On the Possibility of Organ Markets and the Performativity of Economics

Callon's (1998) ‘performativity thesis’ encourages us to consider how the boundaries of the economy are negotiated. This paper explores one such discussion: the contributions of economics to the debates over the introduction of markets for transplant organs. The paper pays particular attention to the normative aspects of economic valuation. It examines the philosophical antecedents of economic contributions to the debate, notes the rhetorical and linguistic power of economic calculation and then focuses on three distinct sets of calculations concerning the value of a transplant kidney: a contingent valuation calculation, a risk-premia based calculation, and a cost-efficiency simulation. In each case, it shows that economic facts, once created, may travel freely through normative debates and claim moral force. The technical process of economic modelling is therefore seen to be a crucial aspect of the economisation of this area, and of economic performativity more generally.     

Subjective well-being in cultural advocacy: a politics of research between the market and the academy

This paper responds to a trend of contracting out subjective well-being econometrics to demonstrate social return on investment (SROI) for evidence-based policy-making. We discuss an evolving ecology of ‘external’ research taking place ‘between’ the academy and commercial consultancy. We then contextualise this as waves of research methodologies and consultancy for the cultural sector. The new model of ‘external between’ consultancy research for policy is not only placed between the University and the market, but also facilitates discourse between policy sectors, government, the media and the academy. Specifically, it enables seductive but selective arguments for advocacy that claim authority through academic affiliation, yet are not evaluated for robustness. To critically engage with an emergent form of what Stone calls ‘causal stories’, we replicate a publicly funded externally commissioned SROI model that argues for the value of cultural activities to well-being. We find that the author’s operationalisation of participation and well-being are crucial, yet their representation of the relationship problematic, and their estimates questionable. This case study ‘re-performs’ econometric modelling national-level survey data for the cultural sector to reveal practices that create norms of expertise for policy-making that are not rigorous. We conclude that fluid claims to authority allow experimental econometric models and measures to perform across the cultural economy as if ratified. This new model of advocacy research requires closer academic consideration given the changing research funding structures and recent attention to expertise and the contracting out of public services.     

LIVE Baccarat calculations: Macau machine gambling and the production of the post-socialist subject

ABSTRACT

Following Portugal’s return of Macau to the People’s Republic of China in 1999, and the subsequent liberalization of the city’s 150-year-old casino monopoly, Macau was transformed into the world’s most lucrative site of casino gaming. Today Macau attracts more than 30 million annual tourists, the majority of whom are from mainland China. This article analyzes an electronic casino game called LIVE Baccarat, which was created by a Hong Kong biopharmaceutical company, and designed to appeal to Chinese gamblers in Macau. Drawing on the work of Michel Callon and Michel Foucault, I explore the ways in which the LIVE Baccarat gaming machine ‘economizes’ the game of baccarat by introducing novel betting functions which require gamblers to engage in various forms of financial calculation, including calqulation, hedging, arbitrage, and portfolio management. LIVE Baccarat is a biopolitical apparatus of subjection of a post-socialist Chinese homo economicus, a form of ‘human capital’ which Foucault might call an ‘entrepreneur of the self.’ This subject not only plays a remunerative role in Macau’s gaming industry, but conforms to China’s macroeconomic goals to engender ‘quality’ citizens equipped to support a domestic consumer market which may supplant the unsustainable production-for-export regime that drove the country’s initial post-reform development.     

