Prime beef cuts : culinary images for thinking 'men'

The paper contributes to scholarship theorising the sociality of the brand in terms of subject positions it makes possible through drawing upon the generative context of circulating discourses, in this case of masculinity, cuisine and celebrity. Specifically, it discusses masculinity as a socially constructed gender practice (Bristor and Fischer, 1993), examining materialisations of such practice in the form of visualisations of social relations as resources for 'thinking gender' or 'doing gender'. The transformative potential of the visualisations is illuminated by exploring the narrative content choreographed within a series of photographic images positioning the market appeal of a celebrity chef through the medium of a contemporary lifestyle cookery book. We consider how images of men 'doing masculinity'are not only channelled into reproducing existing gender hierarchy and compulsory heterosexuality in the service of commercial ends, but also into disrupting such enduring stereotyping through subtle reframing. We acknowledge that masculinity is already inscribed within conventionalised representations of culinary culture. In this case we consider how traces of masculinity are exploited and reinscribed through contemporary images that generate resources for rethinking masculine roles and identities, especially when viewed through the lens of stereotypically feminised pursuits such as shopping, food preparation, cooking, and the communal intimacy of food sharing. We identify unsettling tensions within the compositions, arguing that they relate to discursive spaces between the gendered positions written into the images and the popular imagination they feed off. Set against landscapes of culinary culture, we argue that the images invoke a brand of naively roughish "laddishness" or "blokishness", rendering it in domesticated form not only as benign and containable, but fashionable, pliable and, importantly, desirable. We conclude that although the images draw on stereotypical premeditated notions of a feral, boisterous and untamed heterosexual masculinity, they also set in motion gender-blending narratives

The global politics of a ‘poncy pillowcase’: Migration and borders in Coronation Street

This article examines the ways in which popular culture stages and supplies resources for agency in everyday life, with particular attention to migration and borders. Drawing upon cultural studies, and specific insights originating from the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, we explore how intersectional identities such as race, ethnicity, class, and gender are experienced in relation to the globalisation of culture and identity in a 2007 Coronation Street storyline. The soap opera genre offers particular insights into how agency emerges in everyday life as migrants and locals navigate the forces of globalisation. We argue that a focus on popular culture can mitigate the problem of isolating migrant experiences from local experiences in migrant-receiving areas

'Who do "they" cheer for?' Cricket, diaspora, hybridity and divided loyalties amongst British Asians

This article explores the relationship between British Asians' sense of nationhood, citizenship, ethnicity and some of their manifestations in relation to sports fandom: specifically in terms of how cricket is used as a means of articulating diasporic British Asian identities. Norman Tebbit's 'cricket test' is at the forefront of this article to tease out the complexities of being British Asian in terms of supporting the English national cricket team. The first part of the article locates Tebbit's 'cricket test' within the wider discourse of multiculturalism. The analysis then moves to focus on the discourse of sports fandom and the concept of 'home team advantage' arguing that sports venues represent significant sites for nationalist and cultural expression due to their connection with national history. The article highlights how supporting 'Anyone but England', thereby rejecting ethnically exclusive notions of 'Englishness' and 'Britishness', continues to be a definer of British Asians' cultural identities. The final section situates these trends within the discourse of hybridity and argues that sporting allegiances are often separate from considerations of national identity and citizenship. Rather than placing British Asians in an either/or situation, viewing British 'Asianness' in hybrid terms enables them to celebrate their traditions and histories, whilst also being proud of their British citizenship. © The Author(s) 2011

Negotiating the horizon - living Christianity in Melanesia

[W]here is the horizon that separates the foreign and the indigenous, and who can successfully claim to make foreign powers indigenous or to ‘make the global local’? The boundaries of the foreign and the indigenous are fluid and contested—especially between genders and generations. Moreover, such contests are configured in part by the differences between localities (Jolly 2005, p. 138).Alison Dundo

Close encounters: ritualizing proximity in the Age of Celebrity. An ethnographic analysis of meet-and-greets with Dutch singer Marco Borsato

