By Lydia Martens
The mediated world has in recent weeks once again been preoccupied with controversies surrounding global warming. We read the prediction that the Himalayan glaciers will have disappeared by 2035, that 50% of the Netherlands will soon be sea, and that, surprise, surprise, the fossil fuel giant ExxonMobil is financially supporting sceptics of human induced climate change. This is environmental politics with a big “P”, one might say. Meanwhile, scholars in the social sciences, humanities and arts have been asking questions which are equally intriguing, but which do not gain this level of mediated interest.
These are questions which concentrate on the unrelenting progress of interconnected sets of routine practices in everyday life, which demand the use of energy consuming objects and resources in ever greater numbers and intensity. Think for instance about the relatively recent change to daily showering practices, which not only require a good boiler, gas, electricity and plenty of water, a bathroom suite, shower curtain and soft towels to match, not to speak of the collection of plastic bottles containing soaps, body washes, shampoos and the detergent to maintain that shiny sanitised look of the bathroom’s infrastructure itself. Have I forgotten anything?
Routines of cleanliness are part of a larger set of daily routines and systems of organisation that allow those of us living life in the accelerated affluent world to be dual earner families or fast-lane professionals and accommodate the various demands and ideals that such a life encompasses. Thus we fill our homes with computers and other leisure technologies, we keep two or more cars to allow mums, dads and kids to move about, and we accrue airmiles as the latest city-break deal sounds an excellent opportunity to create that all so necessary distance from our harried lives.
The intensification of energy and consumption rich practices in domestic life appears to be an inevitable accompaniment of societal development in our world. It is without doubt greatest in the world’s most affluent societies, resulting in the observation that we would need the capacity of three Earths to support the consumption levels of everyone living on the globe, if all were to consume at the rate ‘we’ do. This is environmental politics with a small “p”, one might say, because such practices are part of the everyday goings on of private domestic life, which, whilst perhaps questioned by those amongst us with an active environmental awareness, are nevertheless hard to change in ways which make a significant impact. Such is the power of routine and social organisation!
On 4 & 5 February, I attended the first international workshop of Objects of Energy Consumption; a research project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research, and jointly conducted by researchers at the Deutsches Museum and the Central Institute for the History of Technology at the Technical University in Munich, Germany. The Deutsches Museum was founded over 100 years ago, and is today well known for its specialism: the show-casing of technology and science. Walking to dinner in the evening, I am told by one of the Museum’s researchers that, given it is currently developing future orientated exhibition projects, the museum is not only a place where science and technology are exhibited from a historical perspective. Having said so, Objects of Energy Consumption is focused in the conjunctures between objects and history, using ‘the vast collections of the Deutsches Museum as sources’ to analyse ‘the historical mechanisation of the household from the perspective of consumption, gender and environmental history as well as museum studies’.
Intended to help the multi-disciplinary research team to fine-tune its theoretical and methodological approaches, the workshop brought together experts from different disciplinary traditions to talk about a range of topics. I was invited to provide a sociological input to the discussion, though any analysis that brings together gender, consumption and mundane domestic practice, I argued, necessarily straddles across disciplines to engage with feminist perspectives, history, technology and cultural studies. Domestic mechanisation without doubt constitutes an important facet of a gender-informed and environmental history of consumption, especially that pertaining to the 20th Century, but I suggested that this formed part of a broader enquiry about change and continuity in domestic life, in which the cultural valuation of domestic identities, domestic practices and the home come together. I pointed out that these complexities create challenges for the development of a coherent conceptual framework.
Perhaps the most interesting question for me (though clearly not for the material culture scholars attending the meeting, or, perhaps for those whose interests are more clearly and directly aligned with the environmental impacts of practices) was what the methodological and theoretical advantages are of investigations in which the object forms the central focus of enquiry. Clearly, objects may be seen as the connecting thread between different economic and cultural processes and conjunctures, including design, production, production standards, marketing, retailing, purchase, use, storage, disposal, recycling and display.
