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1.
Ine Van Hoyweghen 《Journal of Cultural Economy》2014,7(3):334-352
This article examines the politics of calculative devices in one of the most successful areas of finance, the life insurance business. By empirically tracing an insurance applicant's risk trajectory, it analyses how calculative devices perform insurance underwriting through acting on insurance risk decisions. This allows one to document what calculative devices exactly do, and to point out the political effects of what they do. First, it highlights the fact that, contrary to thinking in terms of ‘the insurance logic’, there are multiple ways of calcuting life insurance risks. Second, it underscores the crucial role of calculative devices in that process by demonstrating how they align considerations as divergent as economics and medicine to perform a life insurance market. It then demonstrates the political effects of these calculative devices by making explicit how the latter contribute to the production of inequalities in calculative power in life insurance. In this way, the article links up insights from the performativity approach in the sociology of markets with the broader question of governing economic life. Such an approach, it is argued, provides the opportunity to open up the organization of economic markets and to put classic questions of justice and power struggles in economic markets on the agenda again. 相似文献
2.
William James (1919) characterises hypotheses as either live or dead. A hypothesis is live when it is taken into account as a ‘real possibility’. We follow James’ suggestion to not attribute intrinsic properties to hypotheses, but rather investigate how they came into being and look at the effects they generate. Expectations of digital technologies are a topic of vivid debate in the insurance industry. Before these expectations can become ‘live’, they have, in the first place, to be generated by market devices. We investigate how the reinsurance blogpost platform Open Minds functions as an ‘expectation generation device’ on the future of insurance markets. Combining Beckert’s work on the role of fictional expectations with the pragmatist turn in sociology of markets, we propose to study ‘expectation generation devices’, provoking expectations on economic markets. In our empirical analysis, we demonstrate the explicit fictional character of the Open Minds contributions, and analyse how a contained space of openness is generated to provoke expectations. We demonstrate how Open Minds can become live through circulation to other expectation generation sites in the insurance industry and beyond. We conclude by reflecting on the importance of expectation generation devices as a particular type of market devices. 相似文献
3.
《Journal of International and Intercultural Communication》2013,6(2):106-123
Abstract This essay provides a critical genealogical study of the “water cure” controversies that took place during the Philippine–American War. The author extends the work of Foucault and Agamben to argue that a biopolitical review of this controversy illustrates how many of the legal and cultural arguments used to legitimate the water cure have resurfaced in contemporary debates about waterboarding and enhanced interrogations techniques. The essay also illustrates how anti-imperialists and other critics of Theodore Roosevelt's administration tried to use these water-cure debates as discursive vehicles for complaining about the systematic abuse of Filipinos during the Philippine “Insurrection.” 相似文献
4.
《Journal of Cultural Economy》2013,6(4):477-488
In this essay, the author analyzes social science thinking about the capitalist market from instrumentalism to institutionalism and the recent turn toward more cultural economics, and propose to enlarge the latter opening via the 'strong program' in cultural sociology. Nineteenth century' big thinkers' conceptualized the market as if it were entirely deracinated, based on alienation and pure calculation. The profession of economics subtracted the social critique from this dismal understanding and converted the dismal science into mathematical predictions and production functions. The new economic sociology exposed the institutional framework of market decisions, emphasizing social networks and status competition. Cultural economic sociology has challenged institutionalism, showing how social meanings, not just institutional position, determines economic value. The next step is to demonstrate that the market itself depends on cultural meanings. The strength of a market depends upon narrative projections of future economic conditions. An optimistic scenario creates confidence and sparks investment. A pessimistic narrative creates fear and leads investors keep their money tight. Confidence in the future depends on constructions of 'character': will economic actors constrain themselves by acting in a sober and moral way or will they be hedonistic, indulging in short-term satisfaction? This cultural-sociological theory is illustrated with reference to Keynes' General Theory about the 1930s Great Depression and U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's policy vis-à-vis the current Great Recession. 相似文献
5.
Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen 《Journal of Cultural Economy》2014,7(3):308-333
What kind of object is private life insurance? To discuss this question, this article examines how life insurance is pictured, that is, explained and concretized with words and visual images, in the promotion of private life insurance in Finland between 1945 and 2000. In principle, life insurance can only be used for assessing and securing the economic value of life. The empirical material shows, however, that life insurance, as an object, can only exist if economic value and other values constantly overflow into each other, and calculation and affect are made to intertwine. In order to objectify their potential customers' lives as economic potential, as commodities, insurance companies have indeed had to objectify life – yet not only in terms of monetary value, but simultaneously and as importantly, also as something that is irreducible to monetary value. Hence the promotion of life insurance enacts a double stabilization of objects. On the one hand, advertisements and leaflets show how life insurance matters, what it is capable of, and thus stabilize the understanding of insurance itself as a tool. On the other hand, the promotional materials both stabilize and mobilize ‘life’ as an assemblage of heterogeneous practices and modes of valuation that is irreducible to economic potential. 相似文献
6.
《Journal of Cultural Economy》2013,6(5):582-596
Consultants have emerged as significant actors in the assembling of culture after neoliberalism. This paper considers their role in the assemblage of the British subsidised cultural sector as part of the assembling of culture more generally. In particular, it is concerned with the status of consultants as private sector actors, which differentiates them from other forms of expertise that tend to be located in the state apparatus, in that they must earn money to resource their work and remain solvent. By placing their work of assemblage in relation to this imperative, we can understand the difference it makes. Based on a close study of a London cultural consultancy, it is argued that specific governmental and managerial trends send trajectories of value through the assemblage which the networked consultants attempt to control and capture. These economies have seen consultants contribute to the broad shift in the assemblage of culture from something that occupied a distinctive sphere requiring protection from the ravages of the market to a potential contributor to economic and social development. 相似文献
7.
《Journal of Cultural Economy》2013,6(1):48-63
This contribution is focused on collective and individual stories of precarity in Italy. At the present time, when work and the imaginaries socially constructed around it are more and more individualised and fragmented, imaginaries and collective references – whether they be social movements, trade unions or professional groups – have given way to ever more particularistic and singular experiences, which hinder the construction of a coherent identity for workers. In this scenario the question to be asked is then: how is it possible to elaborate a new collective imaginary of precarity and reclaim new rights? After a focus on the phenomenon of precarity in Italy, this contribution move to consider the activities of the network of San Precario, a cultural phenomenon that managed to develop new kinds of social claims based on bottom-up and horizontal practices. It is then discussed that the current return to an almost exclusively individual approach to the question of precarity, which forces subjects to bear the management of their professional life trajectories. Finally, an analysis of social movements' recent efforts of self-organisation and some reflections on the possible role of social sciences in elaborating tools for planning a renewed welfare system are offered. 相似文献
8.
The communication infrastructure of modern science is provided by profit-oriented business firms: the publishing houses which print and distribute academic books and journals. Surprisingly, beyond some rather superficial impressions, in science studies little is known about how academic publishers work—in particular, how markets for books and journals look like, how publication decisions are taken, and how the interplay with the scientific community is arranged. We address these questions with a focus on the relation between economic considerations of publishers, on the one hand, and the requirements of scientific communication, on the other. Our contrasting case studies are a very large worldwide operating publisher with regard to chemistry publications and a national publishing house of German sociology. At first, we show how the rather different business approaches of the two types of academic publishing houses look like. Both approaches could reach stability for some time which means not only that publishers earned money according to their profit aspirations but also that the communication requirements of science were sufficiently met. Afterwards, we point out the instabilities that have begun to arise in both fields and may sooner or later erode the former fit of profit-making and scientific communication. 相似文献
9.