Abstract For many celebrities, organizing meet-and-greets with fans and followers has become a permanent feature of their public appearances. As yet little is known about the role and importance of such ‘unmediated’ encounters within the everyday constitution of celebrity culture. Why would fans be interested in the possibility of direct, personal contact with people they already know from the media? To find an answer to this question, this article presents ethnographic research into meet-andgreets with the Dutch artist Marco Borsato. Results show that these meet-and-greets constitute a meaningful experience for those involved: they validate and enhance emotional involvement, serve as status symbols within the fan hierarchy and, in some cases, can fulfil a vital role in personal life narratives of healing

Introduction: reconsidering the region in India: mobilities, actors and development politics

In this introduction to a special issue on ‘Reconsidering the Region in India’, we aim to develop a synthetic and theoretically nuanced account of the multifarious ways in which the idea of region has been imbricated in diverse spatial, political, cultural and socio-economic configurations. We draw from various bodies of anthropological, geographic and historical literature to elaborate on three themes that we believe are central to understanding contemporary processes of region-making in India: trans-regional mobilities and connections; the actors who produce and perform regional imaginaries; and changing regional politics of development.IS

Consumption caught in the cash nexus.

During the last thirty years, ‘consumption’ has become a major topic in the study of contemporary culture within anthropology, psychology and sociology. For many authors it has become central to understanding the nature of material culture in the modern world but this paper argues that the concept is, in British writing at least, too concerned with its economic origins in the selling and buying of consumer goods or commodities. It is argued that to understand material culture as determined through the monetary exchange for things - the cash nexus - leads to an inadequate sociological understanding of the social relations with objects. The work of Jean Baudrillard is used both to critique the concept of consumption as it leads to a focus on advertising, choice, money and shopping and to point to a more sociologically adequate approach to material culture that explores objects in a system of models and series, ‘atmosphere’, functionality, biography, interaction and mediation

‘Unboxing’ videos: co-construction of the child as cyberflâneur

This paper draws on data from a study of a four-year-old child, Gareth, in his first year of formal schooling in England. The aim of the study was to identify the nature of Gareth's literacy practices across home and school spaces. The focus for this paper is an analysis of one aspect of Gareth's home digital literacy practices: his repeated viewings at home of ‘unboxing’ videos on YouTube. These include videos that feature the unpacking of commercial products. It is argued that the child viewer/reader is co-constructed in these practices as cyberflâneur and that this mode of cultural transmission is a growing feature of online practices for this age group in the twenty-first century. The paper addresses issues concerning young children's online practices and their relationship to material culture before analysing the growth of interest in peer-to-peer textual production and consumption in the digital age

Uncanny Objects and the Fear of the Familiar:Hiding from Akan Witches in New York City

This article examines the cosmology and secret practices of West African traditional priests in New York City in preventing the spread of witchcraft, an evil invisible spirit transmitted between female members of the Akan matrilineage. Explored is an uncanny dynamic as everyday habitus becomes increasingly strange in the world of a young Ghanaian woman in the Bronx, who has become petrified of insinuations of witchcraft from close family members. In trying to hide the young woman from infection by her fellow witches, Akan priests attempt to ‘capture’ her habits and everyday routines, calling upon the iconic magic of New York City in order to ‘misplace’ familiarity within the anonymity of Manhattan. In this process, the transmission of the witch’s spirit to the intended victim is disturbed as the victim’s life and things are moved. Nowhere to be found, the witch shifts her attention to other victims

Biotechnology and the Politics of Truth : From the Green Revolution to an Evergreen Revolution

This paper investigates why and how issues around the diffusion of GM technologies and products to developing countries have become so central to a debate which has shifted away from technical issues of cost-benefit optimisation in a context of uniform mass production and consumption in the North, to the moral case for GM crops to feed the hungry and aid ‘development’ in the South. Using comparison between agricultural biotechnology and the ‘Green Revolution’ as a cross cutting theme, the contributions of this paper are threefold. Firstly, by analysing biotechnology as a set of overlapping frames within a discursive formation, four frames are identified which summarise key challenges presented by biotechnology era. Secondly, the use of Foucault's concept of bio-power to synthesise key themes from the frame analysis illuminates the ‘revolutionary’ nature of the biotech revolution. Thirdly, the potential of actor-network theory to provide a tools for the empirical study of processes of (re)negotiation of nature/society relations in the context of agricultural biotechnology controversies is explored