Criss-crossing with these are the conventions and configuration of domestic life and the passage of time. Speakers pointed out that objects have agency, for instance, in the sense that they have a physical presence, and, to coin a phrase used by Gudrun König from the TU Dortmunt, they may also have a veto right, and speak back. Even so, one of the big methodological challenges facing the project’s researchers will be that the mostly obsolete objects they have selected for special attention are no longer situated in the domestic contexts through which they gained their original purposes and meanings. Another way of saying this is that when objects become objects at an exhibition, their realities and meanings change, posing problems for those who desire to understand the contribution they made to the meaning of domestic life in their various historical contexts.
For further information about the project, have a look at its website @ http://www.energiekonsum.mwn.de/. Also have a look at the current BBC History of the World in 100 Objects interactive website, which is accompanied by a series of downloadable radio programs. See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/1jKTi_S6Tui36_OFk0gJ_g
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Friday, 12 February 2010
Sociology BITES: What is sociology for…?
Sociology BITES: What is sociology for…?
[NB programme is provisional and subject to change]
Keele University, School of Sociology and Criminology are delighted to offer this FREE post-16 conference between 10-3 on March 17th 2010.
The event is sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council and is part of the Festival of Social Science which runs between 12th-19th March. The Festival is a national series of events intended to engage the public in the exploration of the social sciences. Our post-16 conference will introduce students to real-world research conducted by Keele’s national and international experts. A mix of different curriculum-relevant sessions will be offered using a range of delivery styles and supporting resources. Sessions will also be supported by experienced Associate Teachers in Sociology.
We appreciate this is short notice for many of you but this is a new opportunity for Keele, which we hope to repeat next year (with more notice!), and external funding was only notified recently. We do hope you will be able to come. Please note however, places will be limited and allocated on a ‘first come first served’ basis. For registration details, please see below.
Programme:
10-11: Welcome and introduction – Sociology BITES: what is sociology FOR…?
Dr Rebecca Leach and Dr Yvonne Hill
Orientation, outline of the day, sign-up for afternoon workhops
11-12: ‘Meet the Sociologists: Question Time’
An interactive session in which a panel of experts will answer your questions on topical matters with a sociological spin, researching sociology in the real world, studying sociology and what they think sociology is FOR…
12-1: Lunch
Students will be escorted on campus by CRB-cleared mentors
Tutors will attend a free Networking lunch with members of the School of Sociology and Criminology
1-2: Sociology Nibbles…
Workshop options will include the following (programme subject to revision). Students will sign up for one of these in the morning sessions
• The Sheep are Shopping till we all Pop? Dr Rebecca Leach
Baaaa. Branding. It means you’re part of the flock, doesn’t it? This session is a hands-on exploration of the power of the brand. From its role in reflecting group identity and culture, to the power to destroy the planet, sociology NEEDS to understand consumer culture urgently…
• Negotiating the edge: voluntary risk-taking and the risk society Dr James Hardie-Bick
Risk has now become a pervasive feature of everyday life and people are
continuously attacked by feelings of anxiety and uncertainty about the risks
they are exposed to in their everyday lives. Evidence of increasing
uncertainty can be found by observing a number of debates in relation to
food, health, crime, children and the environment. According to the
sociologist Ulrich Beck, even terrorism should only be considered the latest
risk in the evolution of the global risk society. But to what extent are
people increasingly worried about risks? If we are living in a risk society,
why do some individuals actively seek out high-risk activities such as
skydiving, base jumping and rock climbing that could result in serious
injury and even death? The overall aim of the session is to introduce you to
recent sociological research on voluntary risk-taking and to consider some
of the main attractions of engaging in these high-risk activities.
