zero; Entropy in the 'Mtv Novel'?" Modes of Narrative: Approaches to American, Canadian and British Fiction. Eds. Reingard Nishik and Barbara Korts. Wurzburg: Konighausen and Naumann, 1990. 68–87. Hand, Elizabeth. "House of Horrors; Bret Easton Ellis, the Author of 'American Psycho,' Rips into His Most Frightening Subject Yet—Himself." The Washington Post 21 Aug. 2005.Klein, Joshua. "Interview with Bret Easton Ellis." The Onion AV Club 17 Mar.(1999). 5 Sep. 2009 < http://www.avclub.com/articles/bret-easton-ellis,13586/ >.Macdonald, Marianna. “Interview—Bret Easton Ellis—All Cut Up.” The Observer 28 June 1998.Moran, Joe. Star Authors. London: Pluto Press, 2000.Murphet, Julian. Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho: A Reader's Guide. New York: Continuum, 2002.Murray, Noel. "Lunar Park [Review]." The Onion AV Club 2 Aug. 2005. 1 Nov. 2009 < http://www.avclub.com/articles/lunar-park,4393/ >.Phillips, Jennifer. "Unreliable Narration in Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho: Interaction between Narrative Form and Thematic Content." Current Narratives 1.1 (2009): 60–68.Rose, Charlie. “A Conversation with Bret Easton Ellis”. The Charlie Rose Show. Prod. Charlie Rose and Yvette Vega. PBS. 7 Sep. 1994. Rosenblatt, Roger. "Snuff This Book! Will Bret Easton Ellis Get Away with Murder?" The New York Times 16 Dec. 1990: Arts.Shakespeare, William. Hamlet. Ed. Graham Holderness and Bryan Loughrey. Hemel Hempstead: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1992.Tobias, Scott. "Bret Easton Ellis (Interview)". The Onion AV Club 22 Apr. 2009. 31 Aug. 2009 < http://www.avclub.com/articles/bret-easton-ellis%2C26988/1/ >.Wyatt, Edward. "Bret Easton Ellis: The Man in the Mirror." The New York Times 7 Aug. 2005: Arts.

Abstract:

Refereed publications (also known as peer-reviewed) are the currency of academia, yet many PhD theses in Australia result in only one or two such papers. Typically, a doctoral thesis requires the candidate to present (and pass) a public Confirmation Seminar, around nine to twelve months into candidacy, in which a panel of the candidate’s supervisors and invited experts adjudicate upon whether the work is likely to continue and ultimately succeed in the goal of a coherent and original contribution to knowledge. A Final Seminar, also public and sometimes involving the traditional viva voce or oral defence of the thesis, is presented two or three months before approval is given to send the 80,000 to 100,000 word tome off for external examination. And that soul-destroying or elation-releasing examiner’s verdict can be many months in the delivery: a limbo-like period during which the candidate’s status as a student is ended and her or his receipt of any scholarship or funding guerdon is terminated with perfunctory speed. This is the only time most students spend seriously writing up their research for publication although, naturally, many are more involved in job hunting as they pin their hopes on passing the thesis examination.There is, however, a slightly more palatable alternative to this nail-biting process of the traditional PhD, and that is the PhD by Published Papers (also known as PhD by Publications or PhD by Published Works). The form of my own soon-to-be-submitted thesis, it permits the submission for examination of a collection of papers that have been refereed and accepted (or are in the process of being refereed) for publication in academic journals or books. Apart from the obvious benefits in getting published early in one’s (hopefully) burgeoning academic career, it also takes away a lot of the stress come final submission time. After all, I try to assure myself, the thesis examiners can’t really discredit the process of double-blind, peer-review the bulk of the thesis has already undergone: their job is to examine how well I’ve unified the papers into a cohesive thesis … right? But perhaps they should at least be wary, because, unfortunately, the requirements for this kind of PhD vary considerably from institution to institution and there have been some cases where the submitted work is of questionable quality compared to that produced by graduates from more demanding universities. Hence, this paper argues that in my subject area of interest—film and television studies—there is a huge range in the set requirements for doctorates, from universities that award the degree to film artists for prior published work that has undergone little or no academic scrutiny and has involved little or no on-campus participation to at least three Australian universities that require candidates be enrolled for a minimum period of full-time study and only submit scholarly work generated and published (or submitted for publication) during candidature. I would also suggest that uncertainty about where a graduate’s work rests on this continuum risks confusing a hard-won PhD by Published Papers with the sometimes risible honorary doctorate. Let’s begin by dredging the depths of those murky, quasi-academic waters to examine the occasionally less-than-salubrious honorary doctorate. The conferring of this degree is generally a recognition of an individual’s body of (usually published) work but is often conferred for contributions to knowledge or society in general that are not even remotely academic. The honorary doctorate does not usually carry with it the right to use the title “Dr” (although many self-aggrandising recipients in the non-academic world flout this unwritten code of conduct, and, indeed, Monash University’s Monash Magazine had no hesitation in describing its 2008 recipient, musician, screenwriter, and art-school-dropout Nick Cave, as “Dr Cave” (O’Loughlin)). Some shady universities even offer such degrees for sale or ‘donation’ and thus do great damage to that institution’s credibility as well as to the credibility of the degree itself. Such overseas “diploma mills”—including Ashwood University, Belford University, Glendale University and Suffield University—are identified by their advertising of “Life Experience Degrees,” for which a curriculum vitae outlining the prospective graduand’s oeuvre is accepted on face value as long as their credit cards are not rejected. An aspiring screen auteur simply specifies film and television as their major and before you can shout “Cut!” there’s a degree in the mail. Most of these pseudo-universities are not based in Australia but are perfectly happy to confer their ‘titles’ to any well-heeled, vanity-driven Australians capable of completing the online form. Nevertheless, many academics fear a similarly disreputable marketplace might develop here, and Norfolk Island-based Greenwich University presents a particularly illuminating example. Previously empowered by an Act of Parliament consented to by Senator Ian Macdonald, the then Minister for Territories, this “university” had the legal right to confer honorary degrees from 1998. The Act was eventually overridden by legislation passed in 2002, after a concerted effort by the Australian Universities Quality Agency Ltd. and the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee to force the accreditation requirements of the Australian Qualifications Framework upon the institution in question, thus preventing it from making degrees available for purchase over the Internet. Greenwich University did not seek re-approval and soon relocated to its original home of Hawaii (Brown). But even real universities flounder in similarly muddy waters when, unsolicited, they make dubious decisions to grant degrees to individuals they hold in high esteem. Although meaning well by not courting pecuniary gain, they nevertheless invite criticism over their choice of recipient for their honoris causa, despite the decision usually only being reached after a process of debate and discussion by university committees. Often people are rewarded, it seems, as much for their fame as for their achievements or publications. One such example of a celebrity who has had his onscreen renown recognised by an honorary doctorate is film and television actor/comedian Billy Connolly who was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters by The University of Glasgow in 2006, prompting Stuart Jeffries to complain that “something has gone terribly wrong in British academia” (Jeffries). Eileen McNamara also bemoans the levels to which some institutions will sink to in search of media attention and exposure, when she writes of St Andrews University in Scotland conferring an honorary doctorate to film actor and producer, Michael Douglas: “What was designed to acknowledge intellectual achievement has devolved into a publicity grab with universities competing for celebrity honorees” (McNamara). Fame as an actor (and the list gets even weirder when the scope of enquiry is widened beyond the field of film and television), seems to be an achievement worth recognising with an honorary doctorate, according to some universities, and this kind of discredit is best avoided by Australian institutions of higher learning if they are to maintain credibility. Certainly, universities down under would do well to follow elsewhere than in the footprints of Long Island University’s Southampton College. Perhaps the height of academic prostitution of parchments for the attention of mass media occurred when in 1996 this US school bestowed an Honorary Doctorate of Amphibious Letters upon that mop-like puppet of film and television fame known as the “muppet,” Kermit the Frog. Indeed, this polystyrene and cloth creation with an anonymous hand operating its mouth had its acceptance speech duly published (see “Kermit’s Acceptance Speech”) and the Long Island University’s Southampton College received much valuable press. After all, any publicity is good publicity. Or perhaps this furry frog’s honorary degree was a cynical stunt meant to highlight the ridiculousness of the practice? In 1986 a similar example, much closer to my own home, occurred when in anticipation and condemnation of the conferral of an honorary doctorate upon Prince Philip by Monash University in Melbourne, the “Members of the Monash Association of Students had earlier given a 21-month-old Chihuahua an honorary science degree” (Jeffries), effectively suggesting that the honorary doctorate is, in fact, a dog of a degree. On a more serious note, there have been honorary doctorates conferred upon far more worthy recipients in the field of film and television by some Australian universities. Indigenous film-maker Tracey Moffatt was awarded an honorary doctorate by Griffith University in November of 2004. Moffatt was a graduate of the Griffith University’s film school and had an excellent body of work including the films Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1990) and beDevil (1993). Acclaimed playwright and screenwriter David Williamson was presented with an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by The University of Queensland in December of 2004. His work had previously picked up four Australian Film Institute awards for best screenplay. An Honorary Doctorate of Visual and Performing Arts was given to film director Fred Schepisi AO by The University of Melbourne in May of 2006. His films had also been earlier recognised with Australian Film Institute awards as well as the Golden Globe Best Miniseries or Television Movie award for Empire Falls in 2006. Director George Miller was crowned with an Honorary Doctorate in Film from the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School in April 2007, although he already had a medical doctor’s testamur on his wall. In May of this year, filmmaker George Gittoes, a fine arts dropout from The University of Sydney, received an honorary doctorate by The University of New South Wales. His documentaries, Soundtrack to War (2005) and Rampage (2006), screened at the Sydney and Berlin film festivals, and he has been employed by the Australian Government as an official war artist. Interestingly, the high quality screen work recognised by these Australian universities may have earned the recipients ‘real’ PhDs had they sought the qualification. Many of these film artists could have just as easily submitted their work for the degree of PhD by Published Papers at several universities that accept prior work in lieu of an original exegesis, and where a film is equated with a book or journal article. But such universities still invite comparisons of their PhDs by Published Papers with honorary doctorates due to rather too-easy-to-meet criteria. The privately funded Bond University, for example, recommends a minimum full-time enrolment of just three months and certainly seems more lax in its regulations than other Antipodean institution: a healthy curriculum vitae and payment of the prescribed fee (currently AUD$24,500 per annum) are the only requirements. Restricting my enquiries once again to the field of my own research, film and television, I note that Dr. Ingo Petzke achieved his 2004 PhD by Published Works based upon films produced in Germany well before enrolling at Bond, contextualized within a discussion of the history of avant-garde film-making in that country. Might not a cynic enquire as to how this PhD significantly differs from an honorary doctorate? Although Petzke undoubtedly paid his fees and met all of Bond’s requirements for his thesis entitled Slow Motion: Thirty Years in Film, one cannot criticise that cynic for wondering if Petzke’s films are indeed equivalent to a collection of refereed papers. It should be noted that Bond is not alone when it comes to awarding candidates the PhD by Published Papers for work published or screened in the distant past. Although yet to grant it in the area of film or television, Swinburne University of Technology (SUT) is an institution that distinctly specifies its PhD by Publications is to be awarded for “research which has been carried out prior to admission to candidature” (8). Similarly, the Griffith Law School states: “The PhD (by publications) is awarded to established researchers who have an international reputation based on already published works” (1). It appears that Bond is no solitary voice in the academic wilderness, for SUT and the Griffith Law School also apparently consider the usual milestones of Confirmation and Final Seminars to be unnecessary if the so-called candidate is already well published. Like Bond, Griffith University (GU) is prepared to consider a collection of films to be equivalent to a number of refereed papers. Dr Ian Lang’s 2002 PhD (by Publication) thesis entitled Conditional Truths: Remapping Paths To Documentary ‘Independence’ contains not refereed, scholarly articles but the following videos: Wheels Across the Himalaya (1981); Yallambee, People of Hope (1986); This Is What I Call Living (1988); The Art of Place: Hanoi Brisbane Art Exchange (1995); and Millennium Shift: The Search for New World Art (1997). While this is a most impressive body of work, and is well unified by appropriate discussion within the thesis, the cynic who raised eyebrows at Petzke’s thesis might also be questioning this thesis: Dr Lang’s videos all preceded enrolment at GU and none have been refereed or acknowledged with major prizes. Certainly, the act of releasing a film for distribution has much in common with book publishing, but should these videos be considered to be on a par with academic papers published in, say, the prestigious and demanding journal Screen? While recognition at awards ceremonies might arguably correlate with peer review there is still the question as to how scholarly a film actually is. Of course, documentary films such as those in Lang’s thesis can be shown to be addressing gaps in the literature, as is the expectation of any research paper, but the onus remains on the author/film-maker to demonstrate this via a detailed contextual review and a well-written, erudite argument that unifies the works into a cohesive thesis. This Lang has done, to the extent that suspicious cynic might wonder why he chose not to present his work for a standard PhD award. Another issue unaddressed by most institutions is the possibility that the publications have been self-refereed or refereed by the candidate’s editorial colleagues in a case wherein the papers appear in a book the candidate has edited or co-edited. Dr Gillian Swanson’s 2004 GU thesis Towards a Cultural History of Private Life: Sexual Character, Consuming Practices and Cultural Knowledge, which addresses amongst many other cultural artefacts the film Lawrence of Arabia (David Lean 1962), has nine publications: five of which come from two books she co-edited, Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and Cinema in Britain in World War Two, (Gledhill and Swanson 1996) and Deciphering Culture: Ordinary Curiosities and Subjective Narratives (Crisp et al 2000). While few would dispute the quality of Swanson’s work, the persistent cynic might wonder if these five papers really qualify as refereed publications. The tacit understanding of a refereed publication is that it is blind reviewed i.e. the contributor’s name is removed from the document. Such a system is used to prevent bias and favouritism but this level of anonymity might be absent when the contributor to a book is also one of the book’s editors. Of course, Dr Swanson probably took great care to distance herself from the refereeing process undertaken by her co-editors, but without an inbuilt check, allegations of cronyism from unfriendly cynics may well result. A related factor in making comparisons of different university’s PhDs by Published Papers is the requirements different universities have about the standard of the journal the paper is published in. It used to be a simple matter in Australia: the government’s Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST) held a Register of Refereed Journals. If your benefactor in disseminating your work was on the list, your publications were of near-unquestionable quality. Not any more: DEST will no longer accept nominations for listing on the Register and will not undertake to rule on whether a particular journal article meets the HERDC [Higher Education Research Data Collection] requirements for inclusion in publication counts. HEPs [Higher Education Providers] have always had the discretion to determine if a publication produced in a journal meets the requirements for inclusion in the HERDC regardless of whether or not the journal was included on the Register of Refereed Journals. As stated in the HERDC specifications, the Register is not an exhaustive list of all journals which satisfy the peer-review requirements (DEST). The last listing for the DEST Register of Refereed Journals was the 3rd of February 2006, making way for a new tiered list of academic journals, which is currently under review in the Australian tertiary education sector (see discussion of this development in the Redden and Mitchell articles in this issue). In the interim, some university faculties created their own rankings of journals, but not the Faculty of Creative Industries at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) where I am studying for my PhD by Published Papers. Although QUT does not have a list of ranked journals for a candidate to submit papers to, it is otherwise quite strict in its requirements. The QUT University Regulations state, “Papers submitted as a PhD thesis must be closely related in terms of subject matter and form a cohesive research narrative” (QUT PhD regulation 14.1.2). Thus there is the requirement at QUT that apart from the usual introduction, methodology and literature review, an argument must be made as to how the papers present a sustained research project via “an overarching discussion of the main features linking the publications” (14.2.12). It is also therein stated that it should be an “account of research progress linking the research papers” (4.2.6). In other words, a unifying essay must make an argument for consideration of the sometimes diversely published papers as a cohesive body of work, undertaken in a deliberate journey of research. In my own case, an aural auteur analysis of sound in the films of Rolf de Heer, I argue that my published papers (eight in total) represent a journey from genre analysis (one paper) to standard auteur analysis (three papers) to an argument that sound should be considered in auteur analysis (one paper) to the major innovation of the thesis, aural auteur analysis (three papers). It should also be noted that unlike Bond, GU or SUT, the QUT regulations for the standard PhD still apply: a Confirmation Seminar, Final Seminar and a minimum two years of full-time enrolment (with a minimum of three months residency in Brisbane) are all compulsory. Such milestones and sine qua non ensure the candidate’s academic progress and intellectual development such that she or he is able to confidently engage in meaningful quodlibets regarding the thesis’s topic. Another interesting and significant feature of the QUT guidelines for this type of degree is the edict that papers submitted must be “published, accepted or submitted during the period of candidature” (14.1.1). Similarly, the University of Canberra (UC) states “The articles or other published material must be prepared during the period of candidature” (10). Likewise, Edith Cowan University (ECU) will confer its PhD by Publications to those candidates whose thesis consists of “only papers published in refereed scholarly media during the period of enrolment” (2). In other words, one cannot simply front up to ECU, QUT, or UC with a résumé of articles or films published over a lifetime of writing or film-making and ask for a PhD by Published Papers. Publications of the candidate prepared prior to commencement of candidature are simply not acceptable at these institutions and such PhDs by Published Papers from QUT, UC and ECU are entirely different to those offered by Bond, GU and SUT. Furthermore, without a requirement for a substantial period of enrolment and residency, recipients of PhDs by Published Papers from Bond, GU, or SUT are unlikely to have participated significantly in the research environment of their relevant faculty and peers. Such newly minted doctors may be as unfamiliar with the campus and its research activities as the recipient of an honorary doctorate usually is, as he or she poses for the media’s cameras en route to the glamorous awards ceremony. Much of my argument in this paper is built upon the assumption that the process of refereeing a paper (or for that matter, a film) guarantees a high level of academic rigour, but I confess that this premise is patently naïve, if not actually flawed. Refereeing can result in the rejection of new ideas that conflict with the established opinions of the referees. Interdisciplinary collaboration can be impeded and the lack of referee’s accountability is a potential problem, too. It can also be no less nail-biting a process than the examination of a finished thesis, given that some journals take over a year to complete the refereeing process, and some journal’s editorial committees have recognised this shortcoming. Despite being a mainstay of its editorial approach since 1869, the prestigious science journal, Nature, which only publishes about 7% of its submissions, has led the way with regard to varying the procedure of refereeing, implementing in 2006 a four-month trial period of ‘Open Peer Review’. Their website states, Authors could choose to have their submissions posted on a preprint server for open comments, in parallel with the conventional peer review process. Anyone in the field could then post comments, provided they were prepared to identify themselves. Once the usual confidential peer review process is complete, the public ‘open peer review’ process was closed and the editors made their decision about publication with the help of all reports and comments (Campbell). Unfortunately, the experiment was unpopular with both authors and online peer reviewers. What the Nature experiment does demonstrate, however, is that the traditional process of blind refereeing is not yet perfected and can possibly evolve into something less problematic in the future. Until then, refereeing continues to be the best system there is for applying structured academic scrutiny to submitted papers. With the reforms of the higher education sector, including forced mergers of universities and colleges of advanced education and the re-introduction of university fees (carried out under the aegis of John Dawkins, Minister for Employment, Education and Training from 1987 to 1991), and the subsequent rationing of monies according to research dividends (calculated according to numbers of research degree conferrals and publications), there has been a veritable explosion in the number of institutions offering PhDs in Australia. But the general public may not always be capable of differentiating between legitimately accredited programs and diploma mills, given that the requirements for the first differ substantially. From relatively easily obtainable PhDs by Published Papers at Bond, GU and SUT to more rigorous requirements at ECU, QUT and UC, there is undoubtedly a huge range in the demands of degrees that recognise a candidate’s published body of work. The cynical reader may assume that with this paper I am simply trying to shore up my own forthcoming graduation with a PhD by Published papers from potential criticisms that it is on par with a ‘purchased’ doctorate. Perhaps they are right, for this is a new degree in QUT’s Creative Industries faculty and has only been awarded to one other candidate (Dr Marcus Foth for his 2006 thesis entitled Towards a Design Methodology to Support Social Networks of Residents in Inner-City Apartment Buildings). But I believe QUT is setting a benchmark, along with ECU and UC, to which other universities should aspire. In conclusion, I believe further efforts should be undertaken to heighten the differences in status between PhDs by Published Papers generated during enrolment, PhDs by Published Papers generated before enrolment and honorary doctorates awarded for non-academic published work. Failure to do so courts cynical comparison of all PhD by Published Papers with unearnt doctorates bought from Internet shysters. References Brown, George. “Protecting Australia’s Higher Education System: A Proactive Versus Reactive Approach in Review (1999–2004).” Proceedings of the Australian Universities Quality Forum 2004. Australian Universities Quality Agency, 2004. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.auqa.edu.au/auqf/2004/program/papers/Brown.pdf>. Campbell, Philip. “Nature Peer Review Trial and Debate.” Nature: International Weekly Journal of Science. December 2006. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.nature.com/nature/peerreview/> Crisp, Jane, Kay Ferres, and Gillian Swanson, eds. Deciphering Culture: Ordinary Curiosities and Subjective Narratives. London: Routledge, 2000. Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST). “Closed—Register of Refereed Journals.” Higher Education Research Data Collection, 2008. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.dest.gov.au/sectors/research_sector/online_forms_services/ higher_education_research_data_ collection.htm>. Edith Cowan University. “Policy Content.” Postgraduate Research: Thesis by Publication, 2003. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.ecu.edu.au/GPPS/policies_db/tmp/ac063.pdf>. Gledhill, Christine, and Gillian Swanson, eds. Nationalising Femininity: Culture, Sexuality and Cinema in Britain in World War Two. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1996. Griffith Law School, Griffith University. Handbook for Research Higher Degree Students. 24 March 2004. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.griffith.edu.au/centre/slrc/pdf/rhdhandbook.pdf>. Jeffries, Stuart. “I’m a celebrity, get me an honorary degree!” The Guardian 6 July 2006. 11 June 2008 ‹http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/comment/story/0,,1813525,00.html>. Kermit the Frog. “Kermit’s Commencement Address at Southampton Graduate Campus.” Long Island University News 19 May 1996. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.southampton.liu.edu/news/commence/1996/kermit.htm>. McNamara, Eileen. “Honorary senselessness.” The Boston Globe 7 May 2006. ‹http://www. boston.com/news/local/articles/2006/05/07/honorary_senselessness/>. O’Loughlin, Shaunnagh. “Doctor Cave.” Monash Magazine 21 (May 2008). 13 Aug. 2008 ‹http://www.monash.edu.au/pubs/monmag/issue21-2008/alumni/cave.html>. Queensland University of Technology. “Presentation of PhD Theses by Published Papers.” Queensland University of Technology Doctor of Philosophy Regulations (IF49). 12 Oct. 2007. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.mopp.qut.edu.au/Appendix/appendix09.jsp#14%20Presentation %20of%20PhD%20Theses>. Swinburne University of Technology. Research Higher Degrees and Policies. 14 Nov. 2007. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.swinburne.edu.au/corporate/registrar/ppd/docs/RHDpolicy& procedure.pdf>. University of Canberra. Higher Degrees by Research: Policy and Procedures (The Gold Book). 7.3.3.27 (a). 15 Nov. 2004. 11 June 2008 ‹http://www.canberra.edu.au/research/attachments/ goldbook/Pt207_AB20approved3220arp07.pdf>.