Non-marketizing agents in the study of markets: competing legacies of performativity and actor-network-theory in the marketization research program

One line of criticism leveled against studies of markets inspired by the economization research program [Çal??kan, K. &; Callon, M. (2009) ‘Economization, part 1: shifting attention from the economy towards processes of economization’, Economy and Society, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 369–398 and Çal??kan, K. &; Callon, M. (2010) ‘Economization, part 2: a research programme for the study of markets’, Economy and Society, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 1–32.] is that their analytical priorities reflect an economics-centric perspective: they prioritize the study of market exchange itself and of agents promoting market framing, while leaving non-economic agendas and the broader contexts of markets both understudied and undertheorized. This weakness tends to be attributed to contingent analytical priorities, which can be remedied by extending the program’s focus without changing its theoretical tenets. This article, in contrast, suggests that these analytical priorities stem from a theoretical tension within the program, which is caused by the complete, instead of a selective adoption of the theoretical tools of the performativity agenda in the marketization program. As a result, while the program promotes the inclusion of non-marketizing agents through the notion of co-performation, its call to focus on those phenomena that agents qualify as ‘economic’ and on the making of market exchange delimits the analysis of non-marketizing agents to their helping/hindering effects on market framing. The solution proposed is to reassess some of the performativity-inspired tools of the program in favor of a more ANT-inspired approach to markets.     

Embedded finance: the shadow banking system,sovereign power,and a new state–market hybridity

ABSTRACT

With the rise of the shadow banking system, a new form of state–market hybridity has emerged, challenging existing monetary approaches to financial stability. A stable financial system today has essentially come to depend on a stable shadow banking system. Central banks are in the process of adapting to this new development. To secure the logic of laissez-faire market liberalism, the sovereign must resort to unprecedented measures and radically intervene in the financial markets. This new form of state–market hybridity forces central banks to provide ample reserves, to act as a dealer of last resort, and to give shadow banking actors access to their balance sheets. Such policies, however, produce new contradictions and fragilities. Based on Foucault's concepts of sovereignty and security, this paper argues that in today's world, the rationality of the laissez-faire security dispositif has become flanked by the rationality of sovereignty to a much greater extent than previously. Without losing its dominant status, the security dispositif is currently adapting so as to operate in crisis mode based on a post-laissez-faire rationality. The repo crisis of 2019 has demonstrated that central banks are still in the process of searching for ways to handle this new constellation.     

Stigma,agency, and motherhood: Exploring the performativity of dual mother–female sex workers identities in Kathmandu,Nepal

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon the lived experiences of 35 female sex workers (FSW) in Kathmandu, Nepal, this article explores the performativity of sex work–mother dual identities. Performativity presents a way to rupture proscribed singular identities of being a sex worker and highlight agency through the act of expressing dual identities. Global South research has established a link between mothers’ vulnerability and the likelihood of sex work becoming the means of livelihood. Thematic analysis highlights performativity of the dual identities as well as highlighting agency of FSWs to navigate economic necessity, stigmatized societal conditions, gender inequalities, and motherhood through performativity of dual identities.     

Economies of Expertise: Consultants and the Assemblage of Culture

Consultants have emerged as significant actors in the assembling of culture after neoliberalism. This paper considers their role in the assemblage of the British subsidised cultural sector as part of the assembling of culture more generally. In particular, it is concerned with the status of consultants as private sector actors, which differentiates them from other forms of expertise that tend to be located in the state apparatus, in that they must earn money to resource their work and remain solvent. By placing their work of assemblage in relation to this imperative, we can understand the difference it makes. Based on a close study of a London cultural consultancy, it is argued that specific governmental and managerial trends send trajectories of value through the assemblage which the networked consultants attempt to control and capture. These economies have seen consultants contribute to the broad shift in the assemblage of culture from something that occupied a distinctive sphere requiring protection from the ravages of the market to a potential contributor to economic and social development.     

The logic of practice in the practice of logics: practicing journalism and its relationship with business in times of technological changes

This paper investigates the workings of institutional logics in practice, by focusing in particular on the interplay between material, practical and linguistic dimensions of practices. In other words, drawing on Bourdieu's sens pratique, the paper explores the logic of practice in the practice of logics through a six months full-time ethnographic study at Il Sole-24 Ore, the largest Italian financial newspaper, between 2007 and 2008. An original conceptual framework is developed to analyse how the logic of journalism is enacted vis-à-vis that of advertising in a setting in which an old technology for news production – print newspaper – coexists with a new one – website – and thus encounters between new and old technological possibilities make workings of institutional logics particularly visible. The findings point out different mechanisms of institutional work dealing with actions that, made possible by new technological possibilities, are potentially, but not necessarily classified as divergent from institutional logics.     