• Imagining Perfect Worlds: Why we Need Utopias? Dr Mark Featherstone
Imagine there is no money? Imagine everybody has the same amount of property? Imagine there is no family, no marriage, and no idea of monogamy? Imagine that personal relationships are defined by sexual freedom? What would life be like? Would these ideas make a perfect world, a utopia? Or a nightmare society, a dystopia?
In this session we think about the major utopias in history and the central ideas that make them seem like perfect worlds. In the original utopia, Plato’s Republic, society is defined by economic and sexual equality. There was no private property and no family in Plato’s Republic, because in his view privacy was socially divisive. Unfortunately, the problem with the Republic was that there was no personal freedom, because Plato thought that the majority of people were incapable of thinking for themselves and the society had to be run by philosophers. In other utopias, such as the perfect world designed by the economist Milton Friedman, individual freedom is all that matters and social controls need to be kept to a minimum in order that people can flourish. Although we will focus on various different utopias and different ideas, what these two examples show is that one person’s utopia is another person’s dystopia or worst possible world and vice versa. What we will seek to do in this session is think about:
(a) the meaning of utopia and dystopia,
(b) why we need these ideas in society,
(c) the key utopias and central utopian ideas,
(d) what ideas and principles we would make central to our own utopian society.
• How many parents? Stepfamilies and family order Prof Graham Allan
Families are changing in all sorts of ways. One of the big changes has been the growth of different types of stepfamily. In this session we will explore some of the dynamics of stepfamilies and explore in particular the patterning of step-father / step-mother / step-child relationships.
• Crime, Deviance and the Media - the strange case of serial killers Dr Tony Kearon
This workshop will look at the mis-match between representations of serial killers in the media and real serial murder, and explore how the application of sociological imagination could help to explain this puzzle...
• Constructing the Mobile Phone Dr Dana Rosenfeld
Mobile phones: useful social networking tool? Electronic tag managed by your parents? Or evil brain-frying conspiracy? Social problems are socially constructed and in this workshop, you will do just that. A hands-on approach to understanding social constructionism and ‘everyday’ methods of understanding the social, you will use real-life examples to explore the world around you.
• Witchcraft and the Supernatural in the modern world: Dr Jane Parish
From vampires, zombies and werewolves, we appear fascinated with the
supernatural. And yet in the modern world, we are disdainful of what we regard as irrational primitive belief, elevating science and technology to a higher more sophisticated type of knowledge, and prioritising formal religions. So what does our obsession with films such as Twilight and Wolfman tell us? What light can these movies and others throw on contemporary society and the way in which we think about ourselves?
• The Death Penalty – sociological and criminological perspectives Dr Evi Girling
Details to follow
• What makes a racist? Dr Bill Dixon
Details to follow
2-3 Keynote lecture: Prof Richard Sparks (provisional), University of Edinburgh
What is the role of Social Science (sociology, criminology?) in public life?
Author of: Television and the Drama of Crime; Prisons and the Problem of Order; Crime and Social Change in Middle England
Details to follow
3pm Close
Guidance:
The conference is free but students will need to provide their own drinks/snacks/lunch. A number of outlets are available on campus to buy refreshments. Tutors are invited to a lunch hosted by the School of Sociology and Criminology.
Tutors are expected to remain with their students at all times, except when our CRB-cleared mentors escort them around campus at lunchtime.
Registration
Please email the following details to socbites@appsoc.keele.ac.uk
before 5th March 2010
We will then notify you to confirm if you have places by 10th March
Name of tutor:
Position in College/School (eg. Head of Social Sciences):
Email:
Phone:
College & full address:
Number of students requiring places:
Additional staff attending (names and emails please):
Will you require parking facilities? (please list number of cars/minibuses/coaches you will be bringing):
[NB programme is provisional and subject to change]
Keele University, School of Sociology and Criminology are delighted to offer this FREE post-16 conference between 10-3 on March 17th 2010.