Drawing upon the concepts of civic epistemologies and sociotechnical imaginaries, this article delves into the history of nuclear energy in Portugal, analyzing the ways in which the nuclear endeavor was differently enacted by various sociopolitical collectives – the Fascist State, post-revolutionary governments and the public. Following the 1974 revolution - known as the Carnation Revolution - this paper analyzes how the nuclear project was fiercely contested by a vibrant anti-nuclear movement assembled against the construction of the Ferrel Nuclear Plant, the first sociotechnical controversy in Portugal, paving the way for the emergence of a combative civic epistemology. Supported by semi-structured interviews with scientists, activists and local residents of Ferrel and the analysis of historical material, this article presents the failed Portuguese nuclear endeavor as an emblematic case study to explore the co-production of science and society, in particular the role of revolutionary processes in the unfolding of sociotechnical controversies. 相似文献
10.
Are universities able to operate as strategic actors? An organisational sociology based approach supported by a comparative field research project identifies three types of social, cultural and cognitive processes that play a decisive role in building and implementing local capabilities required to mobilise a strategic capacity. The paper identifies how much these processes are present in the four ideal-types of universities defined by crossing their reputation and their metrics-based performance. Such a meso deterministic perspective suggests that universities may position themselves as proactive actors or principals, and not just as agents of national reforms and political demands. Nevertheless, their ability to do it varies according to their type. The paper also explores the implications of such findings for institutional leadership and steering policymakers. 相似文献
11.
David H. Guston 《Minerva》2012,50(3):363-379
Imagine putting together a jigsaw puzzle that works like the board game in the movie “Jumanji”: When you finish, whatever the puzzle portrays becomes real. The children playing “Jumanji” learn to prepare for the reality that emerges from the next throw of the dice. But how would this work for the puzzle of scientific research? How do you prepare for unlocking the secrets of the atom, or assembling from the bottom-up nanotechnologies with unforeseen properties – especially when completion of such puzzles lies decades after the first scattered pieces are tentatively assembled? In the inaugural issue of this journal, Michael Polanyi argued that because the progress of science is unpredictable, society must only move forward with solving the puzzle until the picture completes itself. Decades earlier, Frederick Soddy argued that once the potential for danger reveals itself, one must reorient the whole of one’s work to avoid it. While both scientists stake out extreme positions, Soddy’s approach – together with the action taken by the like-minded Leo Szilard – provides a foundation for the anticipatory governance of emerging technologies. This paper narrates the intertwining stories of Polanyi, Soddy and Szilard, revealing how anticipation influenced governance in the case of atomic weapons and how Polanyi’s claim in “The Republic of Science” of an unpredictable and hence ungovernable science is faulty on multiple levels. 相似文献
12.
Joshua Trey Barnett 《Culture, Theory & Critique》2018,59(1):20-39
This essay traces several productive points of overlap and departure between the recent philosophical work of Judith Butler and ecological thinking. While ecological philosophers and theorists have often dismissed Butler's treatment of politics and ethics as narrowly anthropocentric, this essay charges that there are considerable conceptual resources within Butler's oeuvre that are not only in accord with much recent ecological theorising but which also stand to enrich our approaches to ecological thinking and politics. Focusing specifically on three conceptual clusters – exposure and precarity; infrastructure and coexistence; and assemblies and assemblages – this essay demonstrates how Butler's work can be leveraged to augment the ways we approach both ecosystems and our more-than-human cohabitants as elements of and actors within the dynamic play of forces that make coexistence more or less possible. 相似文献
13.
In this article, we examine how models working on Chaturbate, one of the world’s most popular adult webcam platforms, negotiate and make sense of the dynamic ways in which this platform configures their competitive environment. By combining different perspectives from the field of economic sociology, we demonstrate how competition on Chaturbate is shaped by various market devices whose strategic negotiation informs – and is informed by – the moral economy articulated on web forums where models gather to discuss their work experiences and market strategies. We first introduce Chaturbate and the ways in which it organizes market competition, surveying the environment models have to negotiate. We then zoom in on two controversial strategies for beating the competition, each of which upset the moral economy of Chaturbate’s model community. Subsequently, we turn to what models term ‘the hustle,’ which encompasses a number of competitive strategies and criteria judged to be fair and thus legitimate. The final part of our analysis considers the limitations of the hustle, as well as the meritocratic and entrepreneurial discourse that surround it, in light of what we identify as Chaturbate’s ‘manufactured uncertainty.’ 相似文献
14.
