Call for Expressions of Interest
MARKETS, MATERIALITY AND CONSUMER PRACTICES
An Interdisciplinary Research Workshop with
Professor Robert J. Foster (Professor of Visual
and Cultural Studies, Department of Anthropology, University of Rochester).
Organised by Professor Gay Hawkins and Dr Anna
Pertierra, Centre for Critical and Cultural
Studies, University of Queensland, May 26 and 27, 2011.
Background
Market formations and processes are attracting
growing interest in the social sciences. For so
long represented as autonomous and
self-regulating, markets are now being
recognized as complex hybrid arrangements
demanding close empirical investigation.
Innovative research into markets is currently
being conducted by anthropologists, economic
sociologists and those working in science and
technology studies. This work focuses on the
multiple ways in which markets can be organized;
the social, material and technical devices used
to construct them; the variety of interactions
between political and economic processes; and
the logics of what Callon (1998) calls ?calculative agency?.
While markets have only recently attracted the
attention they deserve, consumption, consumers
and commodities have a much longer and richer
history of analysis. Work on the social life of
commodities, on consumer practices, on cultures
of circulation and commodity chain analysis, has
documented the myriad ways in which products
have become central to everyday life and to the
generation of complex sociospatial connections
between spaces of production and consumption.
The interactions between the consumer and the
commodity loom large in much of this work
sometimes obscuring exactly how markets are
implicated in connecting them. Increasingly,
however, analyses of the role of branding,
advertising and marketing, distribution
networks, regulation, and the materiality of the
commodity are beginning to fill in this gap.
Showing how the organization of markets is
central to the constitution of consumers and
commodities, and to generating dynamic and
always contingent relations between them.
Professor Robert J. Foster?s most recent book,
Coca-Globalization: following soft drinks from
New York to New Guinea (Palgrave 2008) has been
a key text in this emerging area of
interest. An historically and ethnographically
rich account of how a market in soft drinks was
developed in Papua New Guinea, the study expands
upon Professor Foster?s research interests in
commodity chain analysis, globalization,
consumption, branding, nationalism and transnationalism.
Format
The aim of this workshop is to develop an
extended investigation of the interactions
between markets, consumption and the materiality
of commodities. Professor Foster will present a
paper in the first session outlining his current
research. Following that, participants will talk
to their draft, pre-circulated papers and
explore discussants? and other?s feedback.
Key issues we invite participants to address include:
· the social, technical and economic
processes that constitute markets;
· how consumers shape and contest markets;
· markets as hybrid arrangements, new market forms;
* the role of the materiality of products in
constituting distinct market arrangements;
· the values of commodities and the values of markets;
· transnational and national dimensions of commodity chains.
Application Process
We are interested in generating a lively
community of inquiry at this event. To this end
we invite expressions of interest from scholars
at all stages of their careers and working in
any relevant field. The workshop is open to
twelve participants. There will be some funding
support for early career researchers.
To express interest in this workshop, please
email a 300 word abstract of your proposed paper
along with a brief curriculum vitae to
<mailto:(admin.cccs /at/ uq.edu.au)>(admin.cccs /at/ uq.edu.au)
by February 14, 2011. NB Please put ?Foster
Workshop? in the subject line of your email.
Workshop participants will be expected to attend
the entire workshop, and papers presented will
be considered for subsequent publication.
If there are any issues you wish to clarify
before you submit an abstract please feel free to contact us.
Gay Hawkins and Anna Pertierra
<mailto:(g.hawkins /at/ uq.edu.au)>(g.hawkins /at/ uq.edu.au)
and <mailto:(a.pertierra /at/ uq.edu.au)>(a.pertierra /at/ uq.edu.au)