Abstract:

Introduction Darkness is often characterised as something that warrants heightened caution and scrutiny – signifying increased danger and risk. Within settler-colonial settings such as Australia, cautionary and negative connotations of darkness are projected upon Black people and their bodies, forming part of continuing colonial regimes of power (Moreton-Robinson). Negative stereotypes of “dark” continues to racialise all Indigenous peoples. In Australia, Indigenous peoples are both Indigenous and Black regardless of skin colour, and this plays out in a range of ways, some of which will be highlighted within this article. This article demonstrates that for Indigenous peoples, associations of fear and danger are built into the structural mechanisms that shape and maintain colonial understandings of Indigenous peoples and their bodies. It is this embodied form of darkness, and its negative connotations, and responses that we explore further. Figure 1: Megan Cope’s ‘I’m not afraid of the Dark’ t-shirt (Fredericks and Heemsbergen 2021) Responding to the anxieties and fears of settlers that often surround Indigenous peoples, Quandamooka artist and member of the art collective ProppaNow, Megan Cope, has produced a range of t-shirts, one of which declares “I’m not afraid of the Dark” (fig. 1). The wording ‘reflects White Australia’s fear of blackness’ (Dark + Dangerous). Exploring race relations through the theme of “darkness”, we begin by discussing how negative connotations of darkness are represented through everyday lexicons and how efforts to shift prejudicial and racist language are often met with defensiveness and resistance. We then consider how fears towards the dark translate into everyday practices, reinforced by media representations. The article considers how stereotype, conjecture, and prejudice is inflicted upon Indigenous people and reflects white settler fears and anxieties, rooting colonialism in everyday language, action, and norms. The Language of Fear Indigenous people and others with dark skin tones are often presented as having a proclivity towards threatening, aggressive, deceitful, and negative behaviours. This works to inform how Indigenous peoples are “known” and responded to by hegemonic (predominantly white) populations. Negative connotations of Indigenous people are a means of reinforcing and legitimising the falsity that European knowledge systems, norms, and social structures are superior whilst denying the contextual colonial circ*mstances that have led to white dominance. In Australia, such denial corresponds to the refusal to engage with the unceded sovereignty of Aboriginal peoples or acknowledge Indigenous resistance. Language is integral to the ways in which dominant populations come to “know” and present the so-called “Other”. Such language is reflected in digital media, which both produce and maintain white anxieties towards race and ethnicity. When part of mainstream vernacular, racialised language – and the value judgments associated with it – often remains in what Moreton-Robinson describes as “invisible regimes of power” (75). Everyday social structures, actions, and habits of thought veil oppressive and discriminatory attitudes that exist under the guise of “normality”. Colonisation and the dominance of Eurocentric ways of knowing, being, and doing has fixated itself on creating a normality that associates Indigeneity and darkness with negative and threatening connotations. In doing so, it reinforces power balances that presents an image of white superiority built on the invalidation of Indigeneity and Blackness. White fears and anxieties towards race made explicit through social and digital media are also manifest via subtle but equally pervasive everyday action (Carlson and Frazer; Matamoros-Fernández). Confronting and negotiating such fears becomes a daily reality for many Indigenous people. During the height of the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests in the United States, which extended to Australia and were linked to deaths in custody and police violence, African American poet Saul Williams reminded his followers of the power of language in constructing racialised fears (saulwilliams). In an Instagram post, Williams draws back the veil of an uncontested normality to ask that we take personal responsibility over the words we use. He writes: here’s a tip: Take the words DARK or BLACK in connection to bad, evil, ominous or scary events out of your vocabulary. We learn the stock market crashed on Black Monday, we read headlines that purport “Dark Days Ahead”. There’s “dark” or “black” humour which implies an undertone of evil, and then there are people like me who grow up with dark skin having to make sense of the English/American lexicon and its history of “fair complexions” – where “fair” can mean “light; blond.” OR “in accordance with rules or standards; legitimate.” We may not be fully responsible for the duplicitous evolution of language and subtle morphing of inherited beliefs into description yet we are in full command of the words we choose even as they reveal the questions we’ve left unasked. Like the work of Moreton-Robinson and other scholars, Williams implores his followers to take a reflexive position to consider the questions often left unasked. In doing so, he calls for the transcendence of anonymity and engagement with the realities of colonisation – no matter how ugly, confronting, and complicit one may be in its continuation. In the Australian context this means confronting how terms such as “dark”, “darkie”, or “darky” were historically used as derogatory and offensive slurs for Aboriginal peoples. Such language continues to be used today and can be found in the comment sections of social media, online news platforms, and other online forums (Carlson “Love and Hate”). Taking the move to execute personal accountability can be difficult. It can destabilise and reframe the ways in which we understand and interact with the world (Rose 22). For some, however, exposing racism and seemingly mundane aspects of society is taken as a personal attack which is often met with reactionary responses where one remains closed to new insights (Whittaker). This feeds into fears and anxieties pertaining to the perceived loss of power. These fears and anxieties continue to surface through conversations and calls for action on issues such as changing the date of Australia Day, the racialised reporting of news (McQuire), removing of plaques and statues known to be racist, and requests to change placenames and the names of products. For example, in 2020, Australian cheese producer Saputo Dairy Australia changed the name of it is popular brand “Coon” to “Cheer Tasty”. The decision followed a lengthy campaign led by Dr Stephen Hagan who called for the rebranding based on the Coon brand having racist connotations (ABC). The term has its racist origins in the United States and has long been used as a slur against people with dark skin, liking them to racoons and their tendency to steal and deceive. The term “Coon” is used in Australia by settlers as a racist term for referring to Aboriginal peoples. Claims that the name change is example of political correctness gone astray fail to acknowledge and empathise with the lived experience of being treated as if one is dirty, lazy, deceitful, or untrustworthy. Other brand names have also historically utilised racist wording along with imagery in their advertising (Conor). Pear’s soap for example is well-known for its historical use of racist words and imagery to legitimise white rule over Indigenous colonies, including in Australia (Jackson). Like most racial epithets, the power of language lies in how the words reflect and translate into actions that dehumanise others. The words we use matter. The everyday “ordinary” world, including online, is deeply politicised (Carlson and Frazer “They Got Filters”) and comes to reflect attitudes and power imbalances that encourage white people to internalise the falsity that they are superior and should have control over Black people (Conor). Decisions to make social change, such as that made by Saputo Dairy Australia, can manifest into further white anxieties via their ability to force the confrontation of the circ*mstances that continue to contribute to one’s own prosperity. In other words, to unveil the realities of colonialism and ask the questions that are too often left in the dark. Lived Experiences of Darkness Colonial anxieties and fears are driven by the fact that Black populations in many areas of the world are often characterised as criminals, perpetrators, threats, or nuisances, but are rarely seen as victims. In Australia, the repeated lack of police response and receptivity to concerns of Indigenous peoples expressed during the Black Lives Matter campaign saw tens of thousands of people take to the streets to protest. Protestors at the same time called for the end of police brutality towards Indigenous peoples and for an end to Indigenous deaths in custody. The protests were backed by a heavy online presence that sought to mobilise people in hope of lifting the veil that shrouds issues relating to systemic racism. There have been over 450 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to die in custody since the end of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991 (The Guardian). The tragedy of the Indigenous experience gains little attention internationally. The negative implications of being the object of white fear and anxiety are felt by Indigenous and other Black communities daily. The “safety signals” (Daniella Emanuel) adopted by white peoples in response to often irrational perceptions of threat signify how Indigenous and other Black peoples and communities are seen and valued by the hegemony. Memes played out in social media depicting “Karens” – a term that corresponds to caricaturised white women (but equally applicable to men) who exhibit behaviours of entitlement – have increasing been used in media to expose the prevalence of irrational racial fears (also see Wong). Police are commonly called on Indigenous people and other Black people for simply being within spaces such as shopping malls, street corners, parks, or other spaces in which they are considered not to belong (Mohdin). Digital media are also commonly envisioned as a space that is not natural or normal for Indigenous peoples, a notion that maintains narratives of so-called Indigenous primitivity (Carlson and Frazer). Media connotations of darkness as threatening are associated with, and strategically manipulated by, the images that accompany stories about Indigenous peoples and other Black peoples. Digital technologies play significant roles in producing and disseminating the images shown in the media. Moreover, they have a “role in mediating and amplifying old and new forms of abuse, hate, and discrimination” (Matamoros-Fernández and Farkas). Daniels demonstrates how social media sites can be spaces “where race and racism play out in interesting, sometimes disturbing, ways” (702), shaping ongoing colonial fears and anxieties over Black peoples. Prominent footballer Adam Goodes, for example, faced a string of attacks after he publicly condemned racism when he was called an “Ape” by a spectator during a game celebrating Indigenous contributions to the sport (Coram and Hallinan). This was followed by a barrage of personal attacks, criticisms, and booing that spread over the remaining years of his football career. When Goodes performed a traditional war dance as a form of celebration during a game in 2015, many turned to social media to express their outrage over his “confrontational” and “aggressive” behaviour (Robinson). Goodes’s affirmation of his Indigeneity was seen by many as a threat to their own positionality and white sensibility. Social media were therefore used as a mechanism to control settler narratives and maintain colonial power structures by framing the conversation through a white lens (Carlson and Frazer “They Got Filters”). Indigenous peoples in other highly visible fields have faced similar backlash. In 1993, Elaine George was the first Aboriginal person to feature on the cover of Vogue magazine, a decision considered “risky” at the time (Singer). The editor of Vogue later revealed that the cover was criticised by some who believed George’s skin tone was made to appear lighter than it actually was and that it had been digitally altered. The failure to accept a lighter skin colour as “Aboriginal” exposes a neglect to accept ethnicity and Blackness in all its diversity (Carlson and Frazer “They Got Filters”; Carlson “Love and Hate”). Where Adam Goodes was criticised for his overt expression of Blackness, George was critisised for not being “black enough”. It was not until seventeen years later that another Aboriginal model, Samantha Harris, was featured on the cover of Vogue (Marks). While George inspired and pathed the way for those to come, Harris experienced similar discrimination within the industry and amongst the public (Carson and Ky). Singer Jessica Mauboy (in Hornery) also explains how her identity was managed by others. She recalls, I was pretty young when I first received recognition, and for years I felt as though I couldn't show my true identity. What I was saying in public was very dictated by other people who could not handle my sense of culture and identity. They felt they had to take it off my hands. Mauboy’s experience not only demonstrates how Blackness continues to be seen as something to “handle”, but also how power imbalances play out. Scholar Chelsea Watego offers numerous examples of how this occurs in different ways and arenas, for example through relationships between people and within workplaces. Bargallie’s scholarly work also provides an understanding of how Indigenous people experience racism within the Australian public service, and how it is maintained through the structures and systems of power. The media often represents communities with large Indigenous populations as being separatist and not contributing to wider society and problematic (McQuire). Violence, and the threat of violence, is often presented in media as being normalised. Recently there have been calls for an increased police presence in Alice Springs, NT, and other remotes communities due to ongoing threats of “tribal payback” and acts of “lawlessness” (Sky News Australia; Hildebrand). Goldberg uses the phrase “Super/Vision” to describe the ways that Black men and women in Black neighbourhoods are continuously and erroneously supervised and surveilled by police using apparatus such as helicopters and floodlights. Simone Browne demonstrates how contemporary surveillance practices are rooted in anti-black domination and are operationalised through a white gaze. Browne uses the term “racializing surveillance” to describe a ”technology of social control where surveillance practices, policies, and performances concern the production of norms pertaining to race and exercise a ‘power to define what is in or out of place’” (16). The outcome is often discriminatory treatment to those negatively racialised by such surveillance. Narratives that associate Indigenous peoples with darkness and danger fuel colonial fears and uphold the invisible regimes of power by instilling the perception that acts of surveillance and the restrictions imposed on Indigenous peoples’ autonomy are not only necessary but justified. Such myths fail to contextualise the historic colonial factors that drive segregation and enable a forgetting that negates personal accountability and complicity in maintaining colonial power imbalances (Riggs and Augoustinos). Inayatullah and Blaney (165) write that the “myth we construct calls attention to a darker, tragic side of our ethical engagement: the role of colonialism in constituting us as modern actors.” They call for personal accountability whereby one confronts the notion that we are both products and producers of a modernity rooted in a colonialism that maintains the misguided notion of white supremacy (Wolfe; Mignolo; Moreton-Robinson). When Indigenous and other Black peoples enter spaces that white populations don’t traditionally associate as being “natural” or “fitting” for them (whether residential, social, educational, a workplace, online, or otherwise), alienation, discrimination, and criminalisation often occurs (Bargallie; Mohdin; Linhares). Structural barriers are erected, prohibiting career or social advancement while making the space feel unwelcoming (Fredericks; Bargallie). In workplaces, Indigenous employees become the subject of hyper-surveillance through the supervision process (Bargallie), continuing to make them difficult work environments. This is despite businesses and organisations seeking to increase their Indigenous staff numbers, expressing their need to change, and implementing cultural competency training (Fredericks and Bargallie). As Barnwell correctly highlights, confronting white fears and anxieties must be the responsibility of white peoples. When feelings of shock or discomfort arise when in the company of Indigenous peoples, one must reflexively engage with the reasons behind this “fear of the dark” and consider that perhaps it is they who are self-segregating. Mohdin suggests that spaces highly populated by Black peoples are best thought of not as “black spaces” or “black communities”, but rather spaces where white peoples do not want to be. They stand as reminders of a failed colonial regime that sought to deny and dehumanise Indigenous peoples and cultures, as well as the continuation of Black resistance and sovereignty. Conclusion In working towards improving relationships between Black and white populations, the truths of colonisation, and its continuing pervasiveness in local and global settings must first be confronted. In this article we have discussed the association of darkness with instinctual fears and negative responses to the unknown. White populations need to reflexively engage and critique how they think, act, present, address racism, and respond to Indigenous peoples (Bargallie; Moreton-Robinson; Whittaker), cultivating a “decolonising consciousness” (Bradfield) to develop new habits of thinking and relating. To overcome fears of the dark, we must confront that which remains unknown, and the questions left unasked. This means exposing racism and power imbalances, developing meaningful relationships with Indigenous peoples, addressing structural change, and implementing alternative ways of knowing and doing. Only then may we begin to embody Megan Cope’s message, “I’m not afraid of the Dark”. Acknowledgements We thank Dr Debbie Bargallie for her feedback on our article, which strengthened the work. References ABC News. 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Abstract:

On the night of 31 August, 1888, Mary Ann ‘Polly’ Nichols was found murdered in Buck’s Row, her throat slashed and her body mutilated. She was followed by Annie Chapman on 8 September in the year of 29 Hanbury Street, Elizabeth Stride in Dutfield’s Yard and Catherine Eddowes in Mitre Square on 30 September, and finally Mary Jane Kelly in Miller’s Court, on 9 November. These five women, all prostitutes, were victims of an unknown assailant commonly referred to by the epithet ‘Jack the Ripper’, forming an official canon which excludes at least thirteen other cases around the same time. As the Ripper was never identified or caught, he has attained an almost supernatural status in London’s history and literature, immortalised alongside other iconic figures such as Sherlock Holmes. And his killing ground, the East End suburb of Whitechapel, has become notorious in its own right. In this article, I will discuss how Whitechapel developed as a Gothic location through the body of literature devoted to the Whitechapel murders of 1888, known as 'Ripperature'. I will begin by speaking to the turn of Gothic literature towards the idea of the city as a Gothic space, before arguing that Whitechapel's development into a Gothic location may be attributed to the threat of the Ripper and the literature which emerged during and after his crimes. As a working class slum with high rates of crime and poverty, Whitechapel already enjoyed an evil reputation in the London press. However, it was the presence of Jack that would make the suburb infamous into contemporary times. The Gothic Space of the City In the nineteenth century, there was a shift in the representation of space in Gothic literature. From the depiction of the wilderness and ancient buildings such as castles as essentially Gothic, there was a turn towards the idea of the city as a Gothic space. David Punter attributes this turn to Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The wild landscape is no longer considered as dangerous as the savage city of London, and evil no longer confined only to those of working-class status (Punter 191). However, it has been argued by Lawrence Phillips and Anne Witchard that Charles Dickens may have been the first author to present London as a Gothic city, in particular his description of Seven Dials in Bell’s Life in London, 1837, where the anxiety and unease of the narrator is associated with place (11). Furthermore, Thomas de Quincey uses Gothic imagery in his descriptions of London in his 1821 book Confessions of an English Opium-Eater, calling the city a “vast centre of mystery” (217). This was followed in 1840 with Edgar Allen Poe’s story The Man of the Crowd, in which the narrator follows a stranger through the labyrinthine streets of London, experiencing its poorest and most dangerous areas. At the end of the story, Poe calls the stranger “the type and the genius of deep crime (...) He is the man of the crowd” (n. p). This association of crowds with crime is also used by Jack London in his book The People of the Abyss, published in 1905, where the author spent time living in the slums of the East End. Even William Blake could be considered to have used Gothic imagery in his description of the city in his poem London, written in 1794. The Gothic city became a recognisable and popular trope in the fin-de-siècle, or end-of-century Gothic literature, in the last few decades of the nineteenth century. This fin-de-siècle literature reflected the anxieties inherent in increasing urbanisation, wherein individuals lose their identity through their relationship with the city. Examples of fin-de-siècle Gothic literature include The Beetle by Richard Marsh, published in 1897, and Bram Stoker’s Dracula, published in the same year. Evil is no longer restricted to foreign countries in these stories, but infects familiar city streets with terror, in a technique that is described as ‘everyday Gothic’ (Paulden 245). The Gothic city “is constructed by man, and yet its labyrinthine alleys remain unknowable (...) evil is not externalized elsewhere, but rather literally exists within” (Woodford n.p). The London Press and Whitechapel Prior to the Ripper murders of 1888, Whitechapel had already been given an evil reputation in the London press, heavily influenced by W.T. Stead’s reports for The Pall Mall Gazette, entitled The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon, in 1885. In these reports, Stead revealed how women and children were being sold into prostitution in suburbs such as Whitechapel. Stead used extensive Gothic imagery in his writing, one of the most enduring being the image of London as a labyrinth with a monstrous Minotaur at its centre, swallowing up his helpless victims. Counter-narratives about Whitechapel do exist, an example being Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor, who attempted to demystify the East End by walking the streets of Whitechapel and interviewing its inhabitants in the 1860’s. Another is Arthur G. Morrison, who in 1889 dismissed the graphic descriptions of Whitechapel by other reporters as amusing to those who actually knew the area as a commercially respectable place. However, the Ripper murders in the autumn of 1888 ensured that the Gothic image of the East End would become the dominant image in journalism and literature for centuries to come. Whitechapel was a working-class slum, associated with poverty and crime, and had a large Jewish and migrant population. Indeed the claim was made that “had Whitechapel not existed, according to the rationalist, then Jack the Ripper would not have marched against civilization” (Phillips 157). Whitechapel was known as London’s “heart of darkness (…) the ultimate threat and the ultimate mystery” (Ackroyd 679). Therefore, the reporters of the London press who visited Whitechapel during and immediately following the murders understandably imbued the suburb with a Gothic atmosphere in their articles. One such newspaper article, An Autumn Evening in Whitechapel, released in November of 1888, demonstrates these characteristics in its description of Whitechapel. The anonymous reporter, writing during the Ripper murders, describes the suburb as a terrible dark ocean in which there are human monsters, where a man might get a sense of what humanity can sink to in areas of poverty. This view was shared by many, including author Margaret Harkness, whose 1889 book In Darkest London described Whitechapel as a monstrous living entity, and as a place of vice and depravity. Gothic literary tropes were also already widely used in print media to describe murders and other crimes that happened in London, such as in the sensationalist newspaper The Illustrated Police News. An example of this is an illustration published in this newspaper after the murder of Mary Kelly, showing the woman letting the Ripper into her lodgings, with the caption ‘Opening the door to admit death’. Jack is depicted as a manifestation of Death itself, with a grinning skull for a head and clutching a doctor’s bag filled with surgical instruments with which to perform his crimes (Johnston n.p.). In the magazine Punch, Jack was depicted as a phantom, the ‘Nemesis of Neglect’, representing the poverty of the East End, floating down an alleyway with his knife looking for more victims. The Ripper murders were explained by London newspapers as “the product of a diseased environment where ‘neglected human refuse’ bred crime” (Walkowitz 194). Whitechapel became a Gothic space upon which civilisation projected their inadequacies and fears, as if “it had become a microcosm of London’s own dark life” (Ackroyd 678). And in the wake of Jack the Ripper, this writing of Whitechapel as a Gothic space would only continue, with the birth of ‘Ripperature’, the body of fictional and non-fiction literature devoted to the murders. The Birth of Ripperature: The Curse upon Mitre Square and Leather Apron John Francis Brewer wrote the first known text about the Ripper murders in October of 1888, a sensational horror monograph entitled The Curse upon Mitre Square. Brewer made use of well-known Gothic tropes, such as the trans-generational curse, the inclusion of a ghost and the setting of an old church for the murder of an innocent woman. Brewer blended fact and fiction, making the Whitechapel murderer the inheritor, or even perhaps the victim of an ancient curse that hung over Mitre Square, where the second murdered prostitute, Catherine Eddowes, had been found the month before. According to Brewer, the curse originated from the murder of a woman in 1530 by her brother, a ‘mad monk’, on the steps of the high altar of the Holy Trinity Church in Aldgate. The monk, Martin, committed suicide, realising what he had done, and his ghost now appears pointing to the place where the murder occurred, promising that other killings will follow. Whitechapel is written as both a cursed and haunted Gothic space in The Curse upon Mitre Square. Brewer’s description of the area reflected the contemporary public opinion, describing the Whitechapel Road as a “portal to the filth and squalor of the East” (66). However, Mitre Square is the former location of a monastery torn down by a corrupt politician; this place, which should have been holy ground, is cursed. Mitre Square’s atmosphere ensures the continuation of violent acts in the vicinity; indeed, it seems to exude a self-aware and malevolent force that results in the death of Catherine Eddowes centuries later. This idea of Whitechapel as somehow complicit in or even directing the acts of the Ripper will later become a popular trope of Ripperature. Brewer’s work was advertised in London on posters splashed with red, a reminder of the blood spilled by the Ripper’s victims only weeks earlier. It was also widely promoted by the media and reissued in New York in 1889. It is likely that a ‘suggestion effect’ took place during the telegraph-hastened, press-driven coverage of the Jack the Ripper story, including Brewer’s monograph, spreading the image of Gothic Whitechapel as fact to the world (Dimolianis 63). Samuel E. Hudson’s account of the Ripper murders differs in style from Brewer’s because of his attempt to engage critically with issues such as the failure of the police force to find the murderer and the true identity of Jack. His book Leather Apron; or, the Horrors of Whitechapel, London, was published in December of 1888. Hudson described the five murders canonically attributed to Jack, wrote an analysis of the police investigation that followed, and speculated as to the Ripper’s motivations. Despite his intention to examine the case objectively, Hudson writes Jack as a Gothic monster, an atavistic and savage creature prowling Whitechapel to satisfy his bloodlust. Jack is associated with several Gothic tropes in Hudson’s work, and described as different types of monsters. He is called: a “fiend bearing a charmed and supernatural existence,” a “human vampire”, an “incarnate monster” and even, like Brewer, the perpetrator of “ghoulish butchery” (Hudson 40). Hudson describes Whitechapel as “the worst place in London (...) with innumerable foul and pest-ridden alleys” (9). Whitechapel becomes implicated in the Ripper murders because of its previously established reputation as a crime-ridden slum. Poverty forced women into prostitution, meaning they were often out alone late at night, and its many courts and alleyways allowed the Ripper an easy escape from his pursuers after each murder (Warwick 560). The aspect of Whitechapel that Hudson emphasises the most is its darkness; “off the boulevard, away from the streaming gas-jets (...) the knave ran but slight chance of interruption” (40). Whitechapel is a place of shadows, its darkest places negotiated only by ‘fallen women’ and their clients, and Jack himself. Hudson’s casting of Jack as a vampire makes his preference for the night, and his ability to skilfully disembowel prostitutes and disappear without a trace, intelligible to his readers as the attributes of a Gothic monster. Significantly, Hudson’s London is personified as female, the same sex as the Ripper victims, evoking a sense of passive vulnerability against the acts of the masculine and predatory Jack, Hudson writing that “it was not until four Whitechapel women had perished (...) that London awoke to the startling fact that a monster was at work upon her streets” (8). The Complicity of Gothic Whitechapel in the Ripper Murders This seeming complicity of Whitechapel as a Gothic space in the Ripper murders, which Brewer and Hudson suggest in their work, can be seen to have influenced subsequent representations of Whitechapel in Ripperature. Whitechapel is no longer simply the location in which these terrible events take place; they happen because of Whitechapel itself, the space exerting a self-conscious malevolence and kinship with Jack. Historically, the murders forced Queen Victoria to call for redevelopment in Spitalfields, the improvement of living conditions for the working class, and for a better police force to patrol the East End to prevent similar crimes (Sugden 2). The fact that Jack was never captured “seemed only to confirm the impression that the bloodshed was created by the foul streets themselves: that the East End was the true Ripper,” (Ackroyd 678) using the murderer as a way to emerge into the public consciousness. In Ripperature, this idea was further developed by the now popular image of Jack “stalking the black alleyways [in] thick swirling fog” (Jones 15). This otherworldly fog seems to imply a mystical relationship between Jack and Whitechapel, shielding him from view and disorientating his victims. Whitechapel shares the guilt of the murders as a malevolent and essentially pagan space. The notion of Whitechapel as being inscribed with paganism and magic has become an enduring and popular trope of Ripperature. It relates to an obscure theory that drawing lines between the locations of the first four Ripper murders created Satanic and profane religious symbols, suggesting that they were predetermined locations for a black magic ritual (Odell 217). This theory was expanded upon most extensively in Alan Moore’s graphic novel From Hell, published in 1999. In From Hell, Jack connects several important historical and religious sites around London by drawing a pentacle on a map of the city. He explains the murders as a reinforcement of the pentacle’s “lines of power and meaning (...) this pentacle of sun gods, obelisks and rational male fire, within unconsciousness, the moon and womanhood are chained” (Moore 4.37). London becomes a ‘textbook’, a “literature of stone, of place-names and associations,” stretching back to the Romans and their pagan gods (Moore 4.9). Buck’s Row, the real location of the murder of Mary Ann Nichols, is pagan in origin; named for the deer that were sacrificed on the goddess Diana’s altars. However, Moore’s Whitechapel is also Hell itself, the result of Jack slipping further into insanity as the murders continue. From Hell is illustrated in black and white, which emphasises the shadows and darkness of Whitechapel. The buildings are indistinct scrawls of shadow, Jack often nothing more than a silhouette, forcing the reader to occupy the same “murky moral and spiritual darkness” that the Ripper does (Ferguson 58). Artist Eddie Campbell’s use of shade and shadow in his illustrations also contribute to the image of Whitechapel-as-Hell as a subterranean place. Therefore, in tracing the representations of Whitechapel in the London press and in Ripperature from 1888 onwards, the development of Whitechapel as a Gothic location becomes clear. From the geographical setting of the Ripper murders, Whitechapel has become a Gothic space, complicit in Jack’s work if not actively inspiring the murders. Whitechapel, although known to the public before the Ripper as a crime-ridden slum, developed into a Gothic space because of the murders, and continues to be associated with the Gothic in contemporary Ripperature as an uncanny and malevolent space “which seems to compel recognition as not of this earth" (Ackroyd 581). References Anonymous. “An Autumn Evening in Whitechapel.” Littell’s Living Age, 3 Nov. 1888. Anonymous. “The Nemesis of Neglect.” Punch, or the London Charivari, 29 Sep. 1888. Ackroyd, Peter. London: The Biography. Great Britain: Vintage, 2001. Brewer, John Francis. The Curse upon Mitre Square. London: Simpkin, Marshall and Co, 1888. De Quincey, Thomas. Confessions of an English Opium-Eater. Boston: Ticknor, Reed and Fields, 1850. Dimolianis, Spiro. Jack the Ripper and Black Magic: Victorian Conspiracy Theories, Secret Societies and the Supernatural Mystique of the Whitechapel Murders. North Carolina: McFarland and Co, 2011. Ferguson, Christine. “Victoria-Arcana and the Misogynistic Poetics of Resistance in Iain Sinclair’s White Chappell, Scarlet Tracings and Alan Moore’s From Hell.” Lit: Literature Interpretation Theory 20.1-2 (2009): 58. Harkness, Mary, In Darkest London. London: Hodder and Staughton, 1889. Hudson, Samuel E. Leather Apron; or, the Horrors of Whitechapel. London, Philadelphia, 1888. Johnstone, Lisa. “Rippercussions: Public Reactions to the Ripper Murders in the Victorian Press.” Casebook 15 July 2012. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.casebook.org/dissertations/rippercussions.html›. London, Jack. The People of the Abyss. New York: Lawrence Hill, 1905. Mayhew, Henry. London Labour and the London Poor, Volume 1. London: Griffin, Bohn and Co, 1861. Moore, Alan, Campbell, Eddie. From Hell: Being a Melodrama in Sixteen Parts. London: Knockabout Limited, 1999. Morrison, Arthur G. “Whitechapel.” The Palace Journal. 24 Apr. 1889. Odell, Robin. Ripperology: A Study of the World’s First Serial Killer and a Literary Phenomenon. Michigan: Sheridan Books, 2006. Paulden, Arthur. “Sensationalism and the City: An Explanation of the Ways in Which Locality Is Defined and Represented through Sensationalist Techniques in the Gothic Novels The Beetle and Dracula.” Innervate: Leading Undergraduate Work in English Studies 1 (2008-2009): 245. Phillips, Lawrence, and Anne Witchard. London Gothic: Place, Space and the Gothic Imagination. London: Continuum International, 2010. Poe, Edgar Allen. “The Man of the Crowd.” The Works of Edgar Allen Poe. Vol. 5. Raven ed. 15 July 2012. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2151/2151-h/2151-h.htm›. Punter, David. A New Companion to the Gothic. Sussex: Blackwell Publishing, 2012. Stead, William Thomas. “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon.” The Pall Mall Gazette, 6 July 1885. Sugden, Peter. The Complete History of Jack the Ripper. London: Robinson Publishing, 2002. Walkowitz, Judith R. City of Dreadful Delight: Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London, London: Virago, 1998. Woodford, Elizabeth. “Gothic City.” 15 July 2012. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://courses.nus.edu.au/sg/ellgohbh/gothickeywords.html›.