Denis‐Constant Martin 《Culture, Theory & Critique》2013,54(3):257-273
Abstract In 2006, a young female rapper named Diam's released an album that became the best‐selling CD in France: her CD and its reception is treated as a social phenomenon and examined against the backdrop of political arguments which developed in France in 2006–2007. Musical analysis shows that the sonic backgrounds of Diam's rap illustrated the importance of combinations and hard work in the symbolical production of a new order. Her texts manifested new combinations of social values which brought into the public debate changes in value systems that were just becoming developed enough to be taken up by political organisations and leaders. This is why the main themes in Diam's CD converged with topics engaged by the two main candidates in the French 2007 presidential election. This paper, combining the resources of musicology, literary analysis and political sociology analyses how Diam's put in aesthetic and emotional forms combinations of values that had been brewing underground for the past 30 years. It invites a reconsideration of the interpretation of rap as an expression of rebellion, or even as an element of counter‐culture, and apprehends it as a ‘social revealer’ that brings new values and representations into public debate and stimulates discussion around them. Diam's album was an ‘unidentified political object’ that shed original light on the way politics and politician are perceived by ordinary citizens, or specific groups among them, such as the youth. 相似文献
15.
Stephen J. Collier 《Journal of Cultural Economy》2014,7(3):273-290
A substantial recent literature has examined insurance as a mechanism for economizing uncertain but potentially catastrophic events. Less attention has been paid to how insurantial techniques for economizing catastrophe have been deployed as political technologies. Focusing on discussions of US flood policy in the 1960s, the present article examines how insurance was used to forge new articulations and accommodations between political government and processes of rationalization. On the one hand, insurance provided a technical solution to problems that had long confronted US policy-makers: How to reduce losses from floods? How to fully compensate individuals who suffered losses? On the other hand, insurance was a device for reshaping the aims and objects of government, and for reframing questions that are more frequently situated at the level of political philosophy: What are the respective responsibilities of individual citizens and government in providing security? What tradeoffs must be made between the provision of security and economic rationality? What values are relevant in orienting public policy? In examining these issues, the article raises questions about standard narratives about the changing relations among risk, responsibility, and security in recent decades, particularly as they relate to neoliberalism. 相似文献
16.
Anne M. Cronin 《Journal of Cultural Economy》2016,9(4):396-409
Drawing on empirical data, this article identifies the emergence of the ‘PR University’ as an assemblage. Using a case study of university press officers’ work, I analyse how this form of media relations PR stages competition between UK universities through the media. A key form of this competition centres on the accumulation and circulation of what I term ‘reputational capital’. I focus on one core element of reputational capital – media stories about HE research and the circulation of research metrics. I argue that the assemblage of the public relations (PR) University pulls the HE sector into dialogue with PR principles and practices in the context of recent shifts towards market rationalities. But this relationship is not a simple cause and effect model in which increasing HE ‘marketisation’ creates a boom in universities’ PR practices, or intensifying investment in PR by universities merely amplifies or legitimises existing market tendencies in the sector. I argue that the PR University as assemblage starts generating its own logics around which actors in the field must orient themselves. More broadly, the PR University operates not only to promote an individual university’s market position, but also acts upon public debates about the social role, legitimacy and financing of UK Higher Education. 相似文献
17.