The event is sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council and is part of the Festival of Social Science which runs between 12th-19th March. The Festival is a national series of events intended to engage the public in the exploration of the social sciences. Our post-16 conference will introduce students to real-world research conducted by Keele’s national and international experts. A mix of different curriculum-relevant sessions will be offered using a range of delivery styles and supporting resources. Sessions will also be supported by experienced Associate Teachers in Sociology.
We appreciate this is short notice for many of you but this is a new opportunity for Keele, which we hope to repeat next year (with more notice!), and external funding was only notified recently. We do hope you will be able to come. Please note however, places will be limited and allocated on a ‘first come first served’ basis. For registration details, please see below.
Programme:
10-11: Welcome and introduction – Sociology BITES: what is sociology FOR…?
Dr Rebecca Leach and Dr Yvonne Hill
Orientation, outline of the day, sign-up for afternoon workhops
11-12: ‘Meet the Sociologists: Question Time’
An interactive session in which a panel of experts will answer your questions on topical matters with a sociological spin, researching sociology in the real world, studying sociology and what they think sociology is FOR…
12-1: Lunch
Students will be escorted on campus by CRB-cleared mentors
Tutors will attend a free Networking lunch with members of the School of Sociology and Criminology
1-2: Sociology Nibbles…
Workshop options will include the following (programme subject to revision). Students will sign up for one of these in the morning sessions
• The Sheep are Shopping till we all Pop? Dr Rebecca Leach
Baaaa. Branding. It means you’re part of the flock, doesn’t it? This session is a hands-on exploration of the power of the brand. From its role in reflecting group identity and culture, to the power to destroy the planet, sociology NEEDS to understand consumer culture urgently…
• Negotiating the edge: voluntary risk-taking and the risk society Dr James Hardie-Bick
Risk has now become a pervasive feature of everyday life and people are
continuously attacked by feelings of anxiety and uncertainty about the risks
they are exposed to in their everyday lives. Evidence of increasing
uncertainty can be found by observing a number of debates in relation to
food, health, crime, children and the environment. According to the
sociologist Ulrich Beck, even terrorism should only be considered the latest
risk in the evolution of the global risk society. But to what extent are
people increasingly worried about risks? If we are living in a risk society,
why do some individuals actively seek out high-risk activities such as
skydiving, base jumping and rock climbing that could result in serious
injury and even death? The overall aim of the session is to introduce you to
recent sociological research on voluntary risk-taking and to consider some
of the main attractions of engaging in these high-risk activities.
• Imagining Perfect Worlds: Why we Need Utopias? Dr Mark Featherstone
Imagine there is no money? Imagine everybody has the same amount of property? Imagine there is no family, no marriage, and no idea of monogamy? Imagine that personal relationships are defined by sexual freedom? What would life be like? Would these ideas make a perfect world, a utopia? Or a nightmare society, a dystopia?
In this session we think about the major utopias in history and the central ideas that make them seem like perfect worlds. In the original utopia, Plato’s Republic, society is defined by economic and sexual equality. There was no private property and no family in Plato’s Republic, because in his view privacy was socially divisive. Unfortunately, the problem with the Republic was that there was no personal freedom, because Plato thought that the majority of people were incapable of thinking for themselves and the society had to be run by philosophers. In other utopias, such as the perfect world designed by the economist Milton Friedman, individual freedom is all that matters and social controls need to be kept to a minimum in order that people can flourish. Although we will focus on various different utopias and different ideas, what these two examples show is that one person’s utopia is another person’s dystopia or worst possible world and vice versa. What we will seek to do in this session is think about:
(a) the meaning of utopia and dystopia,
(b) why we need these ideas in society,
(c) the key utopias and central utopian ideas,
(d) what ideas and principles we would make central to our own utopian society.
• How many parents? Stepfamilies and family order Prof Graham Allan
Families are changing in all sorts of ways. One of the big changes has been the growth of different types of stepfamily. In this session we will explore some of the dynamics of stepfamilies and explore in particular the patterning of step-father / step-mother / step-child relationships.
