Speculating on everyday life: the cultural economy of the quotidian
CFP: Panel Session at ACS Crossroads, (17-21 June 2010, Hong Kong).
Convenors: Fiona Allon and Guy Redden,
Department of Gender & Cultural Studies, The University of Sydney
?it is now possible to use just about anything
as a platform for more speculative financial
activity ? up to and including the kitchen sink ??
Andrew Leyshon and Nigel Thrift, The Capitalization of Almost Everything
Paper proposals are invited for a panel session
?Speculating on everyday life: the cultural
economy of the quotidian? at the 8th Association
for Cultural Studies Crossroads Conference. The
goal of the session is to bring together
cultural studies scholars who are interested in
the critical perspectives that cultural economy
provides for thinking about how everyday life is
increasingly framed as a space of economic
action and investment. A wide range of
cultural-economic forms ? home ownership and
mortgages, credit cards, car loans, pension
plans and superannuation ? are now firmly
embedded in global financial networks through
processes of securitization. However, ordinary
lifestyle practices are also often viewed in
terms of the future returns they will yield to
the individual, with everyday consumption tied
to the accumulation of capital (cultural,
financial, economic, social and so on) that can
then be leveraged to provide further dividends.
This not only makes everyday life and material
consumption more and more ?aspirational?, but
also positions the individual as an investor in
a life project that requires the constant
pursuit of opportunities and the negotiation of
risks in order to yield rewards. While this
logic of economic action and investment is
sometimes made explicit (for example, in
financial literacy literature), it is more often
than not presented in a range of popular culture
formats (lifestyle television; home renovations
and makeovers etc.) as ?just living?. It is a
cultural/political rationality that is of
interest here for the ways in which it disrupts
a range of binaries ? consumption/production;
everyday life/markets; culture/economy ? that
continue to stubbornly inform much cultural research and analysis.
If you would like to present a paper as part of
this session, please send a 100-150 word
abstract to Fiona Allon
((fiona.allon /at/ usyd.edu.au)) and Guy Redden
((guy.redden /at/ usyd.edu.au)) by 30 October 2009.
Dr Fiona Ruth Allon
Department of Gender and Cultural Studies
School of Philosophical and Historical Inquiry
The University of Sydney, NSW 2006
AUSTRALIA
Office: J6.09, Main Quadrangle (A14)
Tel: +61 2 9351 6815
Fax: +61 2 9351 3918
Mobile: 0409 901 039
Email: (fiona.allon /at/ usyd.edu.au)