Matthew Carlin 《Culture, Theory & Critique》2013,54(3):239-256
Abstract Although much work dedicated to clarifying the link between learning and change has made a sincere effort to show how change can be a part of the learning process of every individual's life, the progressive functionalist approach to understanding this link in developmental psychology has created a blind spot when it comes to a consideration of the possibilities of sudden change. Developmental approaches to understanding change are also evident in macro‐level politics, and they have increasingly become part of other spheres of social life such as education where the individualized inculcation of skills has come to define the progressive mantra of learning and telos of schooling. Instead of remaining within the confines of liberal progressivism or functionalism that advance a notion of transformation in gradual, piecemeal, and developmental terms, change needs to be re‐conceptualised to account for the ways that learning can be a momentous, sudden, and sometimes violent event. To this end this article discusses temporal, sensory, and perceptual change through use of the concept of ‘Augenblick’ – a German term connoting a fleeting moment of time normally associated with a form of sight. Focusing on the theories of education inherent in the work of Georg Lukács and Walter Benjamin this article demonstrates how micro‐ and macro‐ forms of expressions of the Augenblick occurring at not only the individual, but also the social level in the context of revolutionary politics force us to rethink the ways that the dominance of liberal conceptions of learning prefigure the horizon of the possibility of change. 相似文献
18.
Seyed Mohammad Ali Taghavi 《Culture, Theory & Critique》2013,54(2):123-138
Although Richard Rorty's controversial thought has been the subject of many works, there has not been much discussion about his approach to cultural difference. The purpose of this article is to examine how Rorty sees cultural differences philosophically and how he deals with them politically. For him, rationality, morality and even the scope of moral responsibility towards others are defined in terms of solidarity with a particular community and ‘ethnocentrism’, rather than in terms of a universal and metaphysically derived set of criteria. It can be argued that since language, language games and values are mainly components of culture, the latter is one of the most significant communities with which Rorty is concerned, though he is not explicit about it. Nevertheless, Rorty does not think that the moral and philosophical significance of communities, particularly cultural communities, should be reflected in politics. The main argument of the article is that there is an unresolved tension in Rorty's thought between philosophical, moral and emotional attribution of significance to communities and arguably cultural communities, and a disregard for them in the political sphere. This paves the way for outlining an approach to cultural difference that is more just and even more in harmony with Rorty's own philosophy. 相似文献
19.
David Kaldewey 《Minerva》2018,56(2):161-182
This article analyzes the concept of “grand challenges” as part of a shift in how scientists and policymakers frame and communicate their respective agendas. The history of the grand challenges discourse helps to understand how identity work in science and science policy has been transformed in recent decades. Furthermore, the question is raised whether this discourse is only an indicator, or also a factor in this transformation. Building on conceptual history and historical semantics, the two parts of the article reconstruct two discursive shifts. First, the observation that in scientific communication references to “problems” are increasingly substituted by references to “challenges” indicates a broader cultural trend of how attitudes towards what is problematic have shifted in the last decades. Second, as the grand challenges discourse is rooted in the sphere of sports and competition, it introduces a specific new set of societal values and practices into the spheres of science and technology. The article concludes that this process can be characterized as the sportification of science, which contributes to self-mobilization and, ultimately, to self-optimization of the participating scientists, engineers, and policymakers. 相似文献
20.
《Journal of Cultural Economy》2013,6(3):279-296
In 1999, Carruthers and Stinchcombe provided the classic discussion of ‘the social structure of liquidity’: the institutional arrangements that support markets in which ‘exchange occurs easily and frequently’. Our argument in this paper is that the material aspects of these arrangements – and particularly the materiality of prices – need far closer attention than they normally receive. We develop this argument by highlighting two features of new assemblages that have been created in financial markets since 1999. First, these assemblages give sharp economic significance to spatial location and to physical phenomena such as the speed of light (the physics of these assemblages is Einsteinian, not Newtonian, so to speak). Second, they have provoked fierce controversy focusing on ultra-fast ‘high-frequency trading’, controversy in which issues of materiality are interwoven intimately with questions of legitimacy, particularly of fairness. 相似文献