Abstract:

Coffee changes people. Moreover, it changes the way they interact with their friends, their fellow citizens and their community. (Ellis 24) On my daily walk around the streets of my neighbourhood, I pass the footpath cafés that have become synonymous with the area. On this particular day, I take a less familiar route and notice a new, small café wedged between a candle shop and an industrial building. At one of the two footpath tables sit a couple with their young child, conveniently (for them) asleep in a stroller. One is reading the Saturday paper, and the other has her nose in a book—coffee, muffins, and newspapers are strewn across the table. I am struck by this tableau of domestic ease and comfort, precisely because it is so domestic and yet the couple and child, with all the accoutrements of a relaxed Saturday morning, are situated outside the spaces of the home. It brings to mind an elegant phrase of Robert Hughes’ about the types of spaces that cities need, where “solitudes may lie together” (cited in Miller 79). I could, of course, also have drawn my attention to other vignettes at the café—for example, people involved in animated or easy conversation—and this would support Hughes’ other dictum, that cities need places where “people can gather and engage in energetic discourse” (79), which is of course another way in which people inhabit and utilise the café. The ascendancy of the café is synonymous with the contemporary city and, as semi-public space, it supports either solitude—through anonymity—or sociability. “Having a coffee” is central to the experience of everyday life in cities, yet it is also an expression of intent that suggests more than simply drinking a café latte or a cappuccino at our favourite neighbourhood café. While coffee aficionados will go the extra distance for a good brew, the coffee transaction is typically more to do with meeting friends, colleagues or connecting with people beyond our personal and professional networks. And under the umbrella of these types of encounters sit a variety of affective, social and civil transactions. In cities characterised by increasing density and cultural difference, and as mobile populations move back and forth across the planet, how we forge and maintain relationships with each other is important for the development of cosmopolitan cultures and social cohesion. It is the contemporary café and its coffee culture that provides the space to support sociability and the negotiation of civil encounters. Sociability, Coffee, and the Café Café culture is emblematic of social and urban change, of the rise of food culture and industries, and “aesthetic” cultures. The proliferation of hospitality and entertainment industries in the form of cafés, bars, restaurants, and other semi-public spaces—such as art galleries—are the consumer-based social spaces in which new forms of sociability and attachment are being nurtured and sustained. It is hardly surprising that people seek out places to meet others—given the transformation in social and kinship relations wrought by social change, globalization and mobile populations—to find their genesis in the city. Despite the decline of familial relations, new social formation produced by conditions such as workforce mobility, flexible work arrangements, the rise of the so-called “creative class” and single person households are flourishing. There are now more single person households in Australia than in any other period, with 1.9 million people living alone in 2006. This figure is predicted to increase to 30.36 per cent of the population by 2026 (ABS). The rapid take-up of apartment living in Australian cities suggests both a desire and necessity for urban living along with its associated amenities, and as a result, more people are living out their lives in the public and semi-public spaces of cities. Maffesoli refers to restructured and emerging social relations as “tribes” which are types of “emotional communities” (after Weber) based upon the affective, life-affirming impulse of “being togetherness” rather than an outmoded, rationalised social structure. For Maffesoli, tribes have strong powers of inclusion and integration and people are connected by shared affinities or lifestyles. Their stamping ground is the city where they gather in its public and semi-public spaces, such as the café, where sociability is expressed through “the exchange of feelings, conversation” (13). In this context, the café facilitates a mode of interaction that is both emotional and rational: while there might be a reason for meeting up, it is frequently driven by a desire for communication that is underpinned by the affective dimension. As a common ritualistic behaviour, “meeting for coffee” facilitates encounters not only with those known to us, but also among relationships that are provisional and contingent. It is among those less familiar that the café is useful as a space for engaging and practicing civil discourse (after Habermas) and where encounters with strangers might be comfortably negotiated. The café’s social codes facilitate the negotiation of less familiar relationships, promoting a sociability that is not as easy to navigate in other spaces of the city. The gesture of “having coffee” is hospitable, and the café’s neutrality as a meeting place is predicated on its function as transitional or liminal space; it is neither domestic, work, nor wholly public space. Its liminality removes inhabitants from the potentially anxious intimacy of the home and offers protection from the unknown of public space. Moreover, the café’s “safety” is further reinforced because it is regulated temporally by its central function as a place of food and beverage consumption: it provides a finite certitude to meetings, with the length of encounter largely being determined by the time it takes to consume a coffee or snack. In this way, the possible complexity or ambiguity associated with meetings with strangers in the more intimate spaces of the home is avoided, and meeting in a café may relieve the onus and anxiety that can be associated with entertaining. Café culture is not a new phenomenon, though its current manifestation differs from its antecedent, the sixteenth-century coffee house. Both the modern café and the coffee house are notable as places of intense sociability where people from all walks of life mingle (Ellis 2004). The diverse clientele of the coffee house is recorded extensively in the diaries of Samuel Pepys and unlike other social institutions of the time, was defined by its inclusivity of men from all walks of life (Ellis 59). Similarly, the espresso bars of the 1950s that appeared in Europe, North America and to a lesser extent Australia became known for their mix of customers from a range of classes, races and cultures, and for the inclusion of women as their patrons (Ellis 233). The wide assortment of people who patronised these espresso bars was noted in Architectural Digest magazine which claimed the new coffee bars as “the greatest social revolution since the launderette in 1954” (Ellis 234). Contemporary café culture continues this egalitarian tradition, with the café assuming importance as a place in which reconfigured social relationships are fostered and maintained. In Australia, the café has replaced the institution of the public house or hotel—the “pub” in Australia—as the traditional meeting place of cultural significance. Not everyone felt at home, or indeed was welcomed in the pub, despite its mythology as a place that was emblematic of “the Australian way of life”. Women, children and “others” who may have felt or may have been legally excluded from the pub are the new beneficiaries of the café’s inclusivity. The social organisation of the pub revolved around the interests of masculine relationships and culture (Fiske et al.) and until the late 1970s, women were excluded by legislation from its public bars. There are many other socio-cultural reasons why women were uncomfortable in the pub, even once legislation was removed. By comparison, the café, despite the bourgeois associations in some of its manifestations, is more democratic space than the pub and this rests to some extent on a greater emphasis placed on disciplined conduct of its patrons. The consumption of alcohol in hotels, combined with a cultural tolerance of excess and with alcohol’s effect of loosening inhibitions, also encourages the loosening of socially acceptable forms of conduct. A wider range of behaviour is tolerated and sanctioned which can present problems for women in particular. The negotiation of gendered relationships in the pub is, therefore, typically of more concern to women than men. In spite of its egalitarianism, and the diversity of patrons welcomed, the café, as a social space, is governed by a set of rules that communicate meaning about who belongs, who doesn’t and how people should behave. The social codes inscribed into café culture contribute to the production and reproduction of different social groups (Bourdieu and Lefebvre) and are reinforced by the café’s choice of aesthetics. Bourdieu’s concept of cultural capital accounts for the acquisition of cultural competencies and explains why some people feel comfortable in certain spaces while others feel excluded. Knowledge and skills required in social spaces express both subtle and sometimes not so subtle hierarchies of power and ownership, cutting across gender, ethnic and class divisions. Yet despite this, the relatively low cost of obtaining entry into the café—through the purchase of a drink—gives it greater accessibility than a pub, restaurant, or any other consumer site that is central to sociability and place attachment. In cities characterised by an intensity of change and movement, the café also enables a negotiation of place attachment. A sense of place connectedness, through habitual and regular usage, facilitates social meaning and belonging. People become “regulars” at cafés, patronising one over another, getting to know the staff and perhaps other patrons. The semiotics of the café, its ambience, decor, type of food and drink it sells, all contribute to the kind of fit that helps anchors it in a place. A proliferation of café styles offers scope for individual and collective affinities. While some adopt the latest trends in interior design, others appeal to a differentiated clientele through more varied approaches to design. Critiques of urban café culture, which see it as serving the interests of taste-based bourgeois patterns of consumption, often overlook the diversity of café styles that appeal to, and serve a wide range of, demographic groups. Café styles vary across a design continuum from fashionable minimalist décor, homey, grungy, sophisticated, traditional, corporate (McDonalds and Starbucks) or simply plain with little attention to current décor trends. The growth of café culture is a significant feature of gentrified inner city areas in cities across the world. In Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley in Australia, an inner-city youth entertainment precinct, many cafés have adopted a downmarket or “grunge” aesthetic, appealing to the area’s youth clientele and other marginal groups. Here, décor can suggest a cavalier disregard for bourgeois taste: shabby décor with mismatching tables and chairs and posters and graffiti plastered over windows and walls. Ironically, the community service organisation Mission Australia saw the need to provide for its community in this area; the marginalised, disadvantaged, and disengaged original inhabitants of this gentrified area, and opened a no-frills Café One to cater for them. Civility, Coffee, and the Café One of the distinctive features of cities is that they are places where “we meet with the other” (Barthes 96), and this is in contrast to life in provincial towns and villages where people and families could be known for generations. For the last two decades or so, cities across the world have been undergoing a period of accelerated change, including the rise of Asian mega-cities—and now, for the first time in history, the majority of the world’s population is urban based. Alongside this development is the movement of people across the world, for work, study, travel or fleeing from conflict and persecution. If Barthes’s statement was apt in the 1980s, it is ever more so now, nearly thirty years later. How strangers live together in cities of unprecedented scale and density raises important questions around social cohesion and the civil life of cities. As well as offering spaces that support a growth in urban sociability, the exponential rise of café culture can be seen as an important factor in the production of urban civilities. Reciprocity is central here, and it is the café’s function as a place of hospitality that adds another dimension to its role in the cultivation of civility and sociability. Café culture requires the acquisition of competencies associated with etiquette and manners that are based upon on notions of hospitality. The protocol required for ordering food and drink and for eating and drinking with others encourages certain types of behaviour such as courtesy, patience, restraint, and tolerance by all participants, including the café staff. The serving of food and drink in a semi-public space in exchange for money is more than a commercial transaction, it also demands the language and behaviour of civility. Conduct such as not talking too loudly, not eavesdropping on others’ conversations, knowing where to look and what to hear, are considered necessary competencies when thrust into close proximity with strangers. More intimately, the techniques of conversation—of listening, responding and sharing information—are practised in the café. It can be instructive to reprise Habermas’s concept of the public sphere (1962) in order to consider how semi-public places such as the café contribute to support the civil life of a city. Habermas’s analysis, grounded in the eighteenth-century city, charted how the coffee house or salon was instrumental to the development of a civilised discourse which contributed to the development of the public sphere across Europe. While a set of political and social structures operating at the time paved the way for the advent of democracy, critical discussion and rational argument was also vital. In other words, democratic values underpin civil discourse and the parallel here is that the space the café provides for civil interaction, particularly in cities marked by cultural and other difference, is unique among public amenities on offer in the city. The “bourgeois public sphere” for Habermas is based on the development of a social mode of interaction which became normative through socio-structural transformation during this period, and the coffee house or salon was a place that enabled a particular form of sociability and communication style. For Habermas, meeting places such as the urban-based coffee house were the heart of sociability, where conversational rules based on reasoned exchange were established; the cultivation of conversation was aimed at the dialogical egalitarian. Habermas’s bourgeois public sphere is essentially and potentially a political one, “conceived […] as the sphere of private people come together as a public” (Johnson 27). It refers to a realm of social life in which something approaching public opinion can be found. I am not claiming that the contemporary café might be the site of political dialogue and civic activism of the type that Habermas suggests. Rather, what is useful here is a recognition that the café facilitates a mode of interaction similar to the one proposed by Habermas—a mode of interaction which has the potential to be distinguished by its “open and inclusive character” (Johnson 22). The expectation of a “patient, willing comprehension of sympathetic fellows” (Johnson 23) refers to the cultivation of the art of conversation based on a reciprocity and is one that requires empathetic listening as well as dialogue. Because the café is a venue where people meet with less familiar others, the practice and techniques of conversation assumes particular significance, borne out in Habermas’s and Ellis’s historical research into café culture. Both scholars attribute the establishment of coffee houses in London to the development of social discourse and urban networking which helped set the ground for conversational rules and exchange and worked towards a democratic culture. In this context, values were challenged and differences revealed but the continued practice of conversation enabled the negotiation of such social diversity. Demonstrations of civility and generosity are straightforward in the café because of its established codes of conduct in an environment focussed upon hospitality. Paying for another’s drink, although not a great expense is a simple gesture of hospitality: “meeting for coffee” has become part of the lingua franca of workplace and business culture and relationships and is weighted with meaning. As cities grow in density, complexity and cultural diversity, citizens are adapting with new techniques of urban living. At a broad level, the café can be seen as supporting the growth in networks of sociability and facilitating the negotiation of civil discourse and behaviour. In the café, to act as a competent citizen, one must demonstrate the ability to be polite, restrained, considerate and civil—that is, to act in accordance with the social situation. This involves an element of self-control and discipline and requires social standards and expectations to become self-monitored and controlled. To be perceived as acting in accordance with the needs of certain social situations, participants bend, limit and regulate their behaviour and affects. In sum, the widespread take up of café culture, based on hospitality and reciprocity, encourages a mode of interaction that has implications for the development of a social and civic ethic. References Australian Bureau of Statistics. "1301.0–Year Book Australia." 2009. 31 Jan. 2012 ‹http://abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/0/916F96F929978825CA25773700169C65?opendocument› Barthes, Roland. Empire of Signs. New York: Hill and Wang, 1982. Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Trans. Richard Nice. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984. Ellis, Markum. The Coffee House: A Cultural History. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004. Fiske, J., B. Hodge, and G. Turner, eds. Myths of Oz: Reading Australian Popular Culture. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1987. Habermas, Jurgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1962. -----. The Theory of Communicative Action. Trans. T. McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1984. Johnson, Pauline. Habermas: Rescuing the Public Sphere. London: Routledge, 2006. Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991. Maffesoli, Michel. Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society. Trans. D. Smith. London: Sage, 1996. Miller, George. “A City that Works.” Sydney Papers Spring (2001): 77–79.

Abstract:

There is, in our sense of place, little cognisance of what lies underground. Yet our sense of place, instinctive, unconscious, primeval, has its own underground: the secret spaces which mirror our insides; the world beneath the skin. Our roots lie beneath the ground, with the minerals and the dead. (Hughes 83) The-Home-and-Away-Game Imagine the earth-grounded, “diagrammatological” trajectory of a footballer who as one member of a team is psyching himself up before the start of a game. The siren blasts its trumpet call. The footballer bursts out of the pavilion (where this psyching up has taken place) to engage in the opening bounce or kick of the game. And then: running, leaping, limping after injury, marking, sliding, kicking, and possibly even passing out from concussion. Finally, the elation accompanying the final siren, after which hugs, handshakes and raised fists conclude the actual match on the football oval. This exit from the pavilion, the course the player takes during the game itself, and return to the pavilion, forms a combination of stasis and movement, and a return to exhausted stasis again, that every player engages with regardless of the game code. Examined from a “diagrammatological” perspective, a perspective Rowan Wilken (following in the path of Gilles Deleuze and W. J. T. Mitchell) understands as “a generative process: a ‘metaphor’ or way of thinking — diagrammatic, diagrammatological thinking — which in turn, is linked to poetic thinking” (48), this footballer’s scenario arises out of an aerial perspective that depicts the actual spatial trajectory the player takes during the course of a game. It is a diagram that is digitally encoded via a sensor on the footballer’s body, and being an electronically encoded diagram it can also make available multiple sets of data such as speed, heartbeat, blood pressure, maybe even brain-wave patterns. From this limited point of view there is only one footballer’s playing trajectory to consider; various groupings within the team, the whole team itself, and the diagrammatological depiction of its games with various other teams might also be possible. This singular imagining though is itself an actuality: as a diagram it is encoded as a graphic image by a satellite hovering around the earth with a Global Positioning System (GPS) reading the sensor attached to the footballer which then digitally encodes this diagrammatological trajectory for appraisal later by the player, coach, team and management. In one respect, this practice is another example of a willing self-surveillance critical to explaining the reflexive subject and its attribute of continuous self-improvement. According to Docker, Official Magazine of the Fremantle Football Club, this is a technique the club uses as a part of game/play assessment, a system that can provide a “running map” for each player equipped with such a tracking device during a game. As the Fremantle Club’s Strength and Conditioning Coach Ben Tarbox says of this tactic, “We’re getting a physiological profile that has started to build a really good picture of how individual players react during a game” (21). With a little extra effort (and some sizeable computer processing grunt) this two dimensional linear graphic diagram of a footballer working the football ground could also form the raw material for a three-dimensional animation, maybe a virtual reality game, even a hologram. It could also be used to sideline a non-performing player. Now try another related but different imagining: what if this diagrammatological trajectory could be enlarged a little to include the possibility that this same player’s movements could be mapped out by the idea of home-and-away games; say over the course of a season, maybe even a whole career, for instance? No doubt, a wide range of differing diagrammatological perspectives might suggest themselves. My own particular refinement of this movement/stasis on the footballer’s part suggests my own distinctive comings and goings to and from my own specific piece of home country. And in this incessantly domestic/real world reciprocity, in this diurnally repetitive leaving and coming back to home country, might it be plausible to think of “Home as Capital of the Region”? If, as Walter Benjamin suggests in the prelude to his monumental Arcades Project, “Paris — the Capital of the Nineteenth Century,” could it be that both in and through my comings and goings to and from this selfsame home country, my own burgeoning sense of regionality is constituted in every minute-by-minutiae of lived experience? Could it be that this feeling about home is manifested in my every day-to-night manoeuvre of home-and-away-and-away-and-home-making, of every singular instance of exit, play/engage, and the return home? “Home, Capital of the Region” then examines the idea that my home is that part of the country which is the still-point of eternal return, the bedrock to which I retreat after the daily grind, and the point from which I start out and do it all again the next day. It employs, firstly, this ‘diagrammatological’ perspective to illustrate the point that this stasis/movement across country can make an electronic record of my own psychic self-surveillance and actualisation in-situ. And secondly, the architectural plan of the domestic home (examined through the perspective of critical regionalism) is used as a conduit to illustrate how I am physically embedded in country. Lastly, intermingling these digressive threads is chora, Plato’s notion of embodied place and itself an ancient regional rendering of this eternal return to the beginning, the place where the essential diversity of country decisively enters the soul. Chora: Core of Regionality Kevin Lynch writes that, “Our senses are local, while our experience is regional” (10), a combination that suggests this regional emphasis on home-and-away-making might be a useful frame of reference (simultaneously spatiotemporal, both a visceral and encoded communication) for me to include as a crucial vector in my own life-long learning package. Regionality (as, variously, a sub-generic categorisation and an extension/concentration of nationality, as well as a recently re-emerged friend/antagonist to a global understanding) infuses my world of home with a grounded footing in country, one that is a site of an Eternal Return to the Beginning in the micro-world of the everyday. This is a point John Sallis discusses at length in his analysis of Plato’s Timaeus and its founding notion of regionality: chora. More extended absences away from home-base are of course possible but one’s return to home on most days and for most nights is a given of post/modern, maybe even of ancient everyday experience. Even for the continually shifting nomad, nightfall in some part of the country brings the rest and recreation necessary for the next day’s wanderings. This fundamental question of an Eternal Return to the Beginning arises as a crucial element of the method in Plato’s Timaeus, a seemingly “unstructured” mythic/scientific dialogue about the origins and structure of both the psychically and the physically implaced world. In the Timaeus, “incoherence is especially obvious in the way the natural sequence in which a narrative would usually unfold is interrupted by regressions, corrections, repetitions, and abrupt new beginnings” (Gadamer 160). Right in the middle of the Timaeus, in between its sections on the “Work of Reason” and the “Work of Necessity”, sits chora, both an actual spatial and bodily site where my being intersects with my becoming, and where my lived life criss-crosses the various arts necessary to articulating a recorded version of that life. Every home is a grounded chora-logical timespace harness guiding its occupant’s thoughts, feelings and actions. My own regionally implaced chora (an example of which is the diagrammatological trajectory already outlined above as my various everyday comings and goings, of me acting in and projecting myself into context) could in part be understood as a graphical realisation of the extent of my movements and stationary rests in my own particular timespace trajectory. The shorthand for this process is ‘embedded’. Gregory Ulmer writes of chora that, “While chorography as a term is close to choreography, it duplicates a term that already exists in the discipline of geography, thus establishing a valuable resonance for a rhetoric of invention concerned with the history of ‘place’ in relation to memory” (Heuretics 39, original italics). Chorography is the geographic discipline for the systematic study and analysis of regions. Chora, home, country and regionality thus form an important multi-dimensional zone of interplay in memorialising the game of everyday life. In light of these observations I might even go so far as to suggest that this diagrammatological trajectory (being both digital and GPS originated) is part of the increasingly electrate condition that guides the production of knowledge in any global/regional context. This last point is a contextual connection usefully examined in Alan J. Scott’s Regions and the World Economy: The Coming Shape of Global Production, Competition, and Political Order and Michael Storper’s The Regional World: Territorial Development in a Global Economy. Their analyses explicitly suggest that the symbiosis between globalisation and regionalisation has been gathering pace since at least the end of World War Two and the Bretton Woods agreement. Our emerging understanding of electracy also happens to be Gregory Ulmer’s part-remedy for shifting the ground under the intense debates surrounding il/literacy in the current era (see, in particular, Internet Invention). And, for Tony Bennett, Michael Emmison and John Frow’s analysis of “Australian Everyday Cultures” (“Media Culture and the Home” 57–86), it is within the home that our un.conscious understanding of electronic media is at its most intense, a pattern that emerges in the longer term through receiving telegrams, compiling photo albums, listening to the radio, home- and video-movies, watching the evening news on television, and logging onto the computer in the home-office, media-room or home-studio. These various generalisations (along with this diagrammatological view of my comings and goings to and from the built space of home), all point indiscriminately to a productive confusion surrounding the sedentary and nomadic opposition/conjunction. If natural spaces are constituted in nouns like oceans, forests, plains, grasslands, steppes, deserts, rivers, tidal interstices, farmland etc. (and each categorisation here relies on the others for its existence and demarcation) then built space is often seen as constituting its human sedentary equivalent. For Deleuze and Guatteri (in A Thousand Plateaus, “1227: Treatise on Nomadology — The War Machine”) these natural spaces help instigate a nomadic movement across localities and regions. From a nomadology perspective, these smooth spaces unsettle a scientific, numerical calculation, sometimes even aesthetic demarcation and order. If they are marked at all, it is by heterogenous and differential forces, energised through constantly oscillating intensities. A Thousand Plateaus is careful though not to elevate these smooth nomadic spaces over the more sedentary spaces of culture and power (372–373). Nonetheless, as Edward S. Casey warns, “In their insistence on becoming and movement, however, the authors of A Thousand Plateaus overlook the placial potential of settled dwelling — of […] ‘built places’” (309, original italics). Sedentary, settled dwelling centred on home country may have a crust of easy legibility and order about it but it also formats a locally/regionally specific nomadic quality, a point underscored above in the diagrammatological perspective. The sedentary tendency also emerges once again in relation to home in the architectural drafting of the domestic domicile. The Real Estate Revolution When Captain Cook planted the British flag in the sand at Botany Bay in 1770 and declared the country it spiked as Crown Land and henceforth will come under the ownership of an English sovereign, it was also the moment when white Australia’s current fascination with real estate was conceived. In the wake of this spiking came the intense anxiety over Native Title that surfaced in late twentieth century Australia when claims of Indigenous land grabs would repossess suburban homes. While easily dismissed as hyperbole, a rhetorical gesture intended to arouse this very anxiety, its emergence is nonetheless an indication of the potential for political and psychic unsettling at the heart of the ownership and control of built place, or ‘settled dwelling’ in the Australian context. And here it would be wise to include not just the gridded, architectural quality of home-building and home-making, but also the home as the site of the family romance, another source of unsettling as much as a peaceful calming. Spreading out from the boundaries of the home are the built spaces of fences, bridges, roads, railways, airport terminals (along with their interconnecting pathways), which of course brings us back to the communications infrastructure which have so often followed alongside the development of transport infrastructure. These and other elements represent this conglomerate of built space, possibly the most significant transformation of natural space that humanity has brought about. For the purposes of this meditation though it is the more personal aspect of built space — my home and regional embeddedness, along with their connections into the global electrosphere — that constitutes the primary concern here. For a sedentary, striated space to settle into an unchallenged existence though requires a repression of the highest order, primarily because of the home’s proximity to everyday life, of the latter’s now fading ability to sometimes leave its presuppositions well enough alone. In settled, regionally experienced space, repressions are more difficult to abstract away, they are lived with on a daily basis, which also helps to explain the extra intensity brought to their sometimes-unsettling quality. Inversely, and encased in this globalised electro-spherical ambience, home cannot merely be a place where one dwells within avoiding those presuppositions, I take them with me when I travel and they come back with me from afar. This is a point obliquely reflected in Pico Iyer’s comment that “Australians have so flexible a sense of home, perhaps, that they can make themselves at home anywhere” (185). While our sense of home may well be, according to J. Douglas Porteous, “the territorial core” of our being, when other arrangements of space and knowledge shift it must inevitably do so as well. In these shifts of spatial affiliation (aided and abetted by regionalisation, globalisation and electronic knowledge), the built place of home can no longer be considered exclusively under the illusion of an autonomous sanctuary wholly guaranteed by capitalist property relations, one of the key factors in its attraction. These shifts in the cultural, economic and psychic relation of home to country are important to a sense of local and regional implacement. The “feeling” of autonomy and security involved in home occupation and/or ownership designates a component of this implacement, a point leading to Eric Leed’s comment that, “By the sixteenth century, literacy had become one of the definitive signs — along with the possession of property and a permanent residence — of an independent social status” (53). Globalising and regionalising forces make this feeling of autonomy and security dynamic, shifting the ground of home, work-place practices and citizenship allegiances in the process. Gathering these wide-ranging forces impacting on psychic and built space together is the emergence of critical regionalism as a branch of architectonics, considered here as a theory of domestic architecture. Critical Regionality Critical regionalism emerged out of the collective thinking of Liane Lefaivre and Alexander Tzonis (Tropical Architecture; Critical Regionalism), and as these authors themselves acknowledge, was itself deeply influenced by the work of Lewis Mumford during the first part of the twentieth century when he was arguing against the authority of the international style in architecture, a style epitomised by the Bauhaus movement. It is Kenneth Frampton’s essay, “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance” that deliberately takes this question of critical regionalism and makes it a part of a domestic architectonic project. In many ways the ideas critical regionalism espouses can themselves be a microcosm of this concomitantly emerging global/regional polis. With public examples of built-form the power of the centre is on display by virtue of a building’s enormous size and frequently high-cultural aesthetic power. This is a fact restated again and again from the ancient world’s agora to Australia’s own political bunker — its Houses of Parliament in Canberra. While Frampton discusses a range of aspects dealing with the universal/implaced axis across his discussion, it is points five and six that deserve attention from a domestically implaced perspective. Under the sub-heading, “Culture Versus Nature: Topography, Context, Climate, Light and Tectonic Form” is where he writes that, Here again, one touches in concrete terms this fundamental opposition between universal civilization and autochthonous culture. The bulldozing of an irregular topography into a flat site is clearly a technocratic gesture which aspires to a condition of absolute placelessness, whereas the terracing of the same site to receive the stepped form of a building is an engagement in the act of “cultivating” the site. (26, original italics) The “totally flat datum” that the universalising tendency sometimes presupposes is, within the critical regionalist perspective, an erroneous assumption. The “cultivation” of a site for the design of a building illustrates the point that built space emerges out of an interaction between parallel phenomena as they contrast and/or converge in a particular set of timespace co-ordinates. These are phenomena that could include (but are not limited to) geomorphic data like soil and rock formations, seismic activity, inclination and declension; climatic considerations in the form of wind patterns, temperature variations, rainfall patterns, available light and dark, humidity and the like; the building context in relation to the cardinal points of north, south, east, and west, along with their intermediary positions. There are also architectural considerations in the form of available building materials and personnel to consider. The social, psychological and cultural requirements of the building’s prospective in-dwellers are intermingled with all these phenomena. This is not so much a question of where to place the air conditioning system but the actuality of the way the building itself is placed on its site, or indeed if that site should be built on at all. A critical regionalist building practice, then, is autochthonous to the degree that a full consideration of this wide range of in-situ interactions is taken into consideration in the development of its design plan. And given this autochthonous quality of the critical regionalist project, it also suggests that the architectural design plan itself (especially when it utilised in conjunction with CAD and virtual reality simulations), might be the better model for designing electrate-centred projects rather than writing or even the script. The proliferation of ‘McMansions’ across many Australian suburbs during the 1990s (generally, oversized domestic buildings designed in the abstract with little or no thought to the above mentioned elements, on bulldozed sites, with powerful air-conditioning systems, and no verandas or roof eves to speak of) demonstrates the continuing influence of a universal, centralising dogma in the realm of built place. As summer temperatures start to climb into the 40°C range all these air-conditioners start to hum in unison, which in turn raises the susceptibility of the supporting infrastructure to collapse under the weight of an overbearing electrical load. The McMansion is a clear example of a built form that is envisioned more so in a drafting room, a space where the architect is remote-sensing the locational specificities. In this envisioning (driven more by a direct line-of-sight idiom dominant in “flat datum” and economic considerations rather than architectural or experiential ones), the tactile is subordinated, which is the subject of Frampton’s sixth point: It is symptomatic of the priority given to sight that we find it necessary to remind ourselves that the tactile is an important dimension in the perception of built form. One has in mind a whole range of complementary sensory perceptions which are registered by the labile body: the intensity of light, darkness, heat and cold; the feeling of humidity; the aroma of material; the almost palpable presence of masonry as the body senses it own confinement; the momentum of an induced gait and the relative inertia of the body as it traverses the floor; the echoing resonance of our own footfall. (28) The point here is clear: in its wider recognition of, and the foregrounding of my body’s full range of sensate capacities in relation to both natural and built space, the critical regionalist approach to built form spreads its meaning-making capacities across a broader range of knowledge modalities. This tactility is further elaborated in more thoroughly personal ways by Margaret Morse in her illuminating essay, “Home: Smell, Taste, Posture, Gleam”. Paradoxically, this synaesthetic, syncretic approach to bodily meaning-making in a built place, regional milieu intensely concentrates the site-centred locus of everyday life, while simultaneously, the electronic knowledge that increasingly underpins it expands both my body’s and its region’s knowledge-making possibilities into a global gestalt, sometimes even a cosmological one. It is a paradoxical transformation that makes us look anew at social, cultural and political givens, even objective and empirical understandings, especially as they are articulated through national frames of reference. Domestic built space then is a kind of micro-version of the multi-function polis where work, pleasure, family, rest, public display and privacy intermingle. So in both this reduction and expansion in the constitution of domestic home life, one that increasingly represents the location of the production of knowledge, built place represents a concentration of energy that forces us to re-imagine border-making, order, and the dynamic interplay of nomadic movement and sedentary return, a point that echoes Nicolas Rothwell’s comment that “every exile has in it a homecoming” (80). Albeit, this is a knowledge-making milieu with an expanded range of modalities incorporated and expressed through a wide range of bodily intensities not simply cognitive ones. Much of the ambiguous discontent manifested in McMansion style domiciles across many Western countries might be traced to the fact that their occupants have had little or no say in the way those domiciles have been designed and/or constructed. In Heidegger’s terms, they have not thought deeply enough about “dwelling” in that building, although with the advent of the media room the question of whether a “building” securely borders both “dwelling” and “thinking” is now open to question. As anxieties over border-making at all scales intensifies, the complexities and un/sureties of natural and built space take ever greater hold of the psyche, sometimes through the advance of a “high level of critical self-consciousness”, a process Frampton describes as a “double mediation” of world culture and local conditions (21). Nearly all commentators warn of a nostalgic, romantic or a sentimental regionalism, the sum total of which is aimed at privileging the local/regional and is sometimes utilised as a means of excluding the global or universal, sometimes even the national (Berry 67). Critical regionalism is itself a mediating factor between these dispositions, working its methods and practices through my own psyche into the local, the regional, the national and the global, rejecting and/or accepting elements of these domains, as my own specific context, in its multiplicity, demands it. If the politico-economic and cultural dimensions of this global/regional world have tended to undermine the process of border-making across a range of scales, we can see in domestic forms of built place the intense residue of both their continuing importance and an increased dependency on this electro-mediated world. This is especially apparent in those domiciles whose media rooms (with their satellite dishes, telephone lines, computers, television sets, games consuls, and music stereos) are connecting them to it in virtuality if not in reality. Indeed, the thought emerges (once again keeping in mind Eric Leed’s remark on the literate-configured sense of autonomy that is further enhanced by a separate physical address and residence) that the intense importance attached to domestically orientated built place by globally/regionally orientated peoples will figure as possibly the most viable means via which this sense of autonomy will transfer to electronic forms of knowledge. If, however, this here domestic habitué turns his gaze away from the screen that transports me into this global/regional milieu and I focus my attention on the physicality of the building in which I dwell, I once again stand in the presence of another beginning. This other beginning is framed diagrammatologically by the building’s architectural plans (usually conceived in either an in-situ, autochthonous, or a universal manner), and is a graphical conception that anchors my body in country long after the architects and builders have packed up their tools and left. This is so regardless of whether a home is built, bought, rented or squatted in. Ihab Hassan writes that, “Home is not where one is pushed into the light, but where one gathers it into oneself to become light” (417), an aphorism that might be rephrased as follows: “Home is not where one is pushed into the country, but where one gathers it into oneself to become country.” For the in-and-out-and-around-and-about domestic dweller of the twenty-first century, then, home is where both regional and global forms of country decisively enter the soul via the conduits of the virtuality of digital flows and the reality of architectural footings. Acknowledgements I’m indebted to both David Fosdick and Phil Roe for alerting me to the importance to the Fremantle Dockers Football Club. The research and an original draft of this essay were carried out under the auspices of a PhD scholarship from Central Queensland University, and from whom I would also like to thank Denis Cryle and Geoff Danaher for their advice. References Benjamin, Walter. “Paris — the Capital of the Nineteenth Century.” Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism. Trans. Quintin Hoare. London: New Left Books, 1973. 155–176. Bennett, Tony, Michael Emmison and John Frow. Accounting for Tastes: Australian Everyday Cultures. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Berry, Wendell. “The Regional Motive.” A Continuous Harmony: Essays Cultural and Agricultural. San Diego: Harcourt Brace. 63–70. Casey, Edward S. The Fate of Place: A Philosophical History. Berkeley: U of California P, 1997. Deleuze, Gilles and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: U of Minneapolis P, 1987. Deleuze, Gilles. “The Diagram.” The Deleuze Reader. Ed. Constantin Boundas. Trans. Constantin Boundas and Jacqueline Code. New York: Columbia UP, 1993. 193–200. Frampton, Kenneth. “Towards a Critical Regionalism: Six Points for an Architecture of Resistance.” The Anti-Aesthetic: Essays on Post-Modern Culture. Ed. Hal Foster. Port Townsend: Bay Press, 1983. 16–30. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. “Idea and Reality in Plato’s Timaeus.” Dialogue and Dialectic: Eight Hermeneutical Studies on Plato. Trans. P. Christopher Smith. New Haven: Yale UP, 1980. 156–193. Hassan, Ihab. “How Australian Is It?” The Best Australian Essays. Ed. Peter Craven. Melbourne: Black Inc., 2000. 405–417. Heidegger, Martin. “Building Dwelling Thinking.” Poetry, Language, Thought. Trans. Albert Hofstadter. New York: Harper and Row, 1971. 145–161. Hughes, John. The Idea of Home: Autobiographical Essays. Sydney: Giramondo, 2004. Iyer, Pico. “Australia 1988: Five Thousand Miles from Anywhere.” Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World. London: Jonathon Cape, 1993. 173–190. “Keeping Track.” Docker, Official Magazine of the Fremantle Football Club. Edition 3, September (2005): 21. Leed, Eric. “‘Voice’ and ‘Print’: Master Symbols in the History of Communication.” The Myths of Information: Technology and Postindustrial Culture. Ed. Kathleen Woodward. Madison, Wisconsin: Coda Press, 1980. 41–61. Lefaivre, Liane and Alexander Tzonis. “The Suppression and Rethinking of Regionalism and Tropicalism After 1945.” Tropical Architecture: Critical Regionalism in the Age of Globalization. Eds. Alexander Tzonis, Liane Lefaivre and Bruno Stagno. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Academy, 2001. 14–58. Lefaivre, Liane and Alexander Tzonis. Critical Regionalism: Architecture and Identity in a Globalized World. New York: Prestel, 2003. Lynch, Kevin. Managing the Sense of a Region. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT P, 1976. Mitchell, W. J. T. “Diagrammatology.” Critical Inquiry 7.3 (1981): 622–633. Morse, Margaret. “Home: Smell, Taste, Posture, Gleam.” Home, Exile, Homeland: Film, Media, and the Politics of Place. Ed. Hamid Naficy. New York and London: Routledge, 1999. 63–74. Plato. Timaeus and Critias. Trans. Desmond Lee. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1973. Porteous, J. Douglas. “Home: The Territorial Core.” Geographical Review LXVI (1976): 383-390. Rothwell, Nicolas. Wings of the Kite-Hawk: A Journey into the Heart of Australia. Sydney: Pidador, 2003. Sallis, John. Chorology: On Beginning in Plato’s Timaeus. Bloomington: Indianapolis UP, 1999. Scott, Allen J. Regions and the World Economy: The Coming Shape of Global Production, Competition, and Political Order. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Storper, Michael. The Regional World: Territorial Development in a Global Economy. New York: The Guildford Press, 1997. Ulmer, Gregory L. Heuretics: The Logic of Invention. New York: John Hopkins UP, 1994. Ulmer, Gregory. Internet Invention: Literacy into Electracy. Longman: Boston, 2003. Wilken, Rowan. “Diagrammatology.” Illogic of Sense: The Gregory Ulmer Remix. Eds. Darren Tofts and Lisa Gye. Alt-X Press, 2007. 48–60. Available at http://www.altx.com/ebooks/ulmer.html. (Retrieved 12 June 2007)

Abstract:

Introduction It appears that graffiti has begun to clean up its act. Escalating numbers of mature graffiti writers feel the removal of their graffiti has robbed them of a history, and are turning to legal projects in an effort to restore it. Phibs has declared the graffiti underground “limited” and Kano claims its illegal aspect no longer inspires him (Hamilton, 73). A sign of the times was the exhibition Sake of Name: Australian Graffiti Now which opened at the Wharf 2 Theatre in January 2001. The exhibition was commissioned by the Sydney Theatre Company and comprised twenty-two pieces painted by graffiti writers from around Australia. Keen to present a respectable image, writers rejected the original title of Bomb the Wharf, as they felt it focused on the negative aspects of the culture (Andrews, 2). Premier Bob Carr opened the exhibition with the declaration that there is a difference between “graffiti art” and “graffiti vandalism”. The Premier’s stance struck a discordant note with Tony Stevens, a twenty-three-year veteran graffiti cleaner. Described by the Sydney Morning Herald as an “urban art critic by default,” Stevens could see no distinction between graffiti art and vandalism (Leys, 1). Furthermore, he expressed his disappointment that the pieces had “no sense of individuality … it could be graffiti from any American city” (Stevens, 1). As far as Stevens could see, Australian graffiti expressed nothing of its Australian context; it simply mimicked that of America. Sydney Theatre Company director Benedict Andrews responded with a venomous attack on Stevens. Andrews accused the cleaner of being blinded by prejudice (1), and felt that years of cleaning texta tags from railway corridors could not have possibly qualified Stevens as an art critic (3). “The artists in this exhibition are not misfits,” Andrews wrote (2). “They are serious artists in dialogue with their culture and the landscapes in which they live” (2). He went on to hail the strength and diversity of the Australian graffiti scene: “it is a vital and agile international culture and in Australia has evolved in specific ways” (1). The altercation between Stevens and Andrews pointed to one of the debates concerning Australian graffiti: whether it is unique or simply imitative of the American form. Hinged on the assessment of graffiti as vandalism is the view that graffiti is dirty, a disease. Proponents of this view consider graffiti to be an undifferentiated global phenomenon. Others conceive of graffiti as art, and as such argue that it is expressive of local experiences. Graffiti writers maintain that graffiti is expressive of local experiences and they describe it in terms of regional styles and aesthetics. This article maps the transformation of hip hop graffiti as it has been disseminated throughout the world. It registers the distinctiveness of graffiti in Australia and argues that graffiti is not a globally hom*ogenous form, but one which develops in a locally specific manner. Writing and Replicating: Hip Hop Graffiti and Cultural Imperialism Contemporary graffiti subcultures are strongly identified with large American cities. Originating in the black neighbourhood cultures of Philadelphia and New York City in the late 1960s and early 1970s, hip hop graffiti emerged as part of a larger, homegrown, alternative youth culture (“Urban Graffiti”, 77). Before the end of the 1970s, the aesthetic codes and stylised images of hip hop graffiti began to disseminate to major cities across America and throughout the globe. Its transmission was facilitated by: the production and export of films such as Style Wars (Silver and Chalfant, 1983) and Wild Style (Ahearn, 1983); the covers of rap albums; graffiti magazines; art dealers; and style manuals such as Subway Art (Cooper and Chalfant) and Spraycan Art (Chalfant and Prigroff). Graffiti migrated to Australian shores during the early 1980s, gaining influence through the appearance of these seminal works, which are credited by many as having inspired them to pick up a can of spraypaint. During its larval stages, the subcultural codes of graffiti invented by American writers were reiterated in an Australian context. Australian graffiti writers poached the vocabulary and rhetoric invented by their American counterparts. Writers spoke of “getting up”, “getting fame” and their “crew”, classifying their work as “tags”, “pieces”, or “throw ups”. They utilised the same bubble letters, and later, the incomprehensible “wildstyle” originally devised by American writers. It was not long, however, before Australian writers were making their own innovations and developing a unique style. Despite this, there is still widespread conviction in the view that Australian graffiti is a replica of an American cultural form. This view is supported at a theoretical level by the concept of cultural imperialism. It is generally understood, at a basic level, to be the diffusion of a foreign culture at the expense of a local culture. The concept has been usefully clarified by John Tomlinson. Since there are various orders of power involved in allegations of cultural imperialism, Tomlinson attempts to resist some implicit “master narrative” of the term, accounting for cultural imperialism in a multidimensional fashion (20). He outlines five possible versions, which inflect cultural imperialism to mean cultural domination; a discourse of nationality; media imperialism; global capital; and modernity (19-28). The idea that Australian graffiti replicates American graffiti draws particularly on the first two versions—that of cultural imperialism as cultural domination, and the discourse of nationality. Both these approaches focus on the processes involved in cultural imperialism—“the invasion of an indigenous culture by a foreign one” (Tomlinson, 23). Many people I spoke to about graffiti saw it as evidence of foreign, particularly American, domination and influence over Australian culture. They expressed concern that the appearance of graffiti would signal an influx of “American” problems: gang activity, escalating violence and social disorder. Cultural imperialism as a discourse of nationality hinges on the concepts of “belonging” and “indigenous culture”. In a conference organised by the Graffiti Program of the Government of Western Australia, Senator Ian Campbell argued that graffiti had no place in Australia. He felt that, “there should be little need for social comment through the vandalism of other’s property. Perhaps in nations where … freedoms are not recognised … but not in Australia” (6). Tomlinson argues that the conceptions of cultural imperialism as both cultural domination and as a discourse of nationality are popular because of their highly ambiguous (and thus accommodating) nature (19, 23). However, both notions are problematic. Tomlinson immediately dismisses the notion of cultural imperialism as cultural domination, arguing that one should aim for specificity. “Imperialism” and “domination” are rather general notions, and as such both have sufficient conceptual breadth and ambiguity to accommodate most uses to which they might be put (19). Cultural imperialism as a discourse of nationality is similarly problematic, relying on the precise definitions of a series of terms—such as belonging, and indigenous culture—which have multiple inflections (24). Cultural imperialism has often been tracked as a process of hom*ogenisation. Conceiving of cultural imperialism as hom*ogenisation is particularly pertinent to the argument for the global hom*ogeneity of graffiti. Cultural hom*ogenisation makes “everywhere seem more or less the same,” assuming a global uniformity which is inherently Western, and in extreme cases, American (6). The implications of “Americanisation” are relevant to the attitudes of Australian graffiti writers. On the Blitzkrieg Bulletin Board—an internet board for Australian graffiti writers—I found evidence of a range of responses to “Americanisation” in Australian graffiti. One of the writers had posted: “you shouldn’t even be doing graff if you are a toy little kid, buying export paint and painting legal walls during the day … f*** all y’all nigg*z!” s3 replied, “I do know that modern graffiti originated in America but … token are you American? Why do you want to talk like an American gangsta rapper?” The global currency of graffiti is one in which local originality and distinctiveness are highly prized. It is a source of shame for a writer to “bite”. Many of the writers I spoke to became irate when I suggested that Australian styles “bit” those of America. It seems inconsistent that Australian graffiti writers would reproduce American graffiti, if they do not even tolerate Australian writers using the word “nigg*”. Like the argument that Australian graffiti replicates that of America, the concept of cultural imperialism is problematic. By the 1970s the concept was beginning to come apart at the seams, its “artificial coherence” exposed when subjected to a range of applications (Tomlinson, 8). Although the idea of cultural imperialism has been discredited and somewhat abandoned at the level of theory, the concept nonetheless continues to guide attitudes towards graffiti. Jeff Ferrell has argued that the interplay of cultural resources involved in worldwide graffiti directly locates it inside issues of cultural imperialism (“Review of Moscow Graffiti”, paragraph 5). Stylistic and subcultural consistencies are mobilised to substantiate assertions of the operation of cultural imperialism in the global form of graffiti. This serves to render it globally hom*ogeneous. While many graffiti writers would concede that graffiti maintains certain global elements, few would agree that this is indicative of a global hom*ogeneity of form. As part of the hip hop component of their website, Triple J conducted an investigation into graffiti. It found that “the graffiti aesthetic developed in New York has been modified with individual characteristics … and has transformed into a unique Australian style” (“Old Skool”, paragraph 6). Veteran writers Umph, Exit, Phibs and Dmote agree. Perth writer Zenith claims, “we came up with styles from the US back in the day and it has grown into something quite unique” (personal communication). Exit declares, “every city has its own particular style. Graffiti from Australia can easily be distinguished by graffiti artists. Australia has its own particular style” (1). Umph agrees: “to us writers, the differences are obvious” (2). Although some continue to perceive Australian graffiti as replicating that of America, it appears that this is no longer the case. Evidence has emerged that Australian graffiti has evolved into a unique and localised form, which no longer imitates that of America. “Going Over” Cultural Imperialism: Hip Hop Graffiti and Processes of Globalisation The argument that graffiti has developed local inflections has lately garnered increasing support due to new theories of global cultural interaction and exchange. The modern era has been characterised by the increasing circulation of goods, capital, knowledge, information, people, images, ideologies, technologies and practices across national borders and territorial boundaries (Appadurai, 230; Scholte, 10). Academic discussion of these developments has converged in recent years around the concept of “globalisation”. While cultural imperialism describes these movements as the diffusion of a foreign culture at the expense of a local one, globalisation interprets these profound changes as evidence of “a global ecumene of persistent cultural interaction and exchange” (Hannerz, 107). In such a view, the globe is not characterised by domination and hom*ogenisation (as with cultural imperialism), but more in terms of exchange and heterogeneity. Recent studies acknowledge that globalisation is complex and multidimensional (Giddens, 30; Kalb, 1), even a process of paradoxes (Findlay, 30). Globalisation is frequently described in terms of contradictory processes—universalisation vs. particularisation, hom*ogenisation vs. differentiation, integration vs. fragmentation. Another of these dialectical tendencies is that of localisation. Kloos defines localisation as representing “the rise of localised, culturally defined identities … localisation stresses sociocultural specificity, in a limited space” (281). While localisation initially appears to stand in opposition to globalisation, the concepts are actually involved in a dialectical process (Giddens, 64). The relationship between localisation and globalisation has been formulated as follows: “Processes of globalisation trigger identity movements leading to the creation of localised, cultural-specific, identities” (Kloos, 282). The development of localisation is particularly pertinent to this study of graffiti. The concept allows for local diversity and has led to the understanding that global cultural phenomena are involved in a process of exchange. Work around globalisation lends credence to the argument that, as graffiti has disseminated throughout the globe, it has mutated to the specific locale within which it exists. Graffiti has always been locally specific: from the early stages which witnessed writers such as Julio 204, Fran 207 and Joe 136 (the numbers referred to their street), to the more recent practice of suffixing tag names with the name of a writers’ crew and their area code. The tendency to include area codes has been largely abandoned in Australia as the law has responded to graffiti with increasing vigilance, but evolutions in graffiti have pointed towards the development of regionally specific styles which writers have come to recognise. Thus, graffiti cannot be thought of as a globally hom*ogenous form, nor can it be said that Australian graffiti replicates that of America. As hip hop has circulated throughout the globe it has appeared to adopt local inflections, having adapted into something quite locally distinctive. In a sense hip hop has been “translated” to particular circ*mstances. It is now appropriate to consider Australian hip hop and graffiti as a translation of a global cultural phenomenon. A useful reference in this regard is Yuri Lotman, who designates dialogue as the elementary mechanism of translation (143). He suggests that participants involved in a dialogue alternate between a position of “transmission” and “reception” (144). Hence cultural developments are cyclical, and relationships between units—which may range from genres to national cultures—pass through periods of “transmission” and “reception” (144). Lotman proposes that the relationship between structures follows a pattern: at first, a structure will appear in decline, static, unoriginal. He records these “intermissions” as “pauses in dialogue”, during which the structure absorbs influences from the outside (144). When saturation reaches a certain limit, the structure begins producing its own texts as its “passive state changes to a state of alertness” (145). This is a useful way of comprehending Australian hip hop culture. It appears that the Australian hip hop scene has left behind its period of “reception” and is now witnessing one of “transmission” in which it is producing uniquely Australian flavours and styles. Of the contemporary graffiti I have observed, it appears that Australian writing is truly distinctive. Australian writers may have initially poached the subcultural codes developed by their American counterparts, however Australia has evolved to be truly unique where it counts—in graffiti styles. Distinctive graffiti styles can be witnessed, not only between different continents, but also within geographic locations. American graffiti registers a variety of locally specific forms. New York remains devoted to the letter, while graffiti on the west coast of America is renowned for its gang writing. American lettering styles tend to develop existing styles. New York wildstyle is easily recognised, and differs from letters in the Bay Area and San Francisco, which feature arrows inside the letters. While American graffiti is by and large concerned with letters, Australia has gained some repute for its exploration of characters. Like American writers, Australians employ characters poached from popular culture, but for the most part Australian writers employ characters and figures that they have invented themselves, often poaching elements from a wide variety of sources and utilising a wide variety of styles. Marine imagery, not usually employed in American graffiti, recurs in Australian pieces. Kikinit in the Park, a youth festival held in Fremantle in March 2001, featured a live urban art display by Bugszy Snaps, who combined oceanic and graffiti iconography, fusing sea creatures with spraypaint cans. Phibs also “uses images from the sea a lot” (Hamilton, 73), having grown up at the beach. In spite of this focus on the development of characters and images, Australia has not neglected the letter. While initially Australian graffiti artists imitated the styles developed in America, Australian lettering has evolved into something exceptional. Some writers have continued to employ bubble letters and wildstyle, and Australia has kept up with modifications in wildstyle that has seen it move towards 3D. Australia has cultivated this form of traditional wildstyle, elevating it to new heights. Sometimes it is combined with other styles; other times it appears as controlled wildstyle—set around a framework of some sort. In other instances, Australia has charted new territory with the letter, developing styles that are completely individual. Australian writing also blends a variety of lettering and graphic styles, combining letters and figures in new and exciting ways. Australian graffiti often fuses letters with images. This is relatively rare in American graffiti, which tends to focus on lettering and, on the whole, utilises characters to less effect than Australian graffiti. Conclusion Graffiti is not a globally hom*ogeneous form, but one which has developed in locally specific and distinctive ways. As hip hop graffiti has circulated throughout the globe it has been translated between various sites and developed local inflections. In order to visualise graffiti in this manner, it is necessary to recognise theories of cultural imperialism as guiding the widespread belief that graffiti is a globally hom*ogeneous form. I have refuted this view and the worth of cultural imperialism in directing attitudes towards graffiti, as there is a valid foundation for considering the local distinctiveness of Australian graffiti. By engaging critically with literature around globalisation, I have established a theoretical base for the argument that graffiti is locally specific. Envisaging the global form of hip hop graffiti as translated between various sites and having developed in locally specific ways has exposed the study of graffiti outside of the United States. Current writings on cultural studies and graffiti are dominated by the American academy, taking the United States as its centre. In rectifying this imbalance, I stress the need to recognise the distinctiveness of other cultures and geographic locations, even if they appear to be similar. While writers across Australia argue that their locations produce original styles, few have been willing to expound on how their scene is “fresh”. One writer I spoke with was an exception. Zenith explained that: “the way we are original is that our style has developed for so long, fermented if you will, because of Perth being so damned isolated” (personal communication). He went on to say: “I also happen to feel that we’re losing the originality every second of every day, for a number of reasons … with web sites, videos, magazines, and all this type of graffito affiliated stuff” (personal communication). Hip hop graffiti culture is one in which communication and exchange is of central concern. The circulation of this “graffito affiliated stuff”—websites, graffiti magazines, videos, books—as well as the fact that aerosol artists frequently travel to other cities and countries to write, demonstrates that this is a culture which, although largely identified with America, is also global in reach. This global interaction and exchange is increasingly characterised by a complex relationship which involves imitation and adaptation. Glossary Bite To copy another graffiti writer’s style Crew Organised group of graffiti writers Getting up Successful graffiti endeavour; to graffiti Going over To graffiti over another’s graffiti Piece The most sophisticated kind of graffiti, which includes characters, words and phrases Tag A stylised version of a signature; the most basic form of graffiti Throw up Two-dimensional version of a tag Wildstyle Style of graffiti characterised by interlocking letters and arrows Writer Graffiti artist; one who does graffiti References Andrews, Benedict. “If a Cleaner Can Review Graffiti Art, Then …” Sydney Morning Herald 15 Jan. 2001. 15 August 2001 http://www.smh.com.au/news/0101/15/features/features8.html>. Appadurai, Arjun. “Globalization and the Research Imagination.” International Social Science Journal 51.2 (1999): 229-38. Campbell, Ian. “The National Perspective.” Dealing with Graffiti. Ed. Graffiti Program, Government of Western Australia: Perth, 1997: 6-7. Chalfant, Henry, and James Prigroff. Spraycan Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 1987. Cooper, Martha, and Henry Chalfant. Subway Art. London: Thames & Hudson, 1984. “Exit”. n.d. [1998]. 18 Jul. 2001 http://loud.net.au/projects/digit/garry/exit.htm>. Ferrell, Jeff. “Review of Moscow Graffiti: Language and Subculture.” Social Justice 20.3-4 (1993): 188 (15). ———. “Urban Graffiti: Crime, Control, and Resistance.” Youth and Society 27 (1995-6): 73-87. Findlay, Mark. The Globalization of Crime: Understanding Transitional Relationships in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Giddens, Anthony. Runaway World: How Globalization Is Reshaping our Lives. New York: Routledge, 2000. Hamilton, Kate. “Can in Hand.” Rolling Stone 590 (2001): 72-5. Hannerz, Ulf. “Scenarios for Peripheral Cultures.” Culture, Globalization and the World-System: Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity. Ed. Anthony D. King. Houndmills: Macmillan, 1991. 107-28. Kalb, Don. “Localizing Flows: Power, Paths, Institutions, and Networks.” The Ends of Globalization: Bringing Society Back In. Ed. Don Kalb. Boston: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2000. 1-29. Kloos, Peter. “The Dialectics of Globalization and Localization.” The Ends of Globalization: Bringing Society Back In. Ed. Don Kalb. Boston: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000. 281-97. Leys, Nick. “Graffiti Removalist Gives Art Installation a Spray.” Sydney Morning Herald 9 January 2001. 9 Jan. 2001. http://www.smh.com.au/news/0101/09/national/national15.html>. Lotman, Yuri. The Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1990. “Old Skool.” Triple J. 2001. 18 Jul. 2001 http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/arts/graff/oldskool/default.htm>. s3. “Name & Email Supplied.” Online posting. 9 May 2004. Blitzkrieg Bulletin Board. 20 July 2001 http://network54.com/Forum>. Scholte, Jan Aarte. “Globalisation: Prospects For a Paradigm Shift.” Politics and Globalisation: Knowledge, Ethics and Agency. Ed. Martin Shaw. London: Routledge, 1999. 9-22. Stevens, Tony. “It’s Vandalism, It’s Illegal and It Causes Anguish and Frustration.” Sydney Morning Herald 5 Feb. 2001. 4 Mar. 2001 http://www.smh.com.au/news/0102/05/features/features10.html>. Style Wars. Dir. Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant. 1983. DVD. Passion River, 2005. Token. “F*** You Little Kids!” Online posting. 5 May 2000. Blitzkrieg Bulletin Board. 20 Jul. 2001 http://network54.com/Forum>. Tomlinson, John. Cultural Imperialism: A Critical Introduction. London: Pinter Publishers, 1991. Umph. n.d. [1998]. 18 Jul. 2001. http://loud.net.au/projects/digit/garry/umph.htm>. Wild Style. Dir. Charlie Ahearn. 1983. DVD. Rhino Theatrical, 2002. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Lombard, Kara-Jane. "“To Us Writers, the Differences Are Obvious”: The Adaptation of Hip Hop Graffiti to an Australian Context." M/C Journal 10.2 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/05-lombard.php>. APA Style Lombard, K. (May 2007) "“To Us Writers, the Differences Are Obvious”: The Adaptation of Hip Hop Graffiti to an Australian Context," M/C Journal, 10(2). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0705/05-lombard.php>.

Abstract:

Introduction“Chav” is a social phenomenon that gained significant popular media coverage and attention in the United Kingdom in the early 2000s. Chavs are often characterised, by others, as young people from a background of low socioeconomic status, usually clothed in branded sportswear. All definitions of Chav position them as culturally anomalous, as Other.This article maps out a multidisciplinary definition of the Chav, synthesised from 21 published academic publications: three recurrent themes in scholarly discussion emerge. First, this research presents whiteness as an assumed and essential facet of Chav identity. When marginalising Chavs because of their “incorrect whiteness”, these works assign them a problematic and complex relationship with ethnicity and race. Second, Chav discourse has previously been discussed as a form of intense class-based abhorrence. Chavs, it would seem, are perceived as anomalous by their own class and those who deem themselves of a higher socioeconomic status. Finally, Chavs’ consumption choices are explored as amplifying such negative constructions of class and white ethnic identities, which are deemed as forming an undesirable aesthetic. This piece is not intended to debate whether or not Chav is a subculture, clubculture or neotribe. Although Greg Martin’s discussion around the similarities between historical subcultures and Chavs remains pertinent and convincing, this article discusses how young people labelled as Chavs are excluded on a variety of fronts. It draws a cross-disciplinary mapping of the Chav, providing the beginnings of a definition of a derogatory label, applied to young people marking them anomalous in British society.What Is a Chav?The word Chav became officially included in the English language in the UK in 2003, when it was inducted into the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The current OED entry offers many points for further discussion, all centred upon a discriminatory positioning of Chav:chav, n. Etymology: Probably either < Romani čhavo unmarried Romani male, male Romani child (see chavvy n.), or shortened < either chavvy n. or its etymon Angloromani chavvy. Brit. slang (derogatory). In the United Kingdom (originally the south of England): a young person of a type characterized by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of designer-style clothes (esp. sportswear); usually with connotations of a low social status.Chav was adopted by British national media as a catch-all term encompassing regional variants. Many discussions have likened Chav to groups such as “Bogans” in Australia and “Trailer Trash” in the US. Websites such as UrbanDictionary and Chavscum have often, informally, defined Chav through a series of derogatory “backcronyms” such as Council Housed And Violent or Council House Associated Vermin, positioning it as a derogatory social label synonymous with notions of perceived criminality, poverty, poor taste, danger, fear, class, and whiteness.Chav came to real prominence in the early 2000s in mainstream British media, gaining visibility through television shows such as Shameless (2004-2013), Little Britain (2003-2006), and The Catherine Tate Show (2004-2009). The term exploded across the tabloid press, as noted by Antoinette Renouf in 2005. Extensive tabloid press coverage drove the phenomenon to front-page coverage in TIME magazine in 2008. Chavs were observed as often wearing Burberry check-patterned clothing. For the first time since its founding in 1856, and due to the extent of Chav’s negative media coverage, Burberry decided to largely remove its trademark check pattern between 2001 and 2014 from sale. Chavs in AcademiaThe rubric of the Chav did not emerge in academia with the same vigour as it did in popular media, failing to gain the visibility of previous youth social formations such as Punks, Mods, et al. Rather, there has been a modest but consistent number of academic publications discussing this subject: 1-3 publications per year, published between 2006-2015. Of the 22 academic texts explicitly addressing and discussing Chavs, none were published prior to 2006. Extensive searches on databases such as EBSCO, JSTOR and ProQuest, yielded no further academic publications on this subject since Joanne Heeney’s 2015 discussion of Chav and its relationship to contested conceptualisations of disability.From a review of the available literature, the following key thematic groupings run through the publications: Chavs’ embodiment of a "wrong" type of white identity; their embodiment of a "wrong" type of working-class identity; and finally, their depiction as flawed consumers. I will now discuss these groupings, and their implications for future research, in order to chart a multidisciplinary conceptualisation of the Chav. Ultimately, my discussion will evidence how "out of place" Chavs appear to be in terms of race and ethnicity, class, and consumption choices. Chavs as “Wrong” WhitesThe dividing practices (Foucault) evident in UK popular media and websites such as Urbandictionary in the early 2000s distinctly separated “hypervisible ‘filthy whites’” (Tyler) from the “respectable whiteness” of the British middle-class. As Imogen Tyler puts it, “the cumulative effect of this disgust is the blocking of the disenfranchised white poor from view; they are rendered invisible and incomprehensible”, a perspective revisited in relation to the "celebrity chav" by Tyler and Joe Bennett. In a wider discussion of ethnicity, segregation and discrimination, Colin Webster discusses Chav and “white trash”, within the context of discourses that criminalise certain forms of whiteness. The conspicuous absence of whiteness in debates regarding fair representation of ethnicity and exclusion is highlighted here, as is the difficulty that social sciences often encounter in conceptualising whiteness in terms exceeding privilege, superiority, power, and normality. Bennett discusses Chavspeak, as a language conceived as enacting combinations of well-known sociolinguistic stereotypes. Chavspeak derives from an amalgamation of Black English vernaculars, potentially identifying its speakers as "race traitors". Bennett's exploration of Chavs as turncoats towards their own whiteness places them in an anomalous position of exclusion, as “Other” white working-class people. A Google image search for Chav conducted on 8th July 2020 yielded, in 198 of the first 200 images, the pictures of white youth. In popular culture, Chavs are invariably white, as seen in shows such as Little Britain, The Catherine Tate Show and, arguably, also in Paul Abbott’s Shameless. There is no question, however, that whiteness is an assumed and essential facet of Chav identity. Explorations of class and consumption may help to clarify this muddy conceptualisation of ethnicity and Chavs. Chavs as “Wrong” Working ClassChav discourse has been discussed as addressing intense class-based abhorrence (Hayward and Yar; Tyler). Indeed, while focussing more upon the nexus between chavs, class, and masculinity, Anoop Nayak’s ethnographic approach identifies a clear distinction between “Charver kids” (a slang term for Chav found in the North-East of England) and “Real Geordies” (Geordie is a regional term identifying inhabitants from that same area, most specifically from Newcastle-upon-Tyne). Nayak identified Chavs as rough, violent and impoverished, against the respectable, skilled and upwardly mobile working-class embodied by the “Real Geordies” (825). Similar distinctions between different types of working classes appear in the work of Sumi Hollingworth and Katya Williams. In a study of white, middle-class students from English urban state comprehensive schools in Riverside and Norton, the authors found that “Chav comes to represent everything about whiteness that the middle-classes are not” (479). Here, Chav is discussed as a label that school-age children reserve for “others”, namely working-class peers who stand out because of their clothing, their behaviour, and their educational aspirations. Alterity is a concept reinforced by Bennett’s discussion of Chavspeak, as he remarks that “Chavs are other people, and Chavspeak is how other people talk” (8). The same position is echoed in Sarah Spencer, Judy Clegg, and Joy Stackhouse’s study of the interplay between language, social class, and education in younger generations. Chavspotting is the focus of Bennett’s exploration of lived class experiences. Here, the evocation of the Chav is seen as a way to reinforce and reproduce dominant rhetoric against the poor. Bennett discusses the ways in which websites such as Chavscum.com used towns, cities and shopping centres as ideal locations to practice Chav-spotting. What is evident, however, is that behind Chavspotting lies the need for recontextualisation of normalising social practices which involve identification of determinate social groups in social spaces. This finding is supported by the interviews conducted by Ken McCullock et al (548) who found the Chav label, along with its regional variant of Charva, to be an extension of these social practices of identification, as it was applied to people of lower socioeconomic status as a marker of difference: “Chav/Charva … it’s what more posh people use to try and describe thugs and that” (McCulloch et al., 552).The semi-structured interview data gathered by Spencer, Clegg, and Stackhouse reveals how the label of Chav trickled down from stereotypes in popular culture to the real-life experiences of school-aged children. Here, Chavs are likened by school children to animals, “the boys are like monkeys, and the girls are like squeaky squirrels who like to slap people if they even look at you” (136) and their language is defined as lacking complexity. It bears relevance that, in these interviews, children in middle-class areas are once again “othering” the Chav, applying the label to children from working-class areas. Heeney’s discussion of the Chav pivots around questions of class and race. This is particularly evident as she addresses the media contention surrounding glamour model Katie Price, and her receipt of disability welfare benefits for her son. Ethnicity and class are key in academic discussion of the Chav, and in this context they prove to be interwoven and inexorably slippery. Just as previous academic discussions surrounding ethnicity challenge assumptions around whiteness, privilege and discrimination, an equally labyrinthine picture is drawn on the relationship between class and the Chavs, and on the practices of exclusion and symbolic to which they are subject. Chavs as “Wrong” ConsumersKeith Hayward and Majid Yar’s much-cited work points to a rethinking of the underclass concept (Murray) through debates of social marginality and consumption practices. Unlike previous socio-cultural formations (subcultures), Chavs should not be viewed as the result of society choosing to “reject or invert mainstream aspirations or desires” but simply as “flawed” consumers (Hayward and Yar, 18). The authors remarked that the negative social construction and vilification of Chav can be attributed to “a set of narrow and seemingly irrational and un-aesthetic consumer choices” (18). Chavs are discussed as lacking in taste and/or educational/intelligence (cultural capital), and not in economic capital (Bourdieu): it is the former and not the latter that makes them the object of ridicule and scorn. Chav consumption choices are often regarded, and reported, as the wrong use of economic capital. Matthew Adams and Jayne Rainsborough also discuss the ways in which cultural sites of representation--newspapers, websites, television--achieve a level of uniformity in their portrayal of Chavs as out of place and continually framed as “wrong consumers", just as Nayak did. In their argument, they also note how Chavs have been intertextually represented as sites of bodily indiscretion in relation to behaviours, lifestyles and consumption choices. It is these flawed consumption choices that Paul Johnson discusses in relation to the complex ways in which the Chav stereotype, and their consumption choices, are both eroticised and subjected to a form of symbolic violence. Within this context, “Council chic” has been marketed and packaged towards gay men through themed club events, merchandise, sex lines and escort services. The signifiers of flawed consumption (branded sportswear, jewellery, etc), upon which much of the Chav-based subjugation is centred thus become a hook to promote and sell sexual services. As such, this process subjects Chavs to a form of symbolic violence, as their worth is fetishised, commodified, and further diminished in gay culture. The importance of consumption choices and, more specifically, of choices which are considered to be "wrong" adds one final piece to this map of the Chav (Mason and Wigley). What was already noted as discrimination towards Chavs centred upon notions of class, socioeconomic status, and, ethnicity, is amplified by emphasis on consumption choices deemed to be aesthetically undesirable. This all comes together through the “Othering” of a pattern of consumerist choices that encompasses branded clothes, sportswear and other garments typically labelled as "chavvy". Chav: Not Always a LabelIn spite of its rare occurrence in academic discourse on Chavs, it is worth noting here that not all scholarly discussions focus on the notion of Chav as assigned identity, as the work of Kehily, Nayak and Young clearly demonstrates.Kehily and Nayak’s performative approach to Chav adopts an urban ethnography approach to remark that, although these socio-economic-racial labels are felt as pejorative, they can be negotiated within immediate contexts to become less discriminatory and gain positive connotations of respectability in given situations. Indeed, such labels can be enacted as a transitional identity to be used and adopted intermittently. Chav remains an applied label, but a flexible label which can be negotiated and adapted. Robert Young challenges many established conceptualisations of Chav culture, paying particular attention to notions of class and self-identification. His study found that approximately 15% of his 3,000 fifteen-year old respondents, all based in the Glasgow area, self-identified as Chav or "Ned" (a Scottish variant of Chav). The cultural criminological approach taken by Young does not clearly specify what options were given to participants when selecting "Neds or popular" as self-identification. Young’s work is of real value in the discussion of Chav, since it constitutes the only example of self-identification as Chav (Ned); future work reasserting these findings is required for the debate to be continued in this direction. Conclusion: Marginalised on All Fronts?Have Chavs been ostracised for being the wrong type of white person? Much has been discussed around the problematic role of ethnicity in Chav culture. Indeed, many scholars have discussed how Chav adopted the language, dress and style of ethnic minority groups. This assimilation of non-white identities leaves the Chav stranded on two fronts: (1) they are marked as Other by predominantly white social groups and vilified as race/ethnicity traitors (Bennett, Chavspeak); (2) they stand apart from ethnic minority identities through a series of exaggerated and denigrated consumption choices – adopting a bricolage identity that defines them against other groups surrounding them. Are Chavs the wrong type of white, working-class consumer? We know from the seminal works of Dick Hebdige and Stuart Hall that subcultural styles can often convey a range of semiotic messages to the outside world. If one were to bear in mind the potentially isolated nature of those considered Chavs, one could see in their dress a consumption of "status" (McCulloch et al., 554). The adoption of a style predominantly consisting of expensive-looking branded clothes, highly-visible jewellery associated with an exaggerated sporting lifestyle, stands as a symbol of disposable income and physical prowess, a way of ‘fronting up’ to labels of poverty, criminality and lack of social and cultural capital.As my charting process comes to a conclusion, with the exclusion of the studies conducted by Young, Kehily and Nayak, Chav is solely discussed as an “Othering” label, vastly different from the self-determined identities of other youth subcultures. As a matter of fact, a number of studies portray the angry reactions to such labelling (Hollingworth and Williams; Bennett; Mason and Wigley). So are Chavs vilified because of their whiteness, their class, or their consumption choices? More likely, they are vilified because of a combination of all of the above. Therefore, we would not be mistaken in identifying Chavs as completely lacking in identity capital. What is apparent from the literature discussed is that the Chav exists in an anomalous “no man's land”. ReferencesAdams, Matthew, and Jayne Raisborough. "The Self-Control Ethos and the Chav: Unpacking Cultural Representations of the White Working Class." Culture & Psychology 17.1 (2011): 81-97.Bennett, Joe. "‘And What Comes Out May Be a Kind of Screeching’: The Stylisation of Chavspeak in Contemporary Britain." Journal of Sociolinguistics 16.1 (2012): 5-27.———. "Chav-Spotting in Britain: The Representation of Social Class as Private Choice." Social Semiotics 23.1 (2013): 146-162.Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Boston: Harvard UP, 1984.Foucault, Michel. “The Subject and Power." Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Eds. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow. Brighton: Harvester, 1982. 777-795.Hayward, Keith, and Majid Yar. "The Chavphenomenon: Consumption, Media and the Construction of a New Underclass." Crime, Media, Culture 2.1 (2006): 9-28.Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen, 1979. Heeney, Joanne. "Disability Welfare Reform and the Chav Threat: A Reflection on Social Class and ‘Contested Disabilities’." Disability & Society 30.4 (2015): 650-653.Hollingworth, Sumi, and Katya Williams. "Constructions of the Working-Class ‘Other’ among Urban, White, Middle-Class Youth: ‘Chavs’, Subculture and the Valuing of Education." Journal of Youth Studies 12.5 (2009): 467-482.Johnson, Paul. "’Rude Boys': The hom*osexual Eroticization of Class." Sociology 42.1 (2008): 65-82.Kehily, Mary Jane, and Anoop Nayak. "Charver Kids and Pram-Face Girls: Working-Class Youth, Representation and Embodied Performance." Youth Cultures in the Age of Global Media. Eds. Sara Bragg and Mary Jane Kehily. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 150-165.Maffesoli, Michel. The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society. London: SAGE, 1995.Martin, Greg. "Subculture, Style, Chavs and Consumer Capitalism: Towards a Critical Cultural Criminology of Youth." Crime, Media, Culture 5.2 (2009): 123-145.Mason, Roger B., and Gemma Wigley. “The Chav Subculture: Branded Clothing as an Extension of the Self.” Journal of Economics and Behavioural Studies 5.3: 173-184.McCulloch, Ken, Alexis Stewart, and Nick Lovegreen. "‘We Just Hang Out Together’: Youth Cultures and Social Class." Journal of Youth Studies 9.5 (2006): 539-556.Murray, Charles. The Emerging British Underclass. London: IEA Health and Welfare Unit, 1990.Nayak, Anoop. "Displaced Masculinities: Chavs, Youth and Class in the Post-Industrial City." Sociology 40.5 (2006): 813-831.Oxford English Dictionary. "Chav." 20 Apr. 2015.Renouf, Antoinette. “Tracing Lexical Productivity and Creativity in the British Media: The Chavs and the Chav-Nots.” Lexical Creativity, Texts and Contexts. Ed. Judith Munat. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing, 2007. 61-93. Spencer, Sarah, Judy Clegg, and Joy Stackhouse. "Language, Social Class and Education: Listening to Adolescents’ Perceptions." Language and Education 27.2 (2013): 129-143.Thornton, Sarah. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity, 1995.Tyler, Imogen. “Chav Scum: The Filthy Politics of Social Class in Contemporary Britain”. M/C Journal 9.5 (2006). 7 July 2020 <http://www.journal.media-culture.org.au/0610/09-tyler.php>.Tyler, Imogen, and Bruce Bennett. "‘Celebrity Chav’: Fame, Femininity and Social Class." European Journal of Cultural Studies 13.3 (2010): 375-393.Webster, Colin. "Marginalized White Ethnicity, Race and Crime." Theoretical Criminology 12.3 (2008): 293-312.Young, Robert. "Can Neds (or Chavs) Be Non-Delinquent, Educated or Even Middle Class? Contrasting Empirical Findings with Cultural Stereotypes." Sociology 46.6 (2012): 1140-1160.