经典的确认与学科的自觉--中国古代文学理论批评研究的现代展开

本文关注于中国古代文学理论批评怎样进入二十世纪的现代学术视野 ,在具体联系二十世纪初文化学术形势及大学讲坛体派的基础上 ,确认古代文学理论批评之研究的现代展开方式 ,兼综向来有彼此对立之势的新旧文学文化体系来作辨析 ,亦兼综向来视为分异的“文选”“桐城”体派来作辨析 ,并通过比照姚永朴《文学研究法》与黄侃《文心雕龙札记》的理论思路 ,揭示出以美学哲学为基础的现代文学理念和以篇章语言学为基础的传统文学理念在现代学术发轫期的特殊关系。     

Moving beyond the anthropos and reclaiming the geo in intercultural communication: The transculturation of the martial art practice of Aikido

This ethnographic study examines the practice of Aikido, a martial art style originating from Japan, by a community of non-Japanese practitioners in the southwestern region of the United States. This paper recounts the second nature-making of the art's skillful responsiveness as a thing to be explained from the ground, rather than leaving its cultural dynamics and their appropriative relations unchallenged as a relatively homogenous process of globalization and increased contact. In the case of Shining Energy (a pseudonym), the “taking” of another's cultural elements and “making” it a fully habituated and naturalized way of moving and being (second nature) are predicated on geo-making, the production of ontologizing resources (first nature) that enable culturally sanctioned modes of somatic engagements with the world. The process of appropriating Aikido entails an inversion between the figure and ground that foregrounds the geo-making of the ground/field for activity itself.     

Between freedom and futility: on the political uses of corporate globalizing discourses

ABSTRACT

From frequent television advertisements to posters in jet bridges all over the globe, the public is continuously subjected to messages affirming the inception of a flat, borderless world. While these discourses suggest globalization is bringing humanity together into a globally connected, cosmopolitan world order, such corporate advertisements also seek to convey the desirability and inevitability of a borderless economy in which they may roam unfettered. To illustrate how these ideas are communicated, I investigate three emblematic cases: Emirates Airlines, HSBC, and Itaú. By interrogating their public discourses, this article elucidates how powerful actors seek to construct global (or regional–global) imaginaries for consumers by deploying esthetically pleasing (and, at times, seemingly ‘subversive’) advertisements. Their ultimate effect is to demonstrate the would-be futility of attempts to regulate the spread of global capitalism or their own profit-seeking behavior. Through showing how pop-culture artifacts attempt to ‘sell’ teleological global capitalism to audiences, this article contributes to the burgeoning literature on the cultural political economy of globalization. To conclude, I briefly explore how this analysis relates to important political debates concerning agency in globalization, the feasibility of state regulation of global capitalism, and the construction of alternative global imaginaries/orders.     

深根固本,实现民族伟大复兴 ——试论中国传统村落保护与发展

中国传统村落根植于中华民族农耕文明,其价值蕴藏丰富的文化内涵.中国传统村落是世界上规模最大的农耕文明聚落遗产群,是记载古代社会变迁、文化融合的恢弘史诗,是当今世界极其丰富的自然人文旅游资源.中国传统村落发展存在的诸多问题,提出保护中国传统村落需秉持创新发展的理念,以留住乡愁.     

虚拟更新:数字媒介艺术在历史文化空间改造中的应用研究

数字媒介艺术嵌入历史文化实体空间,成为历史文化空间的一部分,能够延伸人们对历史文化空间的场所体验.不同于真实的物质建造,数字媒介艺术可以在不改变已有物理空间的前提下,为参与者提供易于理解的文化信息和复合的感官体验.这一特定类型的数字介入不仅为历史文化空间的更新提供新的设计策略,而且进一步将原有的历史文化空间转变成为一种...     

