[ecrea] CFP Culture & Organization: Commodities & Markets

>CFP Culture & Organization: Commodities & Markets
>Edited by Stevphen Shukaitis (Autonomedia / University of Essex) &
>Ming Lim (University of Leicester)
>
>What would commodities say if they could speak? Marxs wistful
>question can seem playful in some registers. Paul Jennings, for
>instance, proposed in his Report of Existentialism (1963) that
>everyday objects are constantly at war with their users: things are
>against us, he gleefully pronounces. And yet, objects voice
>themselves not only through our playful ­ or rueful ­ gaze.  If Marx
>had listened long enough, these talking commodities would have
>announced the traumas of their exploitative and violent birthing to
>him. Eventually, one imagines, they would have described the nature of
>the various forms of labour necessary for their production in the
>capitalist mode. As Fred Moten (2003) points out, history is marked by
>the revolt of the screaming commodity: the body of the slave fighting
>against its imposed status of thing-liness.
>
>The rise of consumer culture, the proliferation and intensification of
>the commodity, can be understood as the expansion of the violence of
>accumulation all across the social field. The ferocious forces which
>separate the producer from the product of the labour process have not
>waned; on the contrary, they have become monstrously multiplied and
>rendered all the more invisible by their ubiquity in the society of
>the spectacle (Debord 1983). The critique and denunciation of these
>forces, have, in fact, become yet another commodity in the spectacle;
>something we witness today in the backlash against banks, bankers and
>speculators and all the glorified preening of capitalist consumption
>they stand for. Is this trend, then, the new spirit of capitalism?
>
>And yet, an alternative exists to the vicious dynamics described
>above.  One thinks, for instance, of the practices of Russian
>constructivists during the 1920s. The Constructivists, employing their
>artistic practices and knowledges to reconfigure industrial design and
>production, argued that rather than denouncing the seductive lure of
>the capitalist commodity it would be possible to utilize these
>energies to reshape the socialist world. This would move the objects
>produced for use and consumption from being capitalist commodity to be
>active participants in the building of this world: it would make them
>into comrades (Kiaer 2005).  Yet, how attractive is this vision to the
>postmodern consumer? Is it more or less dangerous than its alternative?
>
>Today, therefore, we need to reconsider the state of things, or, put
>another way, the state of things.  Both bloody commodities and
>comradely objects exist, as a double edge, all around us:  the
>stubborn existence of sweatshop production and labour exploitation
>exist side-by-side with the proliferation of helpful technologies
>and all sorts of interactive gadgets and participatory media networks.
>Fair trade products have moved from the status of marginal subcultural
>practices to multinational corporate cash schemes. Are we seeing the
>inauguration of a new era of ethical production through the commodity
>form (Arvidsson 2006) or the latest and most comprehensive example of
>alienation, one that is now self-managed through the fetish of ethical
>consumption?  What would objects now say to us?
>
>This issue aims to find out. Possible areas for inquiry could include
>but are not limited to:
>
>" Commodity fetishism, surfaces and glosses
>" Revolting objects and rebellious products
>" The current ethical fetishes in production and consumption
>" Autoreduction and reappropriation of commodities
>" The labour of making labour disappear from commodities
>" Spectacular society and its other
>" The commons in and through the market and markets
>" The madness of crowds and the taming influence of objects
>
>
>References
>Arvidsson, Adam (2006) Brands: Meaning and Value in Media Culture.
>London: Routledge.
>Debord, Guy (1983) Society of the Spectacle. Detroit, MI: Red & Black.
>Jennings, Paul (1963) Report of Resistentialism, Town & Country.
>Available at www.resistentialists.com
>Kiaer, Christina (2005) Imagine No Possessions: The Socialist Objects
>of Russian Constructivism. Cambridge: MIT University Press.
>Moten, Fred (2003) In The Break: The Aesthetics of the Black Radical
>Tradition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
>
>We welcome original, high-quality articles between 6,000 to 7,000
>words (including references) which are not currently under
>consideration by other journals and also shorter review articles,
>commentaries and book reviews.  Potential contributors are welcome to
>contact the Editors informally, and especially in the case of shorter
>pieces they may want to submit: 
>(stevphen /at/ autonomedia.org) or (m.lim /at/ leicester.ac.uk)
>
>SUBMISSION PROCESS
>Full submission instructions are available on the Culture and
>Organization publishers homepage 
>http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/14759551.asp 
>. Please read these in full before submitting your manuscript.
>
>Important Dates
>" Paper submission deadline: 3rd June, 2011
>" Camera ready papers:  30th April, 2012
>
>Publication scheduled for September 2012.

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Nico Carpentier (Phd)
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Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Free University of Brussels
Centre for Studies on Media and Culture (CeMeSO)
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E-mail: (Nico.Carpentier /at/ vub.ac.be)
Web: http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~ncarpent/
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