Abstract:

Introduction Utopia has always been countercultural, and ever since technological progress has allowed, utopia has been using alternative media to promote and strengthen its underpinning ideals. In this article, I am seeking to clarify the connections between counterculture and alternative media in utopian contexts to demonstrate their reciprocity, then draw together these threads through reference to a well-known figure of the Rainbow Region–Rusty Miller. His trajectory from iconic surfer and Aquarian reporter to mediator for utopian politics and ideals in the Rainbow Region encompasses in a single identity the three elements underpinning this study. In concluding, I will turn to Rusty’s Byron Guide, questioning its classification as alternative or mainstream media, and whether Byron Bay is represented as countercultural and utopian in this long-running and ongoing publication. Counterculture and Alternative Media in Utopian Contexts Counterculture is an umbrella that enfolds utopia, among many other genres and practices. It has been most often situated in the 1960s and 1970s as a new form of social movement embodying youth resistance to the technocratic mainstream and its norms of gender, sexuality, politics, music, and language (Roszak). Many scholars of counterculture underscore its utopian impulses both in the projection of better societies where the social goals are achieved, and in the withdrawal from mainstream society into intentional communities (Yinger 194-6; McKay 5; Berger). Before exploring further the connections between counterculture and alternative media, I want to define the scope of countercultural utopian contexts in general, and the Rainbow Region in particular. Utopia is a neologism created by Sir Thomas More almost 500 years ago to designate the island community that demonstrates order, harmony, justice, hope and desire in the right balance so that it seems like an ideal land. This imaginary place described in Utopia (1516) as a counterpoint to the social, political and religious shortcomings of contemporary 16th century British society, has attracted accusations of heresy (Molner), and been used as a pejorative term, an insult to denigrate political projects that seem farfetched or subversive, especially during the 19th century. Almost every study of utopian theory, literature and practice points to a dissatisfaction with the status quo, which inspires writers, politicians, architects, artists, individuals and communities to rail against it (see for example Davis, Moylan, Suvin, Levitas, Jameson). Kingsley Widmer’s book Counterings: Utopian Dialectics in Contemporary Contexts reiterates what many scholars have stated when he writes that utopias should be understood in terms of what they are countering. Lyman Tower Sargent defines utopia as “a non-existent society described in considerable detail and normally located in time and space” and utopianism as “social dreaming” (9), to which I would add that both indicate an improvement on the alternatives, and may indeed be striving to represent the best place imaginable. Utopian contexts, by extension, are those situations where the “social dreaming” is enhanced through human agency, good governance, just laws, education, and work, rather than being a divinely ordained state of nature (Schaer et al). In this way, utopian contexts are explicitly countercultural through their very conception, as human agency is required and their emphasis is on social change. These modes of resistance against dominant paradigms are most evident in attempts to realise textual projections of a better society in countercultural communal experiments. Almost immediately after its publication, More’s Utopia became the model for Bishop Vasco de Quiroga’s communitarian hospital-town Santa Fe de la Laguna in Michoacan, Mexico, established in the 1530s as a counterculture to the oppressive enslavement and massacres of the Purhépecha people by Nuno Guzmán (Green). The countercultural thrust of the 1960s and 1970s provided many utopian contexts, perhaps most readily identifiable as the intentional communities that spawned and flourished, especially in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand (Metcalf, Shared Lives). They were often inspired by texts such as Charles A. Reich’s The Greening of America (1970) and Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975), and this convergence of textual practices and alternative lifestyles can be seen in the development of Australia’s own Rainbow Region. Located in northern New South Wales, the geographical area of the Northern Rivers that has come to be known as the Rainbow Region encompasses Byron Bay, Nimbin, Mullumbimby, Bangalow, Clunes, Dunoon, Federal, with Lismore as the region’s largest town. But more evocative than these place names are the “rivers and creeks, vivid green hills, fruit and nut farms […] bounded by subtropical beaches and rainforest mountains” (Wilson 1). Utopian by nature, and recognised as such by the indigenous Bundjalung people who inhabited it before the white settlers, whalers and dairy farmers moved in, the Rainbow Region became utopian through culture–or indeed counterculture–during the 1973 Aquarius Festival in Nimbin when the hippies of Mullumbimby and the surfers of Byron Bay were joined by up to 10,000 people seeking alternative ways of being in the world. When the party was over, many Aquarians stayed on to form intentional communities in the beautiful region, like Tuntable Falls, Nimbin’s first and largest such cooperative (Metcalf, From Utopian Dreaming to Communal Reality 74-83). In utopian contexts, from the Renaissance to the 1970s and beyond, counterculture has underpinned and alternative media has circulated the aims and ideals of the communities of resistance. The early utopian context of the Anabaptist movement has been dubbed as countercultural by Sigrun Haude: “During the reign of the Münster (1534-5) Anabaptists erected not only a religious but also a social and political counterculture to the existing order” (240). And it was this Protestant Reformation that John Downing calls the first real media war, with conflicting movements using pamphlets produced on the new technology of the Gutenberg press to disseminate their ideas (144). What is striking here is the confluence of ideas and practices at this time–countercultural ideals are articulated, published, and disseminated, printing presses make this possible, and utopian activists realise how mass media can be used and abused, exploited and censored. Twentieth century countercultural movements drew on the lessons learnt from historical uprising and revolutions, understanding the importance of getting the word out through their own forms of media which, given the subversive nature of the messages, were essentially alternative, according to the criteria proposed by Chris Atton: alternative media may be understood as a radical challenge to the professionalized and institutionalized practices of the mainstream media. Alternative media privileges a journalism that is closely wedded to notions of social responsibility, replacing an ideology of “objectivity” with overt advocacy and oppositional practices. Its practices emphasize first person, eyewitness accounts by participants; a reworking of the populist approaches of tabloid newspapers to recover a “radical popular” style of reporting; collective and antihierarchical forms of organization which eschew demarcation and specialization–and which importantly suggest an inclusive, radical form of civic journalism. (267) Nick Couldry goes further to point out the utopian processes required to identify agencies of change, including alternative media, which he defines as “practices of symbolic production which contest (in some way) media power itself–that is, the concentration of symbolic power in media institutions” (25). Alternative media’s orientation towards oppositional and contestatory practices demonstrates clear parallels between its ambitions and those of counterculture in utopian contexts. From the 1960s onwards, the upsurge in alternative newspaper numbers is commensurate with the blossoming of the counterculture and increased utopian contexts; Susan Forde describes it thus: “a huge resurgence in the popularity of publications throughout the ‘counter-culture’ days of the 1960s and 1970s” (“Monitoring the Establishment”, 114). The nexus of counterculture and alternative media in such utopian contexts is documented in texts like Roger Streitmatter’s Voices of Revolution and Bob Osterlag’s People’s Movements, People’s Press. Like the utopian newspapers that came out of 18th and 19th century intentional communities, many of the new alternative press served to educate, socialise, promote and represent the special interests of the founders and followers of the countercultural movements, often focusing on the philosophy and ideals underpinning these communities rather than the everyday events (see also Frobert). The radical press in Australia was also gaining ground, with OZ in Australia from 1963-1969, and then from 1967-1973 in London. Magazines launched by Philip Frazer like The Digger, Go-Set, Revolution and High Times, and university student newspapers were the main avenues for youth and alternative expression on the Vietnam war and conscription, gay and lesbian rights, racism, feminism and ecological activism (Forde, Challenging the News; co*ck & Perry). Nimbin 1973: Rusty Miller and The Byron Express The 1973 Aquarius Festival of counterculture in Nimbin (12-23 May) was a utopian context that had an alternative media life of its own before it arrived in the Rainbow Region–in student publications like Tharnuka and newsletters distributed via the Aquarius Foundation. There were other voices that announced the coming of the Aquarius Festival to Nimbin and reported on its impact, like The Digger from Melbourne and the local paper, The Northern Star. During the Festival, the Nimbin Good Times first appeared as the daily bulletin and continues today with the original masthead drawn by the Festival’s co-organiser, Graeme Dunstan. Some interesting work has been done on this area, ranging from general studies of the Rainbow Region (Wilson; Munro-Clark) to articles analysing its alternative press (Ward & van Vuuren; Martin & Ellis), but to date, there has been no focus on the Rainbow Region’s first alternative newspaper, The Byron Express. Co-edited by Rusty Miller and David Guthrie, this paper presented and mediated the aims and desires of the Aquarian movement. Though short-lived, as only 7 issues were published from 15 February 1973 to September 1973, The Byron Express left a permanent printed vestige of the Aquarian counterculture movement’s activism and ideals from an independent regional perspective. Miller’s credentials for starting up the newspaper are clear–he has always been a trailblazer, mixing “smarts” with surfing and environmental politics. After graduating from a Bachelor of Arts in history from San Diego State College, he first set foot in Byron Bay during his two semesters with the inaugural Chapman College affiliated University of the Seven Seas in 1965-6. Returning to his hometown of Encinitas, he co-founded the Surf Research accessory company with legendary Californian surfer Mike Doyle, and launched Waxmate, the first specially formulated surf wax in 1967 (Davis, Witzig & James; Warshaw 217), selling his interest in the business soon after to spend a couple of years “living the counterculture life on the Hawaiian Island of Kauai” (Davis, Witzig & James), before heading back to Byron Bay via Bells Beach in 1970 (Miller & Shantz) and Sydney, where he worked as an advertising salesman and writer with Tracks surfing magazine (Martin & Ellis). In 1971, he was one of the first to ride the now famous waves of Uluwatu in Bali, and is captured with Steven Cooney in the iconic publicity image for Albe Falzon’s 1971 film, Morning Of The Earth. The champion surfer from the US knew a thing or two about counterculture, alternative media, advertising and business when he found his new utopian context in Byron Bay. Miller and Guthrie’s front-page editorial of the inaugural issue of The Byron Express, published on 15 February 1973, with the byline “for a higher shire”, expressed the countercultural (cl)aims of the publication. Land use, property development and the lack of concern that some people in Byron had for their impact on the environment and people of the region were a prime target: With this first issue of the Byron Express, we hope to explain that the area is badly in need of a focal point. The transitions of present are vast and moving fast. The land is being sold and resold. Lots of money is coming into the area in the way of developments […] caravan parts, hotels, businesses and real estate. Many of the trips incoming are not exactly “concerned” as to what long term effect such developments might have on the environment and its people. We hope to serve as a focus of concern and service, a centre for expression and reflection. We would ask your contributions in vocal and written form. We are ready for some sock it to ya criticism… and hope you would grab us upon the street to tell us how you feel…The mission of this alternative newspaper is thereby defined by the need for a “focal point” that inscribes the voices of the community in a freely accessible narrative, recorded in print for posterity. Although this first issue contains no mention of the Aquarius Festival, there were already rumours circulating about it, as organisers Graeme Dunstan and Johnny Allen had been up to Main Arm, Mullumbimby and Nimbin on reconnaissance missions beginning in September 1972. Instead, there was an article on “Mullumbimby Man–Close to the Land” by Nicholas Shand, who would go on to found the community-based weekly newspaper The Echo in 1986, then called The Brunswick Valley Echo and still going strong. Another by Bob McTavish asked whether there could be a better form of government; there was a surf story, and a soul food section with a recipe for honey meade entitled “Do you want to get out of it on 10 cents a bottle?” The second issue continues in much the same vein. It is not until the third issue comes out on 17 March 1973 that the Aquarius Festival is mentioned in a skinny half column on page four. And it’s not particularly promising: Arrived at Nimbin, sleepy hamlet… Office in disused R.S.L. rooms, met a couple of guys recently arrived, said nothing was being done. “Only women here, you know–no drive”. Met Joanne and Vi, both unable to say anything to be reported… Graham Dunstan (codenamed Superfest) and John Allen nowhere in sight. Allen off on trip overseas. Dunstan due back in a couple of weeks. 10 weeks to go till “they” all come… and to what… nobody is quite sure. This progress report provides a fascinating contemporary insight into the tensions–between the local surfies and hippies on one hand, and the incoming students on the other–around the organisation of the Aquarius Festival. There is an unbridled barb at the sexist comments made by the guys, implicit criticism of the absent organisers, obvious skepticism about whether anyone will actually come to the festival, and wonderment at what it will be like. Reading between the lines, we might find a feeling of resentment about not being privy to new developments in their own backyard. The final lines of the article are non-committal “Anyway, let’s see what eventuates when the Chiefs return.” It seems that all has been resolved by the fifth issue of 11 May, which is almost entirely dedicated to the Aquarius Festival with the front page headline “Welcome to the New Age”. But there is still an undertone of slight suspicion at what the newcomers to the area might mean in terms of property development: The goal is improving your fellow man’s mind and nourishment in concert with your own; competition to improve your day and the quality of the day for society. Meanwhile, what is the first thing one thinks about when he enters Byron and the area? The physical environment is so magnificent and all encompassing that it can actually hold a man’s breath back a few seconds. Then a man says, “Wow, this land is so beautiful that one could make a quid here.” And from that moment the natural aura and spells are broken and the mind lapses into speculative equations, sales projections and future interest payments. There is plenty of “love” though, in this article: “The gathering at Nimbin is the most spectacular demonstration of the faith people have in a belief that is possible (and possible just because they want it to be) to live in love, through love together.” The following article signed by Rusty Miller “A Town Together” is equally focused on love: “See what you could offer the spirit at Nimbin. It might introduce you to a style that could lead to LOVE.” The centre spread features photos: the obligatory nudes, tents, and back to nature activities, like planting and woodworking. With a text box of “random comments” including one from a Lismore executive: ‘I took my wife and kids out there last weekend and we had such a good time. Seems pretty organized and the town was loaded with love. Heard there is some hepatitis about and rumours of VD. Everyone happy.” And another from a land speculator (surely the prime target of Miller’s wrath): “Saw guys kissing girls on the street, so sweet, bought 200 acres right outside of town, it’s going to be valuable out there some day.” The interview with Johnny Allen as the centrepiece includes some pertinent commentary on the media and reveals a well-founded suspicion of the mediatisation of the Aquarius Festival: We have tried to avoid the media actually. But we haven’t succeeded in doing so. Part of the basic idea is that we don’t need to be sold. All the down town press can do is try and interpret you. And by doing that it automatically places it in the wrong sort of context. So we’ve tried to keep it to people writing about the festival to people who will be involved in it. It’s an involvement festival. Coopting The Byron Express as an “involved” party effects a fundamental shift from an external reporting newspaper to a kind of proponent or even propaganda for the Aquarius festival and its ideas, like so many utopian newspapers had done before. It is therefore perhaps inevitable that The Byron Express should disappear very soon after the Aquarius festival. Fiona Martin and Rhonda Ellis explain that Rusty Miller stopped producing the paper because he “found the production schedule exhausting and his readership too small to attract consistent advertising” (5). At any rate, there were only two more issues, one in June–with some follow up reporting of the festival–and another in September 1973, which was almost entirely devoted to environmentally focused features, including an interview with Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal). Byron Bay 2013: Thirty Years of Rusty’s Byron Guide What Rusty did next is fairly well known locally–surfing and teaching people how to surf and a bit of writing. When major local employer Walkers slaughterhouse closed in 1983, he and his wife, social geographer Tricia Shantz, were asked by the local council to help promote Byron Bay as a tourist destination, writing the first Byron guide in 1983-4. Incorporating essays by local personalities and dedicated visitors, the Byron guide perpetuates the ideal of environmental awareness, spiritual experimentation, and respect for the land and sea. Recent contributors have included philosopher Peter Singer, political journalist Kerry O’Brien, and writer John Ralston Saul, and Miller and Shantz always have an essay in there themselves. “People, Politics and Culture” is the new byline for the 2013 edition. And Miller’s opening essay mediates the same utopian desires and environmental community messages that he espoused from the beginning of The Byron Express: The name Byron Bay represents something that we constantly try to articulate. If one was to dream up a menu of situations and conditions to compose a utopia, Australia would be the model of the nation-state and Byron would have many elements of the actual place one might wish to live for the rest of their lives. But of course there is always the danger of excesses in tropical paradises especially when they become famous destinations. Australia is being held to ransom for the ideology that we should be slaves to money and growth at the cost of a degraded and polluted physical and social environment. Byron at least was/is a refuge against this profusion of the so-called real-world perception that holds profit over environment as the way we must choose for our future. Even when writing for a much more commercial medium, Miller retains the countercultural utopian spirit that was crystallised in the Aquarius festival of 1973, and which remains relevant to many of those living in and visiting the Rainbow Region. Miller’s ethos moves beyond the alternative movements and communities to infiltrate travel writing and tourism initiatives in the area today, as evidenced in the Rusty’s Byron Guide essays. By presenting more radical discourses for a mainstream public, Miller together with Shantz have built on the participatory role that he played in launching the region’s first alternative newspaper in 1973 that became albeit briefly the equivalent of a countercultural utopian gazette. Now, he and Shantz effectively play the same role, producing a kind of countercultural form of utopian media for Byron Bay that corresponds to exactly the same criteria mentioned above. Through their free publication, they aim to educate, socialise, promote and represent the special interests of the founders and followers of the Rainbow Region, focusing on the philosophy and ideals underpinning these communities rather than the everyday events. The Byron Bay that Miller and Shantz promote is resolutely utopian, and certainly countercultural if compared to other free publications like The Book, a new shopping guide, or mainstream media elsewhere. Despite this new competition, they are planning the next edition for 2015 with essays to make people think, talk, and understand the region’s issues, so perhaps the counterculture is still holding its own against the mainstream. References Atton, Chris. “What Is ‘Alternative’ Journalism?” Journalism: Theory, Practice, Criticism 4.3 (2003): 267-72. Berger, Bennett M. The Survival of a Counterculture: Ideological Work and Everyday Life among Rural Communards. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2004. co*ck, Peter H., & Paul F. Perry. “Australia's Alternative Media.” Media Information Australia 6 (1977): 4-13. Couldry, Nick. “Mediation and Alternative Media, or Relocating the Centre of Media and Communication Studies.” Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy 103, (2002): 24-31. Davis, Dale, John Witzig & Don James. “Rusty Miller.” Encyclopedia of Surfing. 10 Nov. 2014 ‹http://encyclopediaofsurfing.com/entries/miller-rusty›. Downing, John. Radical Media: Rebellious Communication and Social Movements. Thousand Oaks: Sage. Davis, J.C. Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing 1516-1700. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1983. Forde, Susan. Challenging the News: The Journalism of Alternative and Independent Media. Palgrave Macmillan: London, 2011. ---. “Monitoring the Establishment: The Development of the Alternative Press in Australia” Media International Australia, Incorporating Culture & Policy 87 (May 1998): 114-133. Frobert, Lucien. “French Utopian Socialists as the First Pioneers in Development.” Cambridge Journal of Economics 35 (2011): 729-49. Green, Toby. Thomas More’s Magician: A Novel Account of Utopia in Mexico. London: Phoenix, 2004. Goffman, Ken, & Dan Joy. Counterculture through the Ages: From Abraham to Acid House. New York: Villard Books. 2004. Haude, Sigrun. “Anabaptism.” The Reformation World. Ed. Andrew Pettegree. London: Routledge, 2000. 237-256. Jameson, Fredric. Archeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science Fictions. New York: Verso, 2005. Levitas, Ruth. Utopia as Method. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Martin, Fiona, & Rhonda Ellis. “Dropping In, Not Out: The Evolution of the Alternative Press in Byron Shire 1970-2001.” Transformations 2 (2002). 10 Nov. 2014 ‹http://www.transformationsjournal.org/journal/issue_02/pdf/MartinEllis.pdf›. McKay, George. Senseless Acts of Beauty: Cultures of Resistance since the Sixties. London: Verso, 1996. Metcalf, Bill. From Utopian Dreaming to Communal Reality: Cooperative Lifestyles in Australia. Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 1995. ---. Shared Visions, Shared Lives: Communal Living around the Globe. Forres, UK: Findhorn Press, 1996. Miller, Rusty & Tricia Shantz. Turning Point: Surf Portraits and Stories from Bells to Byron 1970-1971. Surf Research. 2012. Molnar, Thomas. Utopia: The Perennial Heresy. London: Tom Stacey, 1972. Moylan, Tom. Demand the Impossible: Science Fiction and the Utopian Imagination. New York: Methuen, 1986. Munro-Clark, Margaret. Communes in Rural Australia: The Movement since 1970. Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1986. Osterlag, Bob. People’s Movements, People’s Press: The Journalism of Social Justice Movements. Boston: Beacon Press, 2006. Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections on the Technocratic Society and Its Youthful Opposition. New York: Anchor, 1969. Sargent, Lyman Tower. “Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited.” Utopian Studies 5.1 (1994): 1-37. Schaer, Roland, Gregory Claeys, and Lyman Tower Sargent, eds. Utopia: The Search for the Ideal Society in the Western World. New York: New York Public Library/Oxford UP, 2000. Streitmatter, Roger. Voices of Revolution: The Dissident Press in America. Columbia: Columbia UP, 2001. Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. Ward, Susan, & Kitty van Vuuren. “Belonging to the Rainbow Region: Place, Local Media, and the Construction of Civil and Moral Identities Strategic to Climate Change Adaptability.” Environmental Communication 7.1 (2013): 63-79. Warshaw, Matt. The History of Surfing. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2011. Wilson, Helen. (Ed.). Belonging in the Rainbow Region: Cultural Perspectives on the NSW North Coast. Lismore, NSW: Southern Cross University Press, 2003. Widmer, Kingsley. Counterings: Utopian Dialectics in Contemporary Contexts. Ann Arbor, London: UMI Research Press, 1988. Yinger, J. Milton. Countercultures: The Promise and Peril of a World Turned Upside Down. New York: The Free Press, 1982.