The nature of markets: on the affinity between masculinity and (neo)liberalism

ABSTRACT

The relationship between masculinity, neoliberalism, and capitalist economy is difficult to analyse. This is apparent when we consider recent studies of neoliberal capitalism, which are almost entirely books about men, and yet this feature consistently escapes critical attention. In contrast, this article brings this relation into focus, and suggests that the critique of hegemonic masculinities is an important feature of the critique of neoliberalism. The article first reviews existing literature on the intersection of masculinity and capitalism, which is increasingly being drawn towards the analysis of neoliberalism. It then briefly takes up Michel Foucault’s study of neoliberalism, especially his contention that classical liberalism’s concern with the nature of markets maintains an ambiguous persistence within the neoliberal project, in order to consider what it may have to offer to an analysis of masculinity and neoliberalism. Finally, I turn to one of the key thinkers in the intellectual development of neoliberalism – Ludwig von Mises – and provide a critical rereading of his 1944 book Bureaucracy. I argue that, beneath its veneer of economic rationality, the text mobilizes masculinity as a technology that is crucial to managing both the affective and economic insecurities generated by neoliberal conceptions of freedom in market-based societies.     

The Impact of the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States: Institutional and Sectoral Effects on Private Funding

This paper examines the impact of the National Endowment for the Arts on private donations to the arts. The aim of the analysis is to assess whether public funding generates a crowding effect on private giving. We distinguish between institutional and sectoral crowding phenomena and discuss their possible implications.We used both a qualitative approach and an econometric model to estimate the effect of NEA introduction and appropriations on donations. Our results suggest that at the institutional level NEA grants do not generally induce donations to recipients while at the sectoral level appropriations and private giving are independent. The introduction of the agency appears to have caused a decrease in donations.     

Beyond Rock and Roll: The Economic Impact of the Grateful Dead on a Local Economy

For-profit popular music concerts, a seldom studied event, may create sizeable economic impacts in a local economy. Using information from a survey of more than 1,000 concert goers to a Grateful Dead performance in Las Vegas and RIMS II multipliers, we estimate income and employment impacts. We conclude that the potential large spill-overs effects of such an event should not be ignored. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The editorial playlist as container technology: on Spotify and the logistical role of digital music packages

ABSTRACT

This article explores the role of editorial playlists in Spotify’s streaming economy. In particular, it approaches Spotify’s playlists as container technologies – i.e. technical solutions that assemble, preserve, and transport music objects and thereby uphold logistical operations within the music industry. Such an approach seeks to complement previous research concerning playlists, which has often analyzed their emotional and affective dimensions but paid less attention to how playlists enhance calculative, mathematical, and logistical retail flows within the online music economy. On the one hand, the article considers how playlists – like containers in general – materialize principles of modularization and automation in ways that enhance control and remote oversight. On the other hand, it discusses how the playlist is far from a perfected means of measurement and control, and sometimes acts as an unruly transport device. Ultimately, the article shows how the playlist format occupies an uneasy position between order and disorder within the digital music economy which has not yet been fully accounted for in the context of music-oriented media studies.     

山地城市更新改造策略研究——以贵阳市老城区为例

我国城市发展已由增量时代转向存量时代,山地城市存量空间更新、激活是实现城市可持续发展的关键。在长期发展的过程中,山地城市遗留了大量密度高、环境差的老旧小区、棚户区,以及低效闲置用地,这些空间与人民日益增长的美好生活需求相背离,亟需更新改造。以贵阳市老城区(云岩区、南明区)为研究实例,探究山地城市更新改造策略。首先摸清贵阳市老城区城市更新底数,并总结老城区目前更新存在的困境,然后针对性地提出分区引导、容量控制、分类实施、政策保障的更新策略,最后提炼出几点适用于山地城市更新的策略。