• Crime, Deviance and the Media - the strange case of serial killers Dr Tony Kearon
This workshop will look at the mis-match between representations of serial killers in the media and real serial murder, and explore how the application of sociological imagination could help to explain this puzzle...
• Constructing the Mobile Phone Dr Dana Rosenfeld
Mobile phones: useful social networking tool? Electronic tag managed by your parents? Or evil brain-frying conspiracy? Social problems are socially constructed and in this workshop, you will do just that. A hands-on approach to understanding social constructionism and ‘everyday’ methods of understanding the social, you will use real-life examples to explore the world around you.
• Witchcraft and the Supernatural in the modern world: Dr Jane Parish
From vampires, zombies and werewolves, we appear fascinated with the
supernatural. And yet in the modern world, we are disdainful of what we regard as irrational primitive belief, elevating science and technology to a higher more sophisticated type of knowledge, and prioritising formal religions. So what does our obsession with films such as Twilight and Wolfman tell us? What light can these movies and others throw on contemporary society and the way in which we think about ourselves?
• The Death Penalty – sociological and criminological perspectives Dr Evi Girling
Details to follow
• What makes a racist? Dr Bill Dixon
Details to follow
2-3 Keynote lecture: Prof Richard Sparks (provisional), University of Edinburgh
What is the role of Social Science (sociology, criminology?) in public life?
Author of: Television and the Drama of Crime; Prisons and the Problem of Order; Crime and Social Change in Middle England
Details to follow
3pm Close
Guidance:
The conference is free but students will need to provide their own drinks/snacks/lunch. A number of outlets are available on campus to buy refreshments. Tutors are invited to a lunch hosted by the School of Sociology and Criminology.
Tutors are expected to remain with their students at all times, except when our CRB-cleared mentors escort them around campus at lunchtime.
Registration
Please email the following details to socbites@appsoc.keele.ac.uk
before 5th March 2010
We will then notify you to confirm if you have places by 10th March
Name of tutor:
Position in College/School (eg. Head of Social Sciences):
Email:
Phone:
College & full address:
Number of students requiring places:
Additional staff attending (names and emails please):
Will you require parking facilities? (please list number of cars/minibuses/coaches you will be bringing):
Tuesday, 2 February 2010
Re-thinking work and retirement
By Professor Chris Phillipson
Scrapping fixed retirement age (as proposed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Working Better report, Phase 2 launched last week) raises concerns about social justice as well as issues about the purpose of retirement. Higher pension ages are unfair for those from working-class groups whose lower life expectancy means that they draw a pension for a significantly shorter period as compared with those from managerial and professional occupations. Manual workers invariably start work earlier than non-manual groups, leaving those with the longest contribution records receiving fewer benefits at the end of their working life. Raising the retirement age simply compounds this injustice.
Given the demographic challenge, with one in four workers aged 50 plus by 2020, emphasising the value of ‘senior workers’ appears sensible. But we need to avoid a muddled discussion about age discrimination (which it is right to challenge), and retirement from work (which people have a right to enjoy). The real challenge is giving equal priority to security in work and retirement. Key to achieving this will be policies which support the new type of retirement emerging amongst people in their 50s and 60s. To give three examples:
Informal learning is flourishing, illustrated by the growth of the University of the Third Age (U3A). But this needs matching with support from formal providers such as universities and further education colleges. The 21st Century will be a period when those 50 plus embrace different types of educational programmes – to maintain their quality of life as well as to assist continued engagement in the workplace. We need to start encouraging mainstream institutions to respond to this development.
Civic engagement in the form of environmental activism, community volunteering (at home and abroad), and inter-generational mentoring, is the new face of growing old. But this needs recognition in the form of financial support, training and networks that provide encouragement to maintain an ‘active’ rather than ‘passive’ form of ageing.