Abstract:

Iain Sinclair is a writer who is synonymous with a city. Sinclair’s sustained literary engagement with London from the mid 1960s has produced a singular account of place in that city (Bond; Baker; Seale “Iain Sinclair”). Sinclair is a leading figure in a resurgent and rebranded psychogeographic literature of the 1990s (Coverley) where on-foot wandering through the city brings forth narrative. Sinclair’s wandering, materialised as walking, is central to the claim of intimacy with the city that underpins his authority as a London writer. Furthermore, embodied encounters with the urban landscape through the experience of “getting lost” in urban environments are key to his literary methodology. Through works such as Lights Out for the Territory (2007), Sinclair has been repeatedly cast as a key chronicler of London, a city focused with capitalist determination on the future while redolent, even weighted, with a past that, as Sinclair says himself, is there for the wanderer to uncover (Dirda).In this essay, we examine how Sinclair’s wandering makes place in London. We are interested not only in Sinclair’s wandering as a spatial or cultural “intervention” in the city, as it is frequently positioned in critiques of his writing (Wolfreys). We are also interested in how Sinclair’s literary methodology of wandering undertakes its own work of placemaking in material ways that are often obscured because of how his work is positioned within particular traditions of wandering, including those of psychogeography and the flâneur. It is our contention that Sinclair’s wandering has an ambivalent relationship with place in London. It belongs to the tradition of the wanderer as a radical outsider with an alternative practice and perspective on place, but also contributes to contemporary placemaking in a global, neo-liberal London.Wandering as Literary MethodologyIain Sinclair’s writing about London is considered both “visionary” and “documentary” in its ambitions and has been praised as “giving voice to lost, erased, or forgotten histories or memories” (Baker 63). Sinclair is the “raging prophet” (Kerr) for a transforming and disappearing city. This perspective is promulgated by Sinclair himself, who in interviews refers to his practice as “bearing witness” to the erasures of particular place cultures, communities, and their histories that a rapidly gentrifying city entails (Sinclair quoted in O’Connell). The critical reception of Sinclair’s perambulation mostly follows Michel de Certeau’s observation that walking is a kind of reading/writing practice that “makes the invisible legible” (Baker 28). Sinclair’s wandering, and the encounters it mobilises, are a form of storytelling, which bring into proximity complex and forgotten narratives of place.Sinclair may “dive in” to the city, yet his work writing and rewriting urban space is usually positioned as representational. London is a text, “a system of signs […], the material city becoming the (non-material) map” (Baker 29). Sinclair’s wandering is understood as writing about urban transformation in London, rather than participating in it through making place. The materiality of Sinclair’s wandering in the city—his walking, excavating, encountering—may be acknowledged, but it is effectively dematerialised by the critical focus on his self-conscious literary treatment of place in London. Simon Perril has called Sinclair a “modernist magpie” (312), both because his mode of intertextuality borrows from Modernist experiments in form, style, and allusion, and because the sources of many of his intertexts are Modernist writers. Sinclair mines a rich seam of literature, Modernist and otherwise, that is produced in and about London, as well as genealogies of other legendary London wanderers. The inventory includes: “the rich midden of London’s sub-cultural fiction, terse proletarian narratives of lives on the criminous margin” (Sinclair Lights Out, 312) in the writing of Alexander Baron and Emanuel Litvinoff; the small magazine poetry of the twentieth century British Poetry Revival; and the forgotten suburban writings of David Gascoyne, “a natural psychogeographer, tracking the heat spores of Rimbaud, from the British Museum to Wapping and Limehouse” (Atkins and Sinclair 146). Sinclair’s intertextual “loiterature” (Chambers), his wayward, aleatory wandering through London’s archives, is one of two interconnected types of wandering in Sinclair’s literary methodology. The other is walking through the city. In a 2017 interview, Sinclair argued that the two were necessarily interconnected in writing about place in London:The idea of writing theoretical books about London burgeoned as a genre. At the same time, the coffee table, touristy books about London emerged—the kinds of books that can be written on Google, rather than books that are written by people of the abyss. I’m interested in someone who arrives and takes this journey into the night side of London in the tradition of Mayhew or Dickens, who goes out there and is constantly wandering and finding and having collisions and bringing back stories and shaping a narrative. There are other people who are doing things in a similar way, perhaps with a more journalistic approach, finding people and interviewing them and taking their stories. But many books about London are very conceptual and just done by doing research sitting at a laptop. I don’t think this challenges the city. It’s making a parallel city of the imagination, of literature. (Sinclair quoted in O'Connell)For Sinclair, then, walking is as much a literary methodology as reading, archival research, or intertextuality is.Wandering as Urban InterventionPerhaps one of Sinclair’s most infamous walks is recorded in London Orbital (2003), where he wandered the 127 miles of London’s M25 ring road. London Orbital is Sinclair’s monumental jeremiad against the realpolitik of late twentieth-century neo-liberalism and the politicised spatialisation and striation of London by successive national and local governments. The closed loop of the M25 motorway recommends itself to governmental bodies as a regulated form that functions as “a prophylactic, […] a tourniquet” (1) controlling the flow (with)in and (with)out of London. Travellers’ movements are impeded when the landscape is cut up by the motorway. Walking becomes a marginalised activity it its wake, and the surveillance and distrust to which Sinclair is subject realises the concerns foreshadowed by Walter Benjamin regarding the wanderings of the flâneur. In the Arcades Project, Benjamin quoted a 1936 newspaper article, pessimistically titled “Le dernier flâneur” [The last flâneur]:A man who goes for a walk ought not to have to concern himself with any hazards he may run into, or with the regulations of a city. […] But he cannot do this today without taking a hundred precautions, without asking the advice of the police department, without mixing with a dazed and breathless herd, for whom the way is marked out in advance by bits of shining metal. If he tries to collect the whimsical thoughts that may have come to mind, very possibly occasioned by sights on the street, he is deafened by car horns, [and] stupefied by loud talkers […]. (Jaloux, quoted in Benjamin 435)Susan Buck-Morss remarks that flâneurs are an endangered species in the contemporary city: “like tigers, or pre-industrial tribes, [they] are cordoned off on reservations, preserved within the artificially created environments of pedestrian streets, parks, and underground passages” (344). To wander from these enclosures, or from delineated paths, is to invite suspicion as the following unexceptional anecdote from London Orbital illustrates:NO PUBLIC RITE [sic] OF WAY. Footpaths, breaking towards the forest, have been closed off. You are obliged to stick to the Lee Navigation, the contaminated ash conglomerate of the Grey Way. Enfield has been laid out in grids; long straight roads, railways, fortified blocks. […] In a canalside pub, they deny all knowledge of the old trace. Who walks? “There used to be a road,” they admit. It’s been swallowed up in this new development, Enfield Island Village. […] The hard hat mercenaries of Fairview New Homes […] are suspicious of our cameras. Hands cover faces. Earth-movers rumble straight at us. A call for instruction muttered into their lapels: “Strangers. Travellers.” (69-70)There is an excess to wandering, leading to incontinent ideas, extreme verbiage, compulsive digression, excessive quotation. De Certeau in his study of the correlation between navigating urban and textual space speaks of “the unlimited diversity” of the walk, highlighting its improvised nature, and the infinite possibilities it proposes. Footsteps are equated with thoughts, multiplying unchecked: “They are myriad, but do not compose a series. […] Their swarming mass is an innumerable collection of singularities” (97). Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the erratic trajectories, digression, and diversion of Sinclair’s wanderings are aligned with a tradition of the flâneur as hom*o ludens (Huizinga) or practitioner of the Situationist derive, as theorised by Guy Debord:The dérive entails playful-constructive behaviour and awareness of psychogeographical effects, which completely distinguishes it from the classical notions of the journey or the stroll. In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there. The element of chance is less determinant than one might think: from the dérive point of view, cities have a psychogeographical relief, with constant currents, fixed points and vortexes that strongly discourage entry into or exit from certain zones. (“Theory of the dérive” 50)Like Charles Baudelaire’s painter of modern life, Sinclair is happily susceptible to distraction. The opening essay of Lights Out is a journey through London with the ostensible purpose of diligently researching and reporting on the language he detects on his travels. However, the map for the walk is only ever half-hearted, and Sinclair admits to “hoping for some accident to bring about a final revision” (5). Sinclair’s walks welcome the random and when he finds the detour to disfigure his route, he is content: “Already the purity of the [walk] has been despoiled. Good” (8). Wandering’s Double Agent: Sinclair’s Placemaking in LondonMuch has been made of the flâneur as he appears in Sinclair’s work (Seale “Eye-Swiping”). Nevertheless, Sinclair echoes Walter Benjamin in declaring the flâneur, as previously stereotyped, to be impossible in the contemporary city. The fugeur is one détournement (Debord “Détournement”) of the flâneur that Sinclair proposes. In London Orbital, Sinclair repeatedly refers to his wandering as a fugue. A fugue is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as a “flight from or loss of the awareness of one’s identity, sometimes involving wandering away from home, and often occurring as a reaction to shock or emotional stress.” As Sinclair explains:I found the term fugueur more attractive than the now overworked flâneur. Fugueur had the smack of a swear word […]. Fugueur was the right job description for our walk, our once-a-month episodes of transient mental illness. Madness as a voyage. […] The fugue is both drift and fracture. (London Orbital, 146)Herbert Marcuse observed that to refuse to comply with capitalist behaviour is to be designated irrational, and thus relegate oneself to the periphery of society (9). The neo-liberal city’s enforcement of particular spatial and temporal modalities that align with the logic of purpose, order, and productivity is antagonistic to wandering. The fugue state, then, can rupture the restrictive logic of capitalism’s signifying chains through regaining forcibly expurgated ideas and memories. The walk around the M25 has an unreason to it: the perversity of wandering a thoroughfare designed for cars. In another, oft-quoted passage from Lights Out, Sinclair proposes another avatar of the flâneur:The concept of “strolling”, aimless urban wandering […] had been superseded. We had moved into the age of the stalker; journeys made with intent—sharp-eyed and unsponsored. The stalker was our role model: purposed hiking, not dawdling, nor browsing. No time for the savouring of reflections in shop windows, admiration for Art Nouveau ironwork, attractive matchboxes rescued from the gutter. This was walking with a thesis. With a prey. […] The stalker is a stroller who sweats, a stroller who knows where he is going, but not why or how. (75)Not only has the flâneur evolved into something far more exacting and purposeful, but as we want to illuminate, the flâneur’s wandering has evolved into something more material than transforming urban experience and encounter into art or literature as Baudelaire described. In a recent interview, Sinclair stated: The walker exists in a long tradition, and, for me, it’s really vital to simply be out there every day—not only because it feels good, but because in doing it you contribute to the microclimate of the city. As you withdraw energy from the city, you are also giving energy back. People are noticing you. You’re doing something, you’re there, the species around you absorb your presence into it, and you become part of this animate entity called the city. (Sinclair quoted in O'Connell)Sinclair’s acknowledgement that he is acting upon the city through his wandering is also an acknowledgement of a material, grounded interplay between what Jonathan Raban has called the “soft” and the “hard” city: “The city as we might imagine it, the soft city of illusion, myth, aspiration, nightmare, is as real, maybe more real, than the hard city one can locate in maps and statistics, in monographs on urban sociology and demography and architecture” (quoted in Manley 6). Readers and critics may gravitate to the soft city of Sinclair, but as Donald puts it, “The challenge is to draw the connections between place, archive, and imagination, not only by tracing those links in literary representations of London, but also by observing and describing the social, cultural, and subjective functions of London literature and London imagery” (in Manley, 262).Sinclair’s most recent longform book, The Last London (2017), is bracketed at both beginning and end with the words from the diarist of the Great Fire of 1666, John Evelyn: “London was, but is no more.” Sinclair’s evocation of the disaster that razed seventeenth-century London is a declaration that twenty-first century London, too, has been destroyed. This time by an unsavoury crew of gentrifiers, property developers, politicians, hyper-affluent transplants, and the creative classes. Writers are a sub-category of this latter group. Ambivalence and complicity are always there for Sinclair. On the one hand, his wanderings have attributed cultural value to previously overlooked aspects of London by the very virtue of writing about them. On the other hand, Sinclair argues that the value of these parts of the city hinges on their neglect by the dominant culture, which, of course, is no longer possible when his writing illuminates them. Certainly, wandering the city excavating the secret histories of cities has acquired an elevated cultural currency since Sinclair started writing. In making the East End “so gothically juicy”, Sinclair inaugurated a stream of new imaginings from “young acolyte psychogeographers” (McKay). Moreover, McKay points out that “Sinclair once wryly noted that anywhere he ‘nominated’ soon became an estate agent vision of luxury lifestyle”.Iain Sinclair’s London wanderings, then, call for a recognition that is more-than-literary. They are what we have referred to elsewhere as “worldly texts” (Potter and Seale, forthcoming), texts that have more-than-literary effects and instead are materially entangled in generating transformative conditions of place. Our understanding sits alongside the insights of literary geography, especially Sheila Hones’s concept of the text as a “spatial event”. In this reckoning, texts are spatio-temporal happenings that are neither singular nor have one clear “moment” of emergence. Rather, texts come into being across time and space, and in this sense can be understood as assemblages that include geographical locations, material contexts, and networks of production and reception. Literary effects are materially, collaboratively, and spatially generated in the world and have “territorial consequences”, as Jon Anderson puts it (127). Sinclair’s writings, we contend, can be seen as materialising versions of place that operate outside the assemblage of “literary” production and realise spatial and socio-economic consequence.Sinclair’s work does more than mimetically reproduce a “lost” London, or angrily write against the grain of neo-liberal gentrification. It is, in a sense, a geographic constituent that cannot be disaggregated from the contemporary dynamics of the privileges and exclusions of city. This speaks to the author’s ambivalence about his role as a central figure in London writing. For example, it has been noted that Sinclair is “aware of the charge that he’s been responsible as anyone for the fetishization of London’s decrepitude, contributing to an aesthetic of urban decay that is now ubiquitous” (Day). Walking the East End in what he has claimed to be his “last” London book (2017), Sinclair is horrified by the prevalence of what he calls “poverty chic” at the erstwhile Spitalfields Market: a boutique called “Urban Decay” is selling high-end lipsticks with an optional eye makeover. Next door is the “Brokedown Palace […] offering expensive Patagonia sweaters and pretty colourful rucksacks.” Ironically, the aesthetics of decline and ruin that Sinclair has actively brought to public notice over the last thirty years are contributing to this urban renewal. It could also be argued that Sinclair’s wandering is guilty of “the violence of spokesmanship”, which sublimates the voices of others (Weston 274), and is surely no longer the voice of the wanderer as marginalised outsider. When textual actors become networked with place, there can be extra-textual consequences, such as Sinclair’s implication in the making of place in a globalised and gentrified London. It shifts understanding of Sinclair’s wandering from representational and hermeneutic interpretation towards materialism: from what wandering means to what wandering does. From this perspective, Sinclair’s wandering and writing does not end with the covers of his books. The multiple ontologies of Sinclair’s worldly texts expand and proliferate through the plurality of composing relations, which, in turn, produce continuous and diverse iterations in an actor-network with place in London. Sinclair’s wanderings produce an ongoing archive of the urban that continues to iteratively make place, through multiple texts and narrative engagements, including novels, non-fiction accounts, journalism, interviews, intermedia collaborations, and assembling with the texts of others—from the many other London authors to whom Sinclair refers, to the tour guides who lead Time Out walking tours of “Sinclair’s London”. Place in contemporary London therefore assembles across and through an actor-network in which Sinclair’s wandering participates. Ultimately, Sinclair’s wandering and placemaking affirm Manley’s statement that “the urban environment in which (and in response to which) so much of English literature has been written has itself been constructed in many respects by its representation in that literature—by the ideas, images, and styles created by writers who have experienced or inhabited it” (2).ReferencesAnderson, Jon. “Towards an Assemblage Approach to Literary Geography.” Literary Geographies 1.2 (2015): 120–137.Atkins, Marc and Iain Sinclair. Liquid City. London: Reaktion, 1999.Baker, Brian. Iain Sinclair. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007.Baudelaire, Charles. The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. Trans. and ed. Jonathan Mayne. London and New York: Phaidon, 1995.Benjamin, Walter. The Arcades Project. Trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin. Ed. Rolf Tiedmann. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2002.Bond, Robert. Iain Sinclair. Cambridge: Salt Publishing, 2005.Buck-Morss, Susan. The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989.Chambers, Russ. Loiterature. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999.Coverley, Merlin. Psychogeography. Harpenden: Pocket Essentials, 2005.Day, Jon. “The Last London by Iain Sinclair Review—an Elegy for a City Now Lost.” The Guardian 27 Sep. 2017. 7 July 2017 <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/sep/27/last-london-iain-sinclair-review>.Debord, Guy. “Theory of the Dérive.” Situationist International Anthology. Trans. and ed. Ken Knabb. Berkeley, Calif.: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981.———. “Détournement as Negation and Prelude.” Situationist International Anthology. Trans. and ed. Ken Knabb. Berkeley, Calif.: Bureau of Public Secrets, 1981.De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Trans. Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984.Dirda, Michael. “Modern Life, as Seen by a Writer without a Smart Phone.” The Washington Post 17 Jan. 2018. 4 July 2018 <https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/modern-life-as-seen-by-an-artist-without-a-phone/2018/01/17/6d0b779c-fb07-11e7-8f66-2df0b94bb98a_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9333f36c6212>.Hones, Sheila. “Text as It Happens: Literary Geography.” Geography Compass 2.5 (2008): 301–1307.Huizinga, Johan. hom*o Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1955.Kerr, Joe. “The Habit of Hackney: Joe Kerr on Iain Sinclair.” Architects’ Journal 11 Mar. 2009. 8 July 2017 <https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/home/the-habit-of-hackney-joe-kerr-on-iain-sinclair/1995066.article>.Manley, Lawrence, ed. The Cambridge Companion to the Literature of London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.Marcuse, Herbert. One-Dimensional Man. London and New York: Routledge, 2002.McKay, Sinclair. “Is It Time for All Lovers of London to Pack up?” The Spectator 2 Sep. 2017. 6 July 2018 <https://www.spectator.co.uk/2017/09/is-it-time-for-all-lovers-of-london-to-pack-up/>.O’Connell, Teresa. “Iain Sinclair: Walking Is a Democracy.” Guernica 16 Nov. 2017. 7 July 2018 <https://www.guernicamag.com/iain-sinclair-walking-democracy/>.Perril, Simon. “A Cartography of Absence: The Work of Iain Sinclair.” Comparative Criticism 19 (1997): 309–339.Potter, Emily, and Kirsten Seale. “The Worldly Text and the Production of More-than-Literary Place: Helen Garner’s Monkey Grip and Melbourne’s ‘Inner North’”. Cultural Geographies (forthcoming 2019).Seale, Kirsten. “‘Eye-Swiping’ London: Iain Sinclair, Photography and the Flâneur.” Literary London 3.2 (2005).———. “Iain Sinclair’s Archive.” Sydney Review of Books. 10 Sep. 2018. 12 July 2019 <https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/sinclair-last-london/>.Sinclair, Iain. Dining on Stones, or, The Middle Ground. London: Hamish Hamilton, 2004.———. Lights Out for the Territory. London: Granta, 1997.———. London Orbital. London: Penguin, 2003.———. The Last London: True Fictions from an Unreal City. London: Oneworld Publications, 2017.Weston, Daniel. “‘Against the Grand Project’: Iain Sinclair’s Local London.” Contemporary Literature 56.2 (2015): 255–280. Wolfreys, Julian. Writing London: Materiality, Memory, Spectrality Volume 2. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Abstract:

Introduction The recent AOL/Time-Warner merger invites us to re-think the relationships amongst content producers, distributors, and audiences. Worth an estimated $300 billion (US), the largest Internet transaction of all time, the deal is 45 times larger than the AOL/Netscape merger of November 1998 (Ledbetter). Additionally, the Time Warner/EMI merger, which followed hard on the heels of the AOL/Time-Warner deal and is itself worth $28 billion (US), created the largest content rights organisation in the music industry. The joining of the Internet giant (AOL) with what was already the world's largest media corporation (Time-Warner-EMI) has inspired some exuberant reactions. An Infoworld column proclaimed: The AOL/Time-Warner merger signals the demise of traditional media companies and the ascendancy of 'new economy' media companies that will force any industry hesitant to adopt a complete electronic-commerce strategy to rethink and put itself on Internet time. (Saap & Schwarrtz) This comment identifies the distribution channel as the dominant component of the "new economy" media. But this might not really be much of an innovation. Indeed, the assumption of all industry observers is that Time-Warner will provide broadband distribution (through its extensive cable holdings) as well as proprietary content for AOL. It is also expected that Time-Warner will adopt AOL's strategy of seeking sponsorship for development projects as well as for content. However, both of these phenomena -- merger and sponsorship -- are at least as old as radio. It seems that the Internet is merely repeating an old industrial strategy. Nonetheless, one important difference distinguishes the Internet from earlier media: its characterisation of the audience. Internet companies such as AOL and Microsoft tend towards a simple and simplistic media- centred view of the audience as market. I will show, however, that as the Internet assumes more of the traditional mass media functions, it will be forced to adopt a more sophisticated notion of the mass audience. Indeed, the Internet is currently the site in which audience definitions borrowed from broadcasting are encountering and merging with definitions borrowed from marketing. The Internet apparently lends itself to both models. As a result, definitions of what the Internet does or is, and of how we should understand the audience, are suitably confused and opaque. And the behaviour of big Internet players, such as AOL and MSN, perfectly reflects this confusion as they seem to careen between a view of the Internet as the new television and a contrasting view of the Internet as the new shopping mall. Meanwhile, Internet users move in ways that most observers fail to capture. For example, Baran and Davis characterise mass communication as a process involving (1) an organized sender, (2) engaged in the distribution of messages, (3) directed toward a large audience. They argue that broadcasting fits this model whereas a LISTSERV does not because, even though the LISTSERV may have very many subscribers, its content is filtered through a single person or Webmaster. But why is the Webmaster suddenly more determining than a network programmer or magazine editor? The distinction seems to grow out of the Internet's technological characteristics: it is an interactive pipeline, therefore its use necessarily excludes the possibility of "broadcasting" which in turn causes us to reject "traditional" notions of the audience. However, if a media organisation were to establish an AOL discussion group in order to promote Warner TV shows, for example, would not the resulting communication suddenly fall under the definition as set out by Baran and Davis? It was precisely the confusion around such definitions that caused the CRTC (Canada's broadcasting and telecommunications regulator) to hold hearings in 1999 to determine what kind of medium the Internet is. Unlike traditional broadcasting, Internet communication does indeed include the possibility of interactivity and niche communities. In this sense, it is closer to narrowcasting than to broadcasting even while maintaining the possibility of broadcasting. Hence, the nature of the audience using the Internet quickly becomes muddy. While such muddiness might have led us to sharpen our definitions of the audience, it seems instead to have led many to focus on the medium itself. For example, Morris & Ogan define the Internet as a mass medium because it addresses a mass audience mediated through technology (Morris & Ogan 39). They divide producers and audiences on the Internet into four groups: One-to-one asynchronous communication (e-mail); Many-to-many asynchronous communication (Usenet and News Groups); One-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many synchronous communication (topic groups, construction of an object, role-playing games, IRC chats, chat rooms); Asynchronous communication (searches, many-to-one, one-to-one, one to- many, source-receiver relations (Morris & Ogan 42-3) Thus, some Internet communication qualifies as mass communication while some does not. However, the focus remains firmly anchored on either the sender or the medium because the receiver --the audience -- is apparently too slippery to define. When definitions do address the content distributed over the Net, they make a distinction between passive reception and interactive participation. As the World Wide Web makes pre-packaged content the norm, the Internet increasingly resembles a traditional mass medium. Timothy Roscoe argues that the main focus of the World Wide Web is not the production of content (and, hence, the fulfilment of the Internet's democratic potential) but rather the presentation of already produced material: "the dominant activity in relation to the Web is not producing your own content but surfing for content" (Rosco 680). He concludes that if the emphasis is on viewing material, the Internet will become a medium similar to television. Within media studies, several models of the audience compete for dominance in the "new media" economy. Denis McQuail recalls how historically, the electronic media furthered the view of the audience as a "public". The audience was an aggregate of common interests. With broadcasting, the electronic audience was delocalised and socially decomposed (McQuail, Mass 212). According to McQuail, it was not a great step to move from understanding the audience as a dispersed "public" to thinking about the audience as itself a market, both for products and as a commodity to be sold to advertisers. McQuail defines this conception of the audience as an "aggregate of potential customers with a known social- economic profile at which a medium or message is directed" (McQuail, Mass 221). Oddly though, in light of the emancipatory claims made for the Internet, this is precisely the dominant view of the audience in the "new media economy". Media Audience as Market How does the marketing model characterise the relationship between audience and producer? According to McQuail, the marketing model links sender and receiver in a cash transaction between producer and consumer rather than in a communicative relationship between equal interlocutors. Such a model ignores the relationships amongst consumers. Indeed, neither the effectiveness of the communication nor the quality of the communicative experience matters. This model, explicitly calculating and implicitly manipulative, is characteristically a "view from the media" (McQuail, Audience 9). Some scholars, when discussing new media, no longer even refer to audiences. They speak of users or consumers (Pavick & Dennis). The logic of the marketing model lies in the changing revenue base for media industries. Advertising-supported media revenues have been dropping since the early 1990s while user-supported media such as cable, satellite, online services, and pay-per-view, have been steadily growing (Pavlik & Dennis 19). In the Internet-based media landscape, the audience is a revenue stream and a source of consumer information. As Bill Gates says, it is all about "eyeballs". In keeping with this view, AOL hopes to attract consumers with its "one-stop shopping and billing". And Internet providers such as MSN do not even consider their subscribers as "audiences". Instead, they work from a consumer model derived from the computer software industry: individuals make purchases without the seller providing content or thematising the likely use of the software. The analogy extends well beyond the transactional moment. The common practice of prototyping products and beta-testing software requires the participation of potential customers in the product development cycle not as a potential audience sharing meanings but as recalcitrant individuals able to uncover bugs. Hence, media companies like MTV now use the Internet as a source of sophisticated demographic research. Recently, MTV Asia established a Website as a marketing tool to collect preferences and audience profiles (Slater 50). The MTV audience is now part of the product development cycle. Another method for getting information involves the "cookie" file that automatically provides a Website with information about the user who logs on to a site (Pavick & Dennis). Simultaneously, though, both Microsoft and AOL have consciously shifted from user-subscription revenues to advertising in an effort to make online services more like television (Gomery; Darlin). For example, AOL has long tried to produce content through its own studios to generate sufficiently heavy traffic on its Internet service in order to garner profitable advertising fees (Young). However, AOL and Microsoft have had little success in providing content (Krantz; Manes). In fact, faced with the AOL/Time-Warner merger, Microsoft declared that it was in the software rather than the content business (Trott). In short, they are caught between a broadcasting model and a consumer model and their behaviour is characteristically erratic. Similarly, media companies such as Time-Warner have failed to establish their own portals. Indeed, Time-Warner even abandoned attempts to create large Websites to compete with other Internet services when it shut down its Pathfinder site (Egan). Instead it refocussed its Websites so as to blur the line between pitching products and covering them (Reid; Lyons). Since one strategy for gaining large audiences is the creation of portals - - large Websites that keep surfers within the confines of a single company's site by providing content -- this is the logic behind the AOL/Time-Warner merger though both companies have clearly been unsuccessful at precisely such attempts. AOL seems to hope that Time- Warner will act as its content specialist, providing the type of compelling material that will make users want to use AOL, whereas Time- Warner seems to hope that AOL will become its privileged pipeline to the hearts and minds of untold millions. Neither has a coherent view of the audience, how it behaves, or should behave. Consequently, their efforts have a distinctly "unmanaged" and slighly inexplicable air to them, as though everyone were simultaneously hopeful and clueless. While one might argue that the stage is set to capitalise on the audience as commodity, there are indications that the success of such an approach is far from guaranteed. First, the AOL/Time-Warner/EMI transaction, merely by existing, has sparked conflicts over proprietary rights. For example, the Recording Industry Association of America, representing Sony, Universal, BMG, Warner and EMI, recently launched a $6.8 billion lawsuit against MP3.com -- an AOL subsidiary -- for alleged copyright violations. Specifically, MP3.com is being sued for selling digitized music over the Internet without paying royalties to the record companies (Anderson). A similar lawsuit has recently been launched over the issue of re- broadcasting television programs over the Internet. The major US networks have joined together against Canadian Internet company iCravetv for the unlawful distribution of content. Both the iCravetv and the MP3.com cases show how dominant media players can marshal their forces to protect proprietary rights in both content and distribution. Since software and media industries have failed to recreate the Internet in the image of traditional broadcasting, the merger of the dominant players in each industry makes sense. However, their simultaneous failure to secure proprietary rights reflects both the competitive nature of the "new media economy" and the weakness of the marketing view of the audience. Media Audience as Public It is often said that communication produces social cohesion. From such cohesion communities emerge on which political or social orders can be constructed. The power of social cohesion and attachment to group symbols can even create a sense of belonging to a "people" or nation (Deutsch). Sociologist Daniel Bell described how the mass media helped create an American culture simply by addressing a large enough audience. He suggested that on the evening of 7 March 1955, when one out of every two Americans could see Mary Martin as Peter Pan on television, a kind of social revolution occurred and a new American public was born. "It was the first time in history that a single individual was seen and heard at the same time by such a broad public" (Bell, quoted in Mattelart 72). One could easily substitute the 1953 World Series or the birth of little Ricky on I Love Lucy. The desire to document such a process recurs with the Internet. Internet communities are based on the assumption that a common experience "creates" group cohesion (Rheingold; Jones). However, as a mass medium, the Internet has yet to find its originary moment, that event to which all could credibly point as the birth of something genuine and meaningful. A recent contender was the appearance of Paul McCartney at the refurbished Cavern Club in Liverpool. On Tuesday, 14 December 1999, McCartney played to a packed club of 300 fans, while another 150,000 watched on an outdoor screen nearby. MSN arranged to broadcast the concert live over the Internet. It advertised an anticipated global audience of 500 million. Unfortunately, there was such heavy Internet traffic that the system was unable to accommodate more than 3 million people. Servers in the United Kingdom were so congested that many could only watch the choppy video stream via an American link. The concert raises a number of questions about "virtual" events. We can draw several conclusions about measuring Internet audiences. While 3 million is a sizeable audience for a 20 minute transmission, by advertising a potential audience of 500 million, MSN showed remarkably poor judgment of its inherent appeal. The Internet is the first medium that allows access to unprocessed material or information about events to be delivered to an audience with neither the time constraints of broadcast media nor the space limitations of the traditional press. This is often cited as one of the characteristics that sets the Internet apart from other media. This feeds the idea of the Internet audience as a participatory, democratic public. For example, it is often claimed that the Internet can foster democratic participation by providing voters with uninterpreted information about candidates and issues (Selnow). However, as James Curran argues, the very process of distributing uninterrupted, unfiltered information, at least in the case of traditional mass media, represents an abdication of a central democratic function -- that of watchdog to power (Curran). In the end, publics are created and maintained through active and continuous participation on the part of communicators and audiences. The Internet holds together potentially conflicting communicative relationships within the same technological medium (Merrill & Ogan). Viewing the audience as co-participant in a communicative relationship makes more sense than simply focussing on the Internet audience as either an aggregate of consumers or a passively constructed symbolic public. Audience as Relationship Many scholars have shifted attention from the producer to the audience as an active participant in the communication process (Ang; McQuail, Audience). Virginia Nightingale goes further to describe the audience as part of a communicative relationship. Nightingale identifies four factors in the relationship between audiences and producers that emphasize their co-dependency. The audience and producer are engaged in a symbiotic relationship in which consumption and use are necessary but not sufficient explanations of audience relations. The notion of the audience invokes, at least potentially, a greater range of activities than simply use or consumption. Further, the audience actively, if not always consciously, enters relationships with content producers and the institutions that govern the creation, distribution and exhibition of content (Nightingale 149-50). Others have demonstrated how this relationship between audiences and producers is no longer the one-sided affair characterised by the marketing model or the model of the audience as public. A global culture is emerging based on critical viewing skills. Kavoori calls this a reflexive mode born of an increasing familiarity with the narrative conventions of news and an awareness of the institutional imperatives of media industries (Kavoori). Given the sophistication of the emergent global audience, a theory that reduces new media audiences to a set of consumer preferences or behaviours will inevitably prove inadequate, just as it has for understanding audience behavior in old media. Similarly, by ignoring those elements of audience behavior that will be easily transported to the Web, we run the risk of idealising the Internet as a medium that will create an illusory, pre-technological public. Conclusion There is an understandable confusion between the two models of the audience that appear in the examples above. The "new economy" will have to come to terms with sophisticated audiences. Contrary to IBM's claim that they want to "get to know all about you", Internet users do not seem particularly interested in becoming a perpetual source of market information. The fragmented, autonomous audience resists attempts to lock it into proprietary relationships. Internet hypesters talk about creating publics and argue that the Internet recreates the intimacy of community as a corrective to the atomisation and alienation characteristic of mass society. This faith in the power of a medium to create social cohesion recalls the view of the television audience as a public constructed by the common experience of watching an important event. However, MSN's McCartney concert indicates that creating a public from spectacle it is not a simple process. In fact, what the Internet media conglomerates seem to want more than anything is to create consumer bases. Audiences exist for pleasure and by the desire to be entertained. As Internet media institutions are established, the cynical view of the audience as a source of consumer behavior and preferences will inevitably give way, to some extent, to a view of the audience as participant in communication. Audiences will be seen, as they have been by other media, as groups whose attention must be courted and rewarded. Who knows, maybe the AOL/Time-Warner merger might, indeed, signal the new medium's coming of age. References Anderson, Lessley. "To Beam or Not to Beam. MP3.com Is Being Sued by the Major Record Labels. Does the Digital Download Site Stand a Chance?" Industry Standard 31 Jan. 2000. <http://www.thestandard.com>. Ang, Ien. Watching Dallas: Soap Opera and the Melodramatic Imagination. London: Methuen, 1985. Baran, Stanley, and Dennis Davis. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future. 2nd ed. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth 2000. Curran, James. "Mass Media and Democracy Revisited." Mass Media and Society. Eds. James Curran and Michael Gurevitch. New York: Hodder Headline Group, 1996. Darlin, Damon. "He Wants Your Eyeballs." Forbes 159 (16 June 1997): 114-6. Egan, Jack, "Pathfinder, Rest in Peace: Time-Warner Pulls the Plug on Site." US News and World Report 126.18 (10 May 1999): 50. Gomery, Douglas. "Making the Web Look like Television (American Online and Microsoft)." American Journalism Review 19 (March 1997): 46. Jones, Steve, ed. CyberSociety: Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1995. Kavoori, Amandam P. "Discursive Texts, Reflexive Audiences: Global Trends in Television News Texts and Audience Reception." Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 43.3 (Summer 1999): 386-98. Krantz, Michael. "Is MSN on the Block?" Time 150 (20 Oct. 1997): 82. Ledbetter, James. "AOL-Time-Warner Make It Big." Industry Standard 11 Jan. 2000. <http://www.thestandard.com>. Lyons, Daniel. "Desparate.com (Media Companies Losing Millions on the Web Turn to Electronic Commerce)." Forbes 163.6 (22 March 1999): 50-1. Manes, Stephen. "The New MSN as Prehistoric TV." New York Times 4 Feb. 1997: C6. McQuail, Denis. Audience Analysis. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1997. ---. Mass Communication Theory. 2nd ed. London: Sage, 1987. Mattelart, Armand. Mapping World Communication: War, Progress, Culture. Trans. Susan Emanuel and James A. Cohen. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1994. Morris, Merrill, and Christine Ogan. "The Internet as Mass Medium." Journal of Communications 46 (Winter 1996): 39-50. Nightingale, Virginia. Studying Audience: The Shock of the Real. London: Routledge, 1996. Pavlik, John V., and Everette E. Dennis. New Media Technology: Cultural and Commercial Perspectives. 2nd ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1998. Reid, Calvin. "Time-Warner Seeks Electronic Synergy, Profits on the Web (Pathfinder Site)." Publisher's Weekly 242 (4 Dec. 1995): 12. Rheingold, Howard. Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. New York: Harper, 1993. Roscoe, Timothy. "The Construction of the World Wide Web Audience." Media, Culture and Society 21.5 (1999): 673-84. Saap, Geneva, and Ephraim Schwarrtz. "AOL-Time-Warner Deal to Impact Commerce, Content, and Access Markets." Infoworld 11 January 2000. <http://infoworld.com/articles/ic/xml/00/01/11/000111icimpact.xml>. Slater, Joanna. "Cool Customers: Music Channels Hope New Web Sites Tap into Teen Spirit." Far Eastern Economic Review 162.9 (4 March 1999): 50. Trott, Bob. "Microsoft Views AOL-Time-Warner as Confirmation of Its Own Strategy." Infoworld 11 Jan. 2000. <http://infoworld.com/articles/pi/xml/00/01/11/000111pimsaoltw.xml>. Yan, Catherine. "A Major Studio Called AOL?" Business Week 1 Dec. 1997: 1773-4. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Daniel M. Downes. "The Medium Vanishes? The Resurrection of the Mass Audience in the New Media Economy." M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.1 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/mass.php>. Chicago style: Daniel M. Downes, "The Medium Vanishes? The Resurrection of the Mass Audience in the New Media Economy," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 1 (2000), <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/mass.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Daniel M. Downes. (2000) The Medium Vanishes? The Resurrection of the Mass Audience in the New Media Economy. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(1). <http://www.uq.edu.au/mc/0003/mass.php> ([your date of access]).

Abstract:

Image 1: View from Geodha Sgoilt towards the sea stacks, Uig, Isle of Lewis. Image credit: George Jaramillo.IntroductionOver the cliffs of Mangerstadh on the west coast of the Isle of Lewis, is a small plot of land called Geodha Sgoilt that overlooks the North Atlantic Ocean (Image 1). On the site is a small dirt gravel road and the remnants of a World War II listening station. Below, sea stacks rise from the waters, orange and green cliff sides stand in defiance to the crashing waves. An older gentleman began to tell me of what he believed could be located here on the site. A place where visitors could learn of the wonders of St Kilda that contained all types of new storytelling technologies to inspire them. He pointed above the ruined buildings, mentioning that a new road for the visitors’ vehicles and coaches would be built. With his explanations, you could almost imagine such a place on these cliffs. Yet, before that new idea could even be built, this gentleman and his group of locals and incomers had to convince themselves and others that this new heritage centre was something desired, necessary and inevitable in the development of the Western Isles.This article explores the developing relationships that come about through design innovation with community organisations. This was done through a partnership between an academic institution and a non-profit heritage community group as part of growing study in how higher education design research can play an active partner in community group development. It argues for the use of design thinking and innovation in improving strategy and organisational processes within non-profit organisations. In this case, it looks at what role it can play in building and enabling organisational confidence in its mission, as well as, building “beyond the museum”. The new approach to this unique relationship casts new light towards working with complexities and strategies rather than trying to resolve issues from the outset of a project. These enabling relationships are divided into three sections of this paper: First it explores the context of the island community group and “building” heritage, followed by a brief history of St Kilda and its current status, and designation as a World Heritage site. Second, it seeks the value of developing strategy and the introduction of the Institute of Design Innovation (INDI). This is followed by a discussion of the six-month relationship and work that was done that elucidates various methods used and ending with its outcomes. The third section reflects upon the impacts at the relationship building between the two groups with some final thoughts on the partnership, where it can lead, and how this can represent new ways of working together within community groups. Building HeritageCurrent community research in Scotland has shown struggles in understanding issues within community capability and development (Barker 11; Cave 20; Jacuniak-Suda, and Mose 23) though most focus on the land tenure and energy (McMorran 21) and not heritage groups. The need to maintain “resilient” (Steiner 17) communities has shown that economic resilience is of primary importance for these rural communities. Heritage as economic regenerator has had a long history in the United Kingdom. Some of these like the regeneration of Wirksworth in the Peak District (Gordon 20) have had great economic results with populations growing, as well as, development in the arts and design. These changes, though positive, have also adversely impacted the local community by estranging and forcing lower income townspeople to move away due to higher property values and lack of work. Furthermore, current trends in heritage tourism have managed to turn many rural regions into places of historic consumption (Ronström 7) termed “heritagisation” (Edensor 35). There is thus a need for critical reflection within a variety of heritage organisations with the increase in heritage tourism.In particular, existing island heritage organisations face a variety of issues that they focus too much on the artefactual or are too focused to strive for anything beyond the remit of their particular heritage (Jacuniak-Suda, and Mose 33; Ronström 4). Though many factors including funding, space, volunteerism and community capability affect the way these groups function they have commonalities that include organisational methods, volunteer fatigue, and limited interest from community groups. It is within this context that the communities of the Outer Hebrides. Currently, projects within the Highlands and islands focus on particular “grassroots” development (Cave 26; Robertson 994) searching for innovative ways to attract, maintain, and sustain healthy levels of heritage and development—one such group is Ionad Hiort. Ionad Hiort Ionad Hiort is a community non-profit organisation founded in 2010 to assist in the development of a new type of heritage centre in the community of Uig on the Isle of Lewis (“Proposal-Ionad Hiort”). As stated in their website, the group strives to develop a centre on the history and contemporary views of St Kilda, as well as, encouraging a much-needed year-round economic impetus for the region. The development of the group and the idea of a heritage centre came about through the creation of the St Kilda Opera, a £1.5 million, five-country project held in 2007, led by Scotland’s Gaelic Arts agency, Proiseact nan Ealan (Mckenzie). This opera, inspired by the cliffs, people, and history of St Kilda used creative techniques to unite five countries in a live performance with cliff aerobatics and Gaelic singing to present the island narrative. From this initial interest, a commission from the Western Isles council (2010), developed by suggestions and commentary from earlier reports (Jura Report 2009; Rebanks 2009) encouraged a fiercely contentious competition, which saw Ionad Hiort receive the right to develop a remote-access heritage centre about the St Kilda archipelago (Maclean). In 2013, the group received a plot of land from the local laird for the establishment of the centre (Urquhart) thereby bringing it closer to its goal of a heritage centre, but before moving onto this notion of remote-heritage, a brief history is needed on the archipelago. Image 2: Location map of Mangerstadh on the Isle of Lewis and St Kilda to the west, with inset of Scotland. Image credit: © Crown Copyright and Database Right (2017). Ordnance Survey (Digimap Licence).St KildaSt Kilda is an archipelago about 80 kilometres off the coast of the Outer Hebrides in the North Atlantic (Image 2). Over 2000 years of habitation show an entanglement between humans and nature including harsh weather, limited resources, but a tenacity and growth to develop a way of living upon a small section of land in the middle of the Atlantic. St Kilda has maintained a tenuous relationship between the sea, the cliffs and the people who have lived within its territory (Geddes, and Gannon 18). Over a period of three centuries beginning in the eighteenth century an outside influence on the island begin to play a major role, with the loss of a large portion of its small (180) population. This population would later decrease to 100 and finally to 34 in 1930, when it was decided to evacuate the final members of the village in what could best be called a forced eviction.Since the evacuation, the island has maintained an important military presence as a listening station during the Second World War and in its modern form a radar station as part of the Hebridean Artillery (Rocket) Range (Geddes 14). The islands in the last thirty years have seen an increase in tourism with the ownership of the island by the National Trust of Scotland. The UNESCO World Heritage Organisation (UNESCO), who designated St Kilda in 1986 and 2004 as having outstanding universal value, has seen its role evolve from not just protecting (or conserving) world heritage sites, but to strategically understand sustainable tourism of its sites (“St Kilda”). In 2012, UNESCO selected St Kilda as a case study for remote access heritage conservation and interpretation (Hebrides News Today; UNESCO 15). This was partly due to the efforts of 3D laser scanning of the islands by a collaboration between The Glasgow School of Art and Historic Environment Scotland called the Centre for Digital Documentation and Visualisation (CDDV) in 2009.The idea of a remote access heritage is an important aspect as to what Ionad Hiort could do with creating a centre at their site away from St Kilda. Remote access heritage is useful in allowing for sites and monuments to be conserved and monitored “from afar”. It allows for 3D visualisations of sites and provides new creative engagements with a variety of different places (Remondino, and Rizzi 86), however, Ionad Hiort was not yet at a point to even imagine how to use the remote access technology. They first needed a strategy and direction, as after many years of moving towards recognition of proposing the centre at their site in Uig, they had lost a bit of that initial drive. This is where INDI was asked to assist by the Highlands and Islands Enterprise, the regional development organisation for most of rural Scotland. Building ConfidenceINDI is a research institute at The Glasgow School of Art. It is a distributed, creative collective of researchers, lecturers and students specialising in design innovation, where design innovation means enabling creative capabilities within communities, groups and individuals. Together, they address complex issues through new design practices and bespoke community engagement to co-produce “preferable futures” (Henchley 25). Preferable futures are a type of future casting that seeks to strive not just for the probable or possible future of a place or idea, but for the most preferred and collectively reached option for a society (McAra-McWilliam 9). INDI researches the design processes that are needed to co-create contexts in which people can flourish: at work, in organisations and businesses, as well as, in public services and government. The task of innovation as an interactive process is an example of the design process. Innovation is defined as “a co-creation process within social and technological networks in which actors integrate their resources to create mutual value” (Russo‐Spena, and Mele 528). Therefore, innovation works outside of standard consultancy practices; rather it engenders a sense of mutual co-created practices that strive to resolve particular problems. Examples include the work that has looked at creating cultures of innovation within small and medium-sized enterprises (Lockwood 4) where the design process was used to alter organisational support (Image 3). These enterprises tend to emulate larger firms and corporations and though useful in places where economies of scale are present, smaller business need adaptable, resilient and integrated networks of innovation within their organisational models. In this way, innovation functioned as a catalyst for altering the existing organisational methods. These innovations are thus a useful alternative to existing means of approaching problems and building resilience within any organisation. Therefore, these ideas of innovation could be transferred and play a role in enabling new ways of approaching non-profit organisational structures, particularly those within heritage. Image 3: Design Council Double Diamond model of the design process. Image credit: Lockwood.Developing the WorkIonad Hiort with INDI’s assistance has worked together to develop a heritage centre that tries to towards a new definition of heritage and identity through this island centre. Much of this work has been done through local community investigations revolving around workshops and one-on-one talks where narratives and ideas are held in “negative capability” (McAra-McWilliam 2) to seek many alternatives that would be able to work for the community. The initial aims of the partnership were to assist the Uig community realise the potential of the St Kilda Centre. Primarily, it would assist in enabling the capabilities of two themes. The first would be, strategy, for Ionad Hiort’s existing multi-page mission brief. The second would be storytelling the narrative of St Kilda as a complex and entangled, however, its common views are limited to the ‘fall from grace’ or ‘noble savage’ story (Macdonald 168). Over the course of six months, the relationship involved two workshops and three site visits of varying degrees of interaction. An initial gathering had InDI staff meet members of Ionad Hiort to introduce members to each other. Afterwards, INDI ran two workshops over two months in Uig to understand, reflect and challenge Ionad Hiort’s focus on what the group desired. The first workshop focused on the group’s strategy statement. In a relaxed and facilitated space in the Uig Community Hall, the groups used pens, markers, and self-adhesive notes to engage in an open dialogue about the group’s desires. This session included reflecting on what their heritage centre could look like, as well as what their strategy needed to get there. These resulted in a series of drawings of their ‘preferred’ centre, with some ideas showing a centre sitting over the edge of the cliffs or one that had the centre be an integral component of the community. In discussing that session, one of members of the group recalled:I remember his [one of INDI’s staff] interrogation of the project was actually pretty – initially – fairly brutal, right? The first formal session we had talking about strategy and so on. To the extent that I think it would be fair to say he pissed everybody off, right? So much so that he actually prompted us to come back with some fairly hard hitting ripostes, which, after a moment’s silence he then said, ‘That’s it, you’ve convinced me’, and at that point we kind of realised that that’s what he’d been trying to do; he’d been trying to really push us to go further in our articulation of what we were doing and … why we were doing it in this particular way than we had done before. (Participant A, 2016).The group through this session found out that their strategy could be refined into a short mission statement giving a clear focus as to what they wanted and how they wanted to go about doing it. In the end, drawings, charts, stories (Image 4) were drawn to reflect on what the community had discussed. These artefacts became a key role-player in the following months of the development of the group. Image 4: View of group working through their strategy workshop session. Image credit: Fergus Fullarton-Pegg (2014). The second set of workshops and visits involved informal discussion with individual members of the group and community. This included a visit to St Kilda with members from INDI, Ionad Hiort and the Digital Design Studio, which allowed for everyone to understand the immensity of the project and its significance to World Heritage values. The initial aims thus evolved into understanding the context of self-governance for distributed communities and how to develop the infrastructure of development. As discussed earlier, existing development processes are useful, though limited to only particular types of projects, and as exemplified in the Highlands and Islands Enterprise and Western Isles Council commission, it tends to put communities against each other for limited pots of money. This existing system can be innovated upon by becoming creative liaisons, sharing and co-creating from existing studies to help develop more effective processes for the future of Ionad Hiort and their ‘preferable future’. Building RelationshipsWhat the relationship with GSA has done, as a dialogue with the team of people that have been involved, has been to consolidate and clarify our own thinking and to get us to question our own thinking across several different aspects of the whole project. (Participant A, 2016)As the quote states, the main notion of using design thinking has allowed Ionad Hiort to question their thinking and challenge preconceptions of what a “heritage centre” is, by being a critical sounding board that is different from what is provided by consultants and other stakeholders. Prior to meeting INDI, Ionad Hiort may have been able to reach their goal of a strategy, however, it would have taken a few more years. The work, which involved structured and unstructured workshops, meetings, planning events, and gatherings, gave them a structured focus to move ahead with their prospectus planning and bidding. INDI enabled the compression and focus of their strategy making and mission strategy statement over the course of six months into a one-page statement that gave direction to the group and provided the impetus for the development of the prospectus briefs. Furthermore, INDI contributed a sense of contemporary content to the historic story, as well as, enable the community to see that this centre would not just become another gallery with café. The most important outcome has been an effective measure in building relationships in the Outer Hebrides, which shows the changing roles between academic and third sector partnerships. Two key points can be deemed from these developing relationships: The first has been to build a research infrastructure in and across the region that engages with local communities about working with the GSA, including groups in North Uist, Barra and South Uist. Of note is a comment made by one of the participants saying: “It’s exciting now, there’s a buzz about it and getting you [INDI] involved, adding a dimension—we’ve got people who have got an artistic bent here but I think your enthusiasm, your skills, very much complement what we’ve got here.” (Participant B, 2016). Second, the academic/non-profit partnership has encouraged younger people to work and study in the area through a developing programme of student research activity. This includes placing taught masters students with local community members on the South Uist, as well as, PhD research being done on Stornoway. These two outcomes then have given rise to interest in not only how heritage is re-developed in a community, but also, encourages future interest, by staff and students to continue the debate and fashion further developments in the region (GSAmediacentre). Today, the cliffs of Mangerstadh continue to receive the pounding of waves, the blowing wind and the ever-present rain on its rocky granite surface. The iterative stages of work that the two groups have done showcase the way that simple actions can carve, change and evolve into innovative outcomes. The research outcomes show that through this new approach to working with communities we move beyond the consultant and towards an ability of generating a preferable future for the community. In this way, the work that has been created together showcases a case study for further island community development. We do not know what the future holds for the group, but with continued support and maintaining an open mind to creative opportunities we will see that the community will develop a space that moves “beyond the museum”. AcknowledgementsThe author would like to thank Ionad Hiort and all the residents of Uig on the Isle of Lewis for their assistance and participation in this partnership. For more information on their work please visit http://www.ionadhiort.org/. The author also thanks the Highlands and Islands Enterprise for financial support in the research and development of the project. Finally, the author thanks the two reviewers who provided critical commentary and critiques to improve this paper. ReferencesBarker, Adam. “Capacity Building for Sustainability: Towards Community Development in Coastal Scotland.” Journal of Environmental Management 75.1 (2005): 11-19. 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