Paid work remains central for many but there are limited opportunities for developing and improving skills acquired over the life course. Taking older workers seriously will require policies which support a ‘culture of lifelong learning’ (with paid educational leave), which spread work more evenly through life (via career breaks), and which assist those with major physical and mental health problems (through strengthening occupational health). Proposals for ‘flexible working’ are fine but there is an acute shortage of good quality jobs able to provide this opportunity.
We need to re-think the balance between work and retirement rather than just increase the pension age. Life after 60 appears to be a problem because of the apparent lack of substance to the roles that supersede or run alongside those associated with paid employment. Conducting a debate about the range of activities we need to support will be an essential starting point for resolving dilemmas in a crucial area for economic and social policy.
Scrapping fixed retirement age (as proposed by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Working Better report, Phase 2 launched last week) raises concerns about social justice as well as issues about the purpose of retirement. Higher pension ages are unfair for those from working-class groups whose lower life expectancy means that they draw a pension for a significantly shorter period as compared with those from managerial and professional occupations. Manual workers invariably start work earlier than non-manual groups, leaving those with the longest contribution records receiving fewer benefits at the end of their working life. Raising the retirement age simply compounds this injustice.
Given the demographic challenge, with one in four workers aged 50 plus by 2020, emphasising the value of ‘senior workers’ appears sensible. But we need to avoid a muddled discussion about age discrimination (which it is right to challenge), and retirement from work (which people have a right to enjoy). The real challenge is giving equal priority to security in work and retirement. Key to achieving this will be policies which support the new type of retirement emerging amongst people in their 50s and 60s. To give three examples:
Informal learning is flourishing, illustrated by the growth of the University of the Third Age (U3A). But this needs matching with support from formal providers such as universities and further education colleges. The 21st Century will be a period when those 50 plus embrace different types of educational programmes – to maintain their quality of life as well as to assist continued engagement in the workplace. We need to start encouraging mainstream institutions to respond to this development.
Civic engagement in the form of environmental activism, community volunteering (at home and abroad), and inter-generational mentoring, is the new face of growing old. But this needs recognition in the form of financial support, training and networks that provide encouragement to maintain an ‘active’ rather than ‘passive’ form of ageing.
Paid work remains central for many but there are limited opportunities for developing and improving skills acquired over the life course. Taking older workers seriously will require policies which support a ‘culture of lifelong learning’ (with paid educational leave), which spread work more evenly through life (via career breaks), and which assist those with major physical and mental health problems (through strengthening occupational health). Proposals for ‘flexible working’ are fine but there is an acute shortage of good quality jobs able to provide this opportunity.
We need to re-think the balance between work and retirement rather than just increase the pension age. Life after 60 appears to be a problem because of the apparent lack of substance to the roles that supersede or run alongside those associated with paid employment. Conducting a debate about the range of activities we need to support will be an essential starting point for resolving dilemmas in a crucial area for economic and social policy.
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
Holocaust Memorial Day today: memory as political myth
Professor Pnina Werbner has today published a paper, Displaced Enemies, Displaced Memories: Diaspora Memorial Politics of Partition and the Holocaust, arguing that the refusal of the Muslim Council of Britain to attend Holocaust Memorial Day highlights a key dimension of memory as political myth: namely, the sense that time is cyclical. Prior external and internal enemies (in their current manifestations) are apocalyptically destined to threaten the integrity of the nation once more. Hence, ideologies based on political myths draw on both the future hopes and the future fears of people. The paper highlights the similarities between Jewish and Pakistani fears, rooted in the Holocaust and Partition, of a repeated ‘cycle of death and suffering’. These loom large especially for those suffering racism. The more bound people are by their narrow group’s particular symbols and history, the more apocalyptic their vision of this future is likely to be.
You can read more of this paper in: Ethnos, vol. 74:4, Dec. 2009 (pp. 441–464)
You can read more of this paper in: Ethnos, vol. 74:4, Dec. 2009 (pp. 441–464)
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