thinking is the new black

I came across tweetminster a couple of days ago, an idea inspired by?tweet congress?and MP Tom Watson?and?Alberto Nardelli.

Follow and Tweet MPs and Parliamentary Candidates, and use the power of Twitter to track UK politics, make your voice heard and conversations more open. You can take a back seat… or you can tweet.

I must say I really like the concept, despite it being a little utopian. A couple of weeks ago I facilitated a 2 hour seminar with 1styear students on Habermas and the concept of the public sphere, and the media. It was very interesting to hear students views on where they feel social media sits with political engagement. The message from the students was “I don’t understand politics”. Whereas I think tweetminster is a hopeful and positive idea, I wonder who it’s audience is at the moment? I fear it may be engaging the already engaged and wonder how it will tackle the disconnect between those it should be targeting and technological adoption rates. It raises all sorts of interesting questions about digital divides, technology and social inclusion.

I also came across?politics and the city?a website that aims to make politics stylish, founded by C4 presenter June Sarpong.

The site places political issues along side more light entertainment news, fashion, lifestyle, and celebrity gossip in order to try and capture it’s audience, young women. The site looks lovely, swish and sleek – but I struggled to find spaces of actual engagement.

The web is social. Hmmm, well no, because the web is neither subject nor object.

Whilst doing some re-drafting last week I returned to a favourite source of inspiration Lury’s Brands: Logos of the global economy. There is a quote from Bruno Latour on p149 which has been rattling around in my head all week, and I haven’t been able to shake it from my thoughts. I saw him once in the queue for coffee at the British Sociological Association annual meeting and rather embarrassingly was completely star struck. I seem to remember being almost paralyzed on the spot and texted my then partner ” jst sn Bruno Latour. OMG” . There is an interesting irony to this as the ex had absolutely no idea nor wish to know who Latour is. That I’d been meters away from IMHO one of the greatest living philosophers and sociologist was lost. However, later that year at a post-grad conference,I relayed the story to a PhD student, and he clutched chest and shrieked “be still my beating heart – you did not stand next to Bruno Latour SHUT UP!” I was satisfied.

Bruno Latour

Peter Sellers

I just want to add quickly that Latour was wearing a rain mac at the BSA, and what with looking a tiny bit like Peter Sellers and being?fronch and all.. well there was noone aound to make Inspector Cluseo jokeys with, quelle domage.

So, back to the point, the quote

“For the thing we are looking at is not a human thing, nor is it an inhuman thing. It offers, rather a continuous passage, a commerce, an interchange, between what humans inscribe in it and what it prescribes to humans [...] What should it be called neither object nor subject. An instituted object, quasi-object, quasi-subject, a thing that possesses body and soul indissociably”

The quote postulates on the agency of objects. I love the idea of neither subject nor object in relation to the web. I’m sure there is loads of stuff already written on Actor Network theory?and the internet and it’s not a new idea. It’s not my area but I had a quick peek and found Sociology in the Age of the Internet by Allison Cavanagh, but I’m sure there are a wealth of journal articles to choose from if you’re that way inclined. What’s got me excited though is that there has been a lot of chit chat about the web being social, but I think it should be thought of in terms of ?neither object nor subject.

As Latour says it is perhaps quasi-object. Although one can talk of the social lives of things and the sociality of objects, as non-object non-subject the web can not be inherently social, rather social is what we inscribe in it. The social is the human version of the thing. D’ya getme?

For more on Latour here is a cool blog I found by another per her der with an interview from Latour on digital traces.

I’ve been reading Radical Consumption by Jo Littler, which was only published in Jan this year by O.U press.

From the time I began my own research in 2005 this is one of the most engaging titles I’ve read, perhaps since Health and Potters Rebel Sell. I’ve found it very useful in considering the responses to the consumer interviews I conducted and the practice of what I’m calling double distinction, drawing on Bourdieu’s seminal theory. I’m looking at how participants justify their consumption through individual lifestyle practices, and through passing judgement and distancing themselves from other peoples consumption. More of this one day, but lets wait for a successful viva, before I spill.

Not really to do with my research, but I found the discussion of ethical consumption, worthiness and moralizing particularly interesting and loved the case study ?of US clothing label American Apparrel in the book. I’ve been a tentative fan of American Apparel for some time, but being in my 30s I find some of the lines a little bit too nu rave /juvenile for my own taste. However my boyf who I shall refer to as The Italian here on in in this blog is 5 years older than me and he declared it his new favourite shop the other day. American Apparel use non-model models in their campaigns and the images are often sexual in a readers wives, 70 soft porn kind of way. This allows for an ironic consumptionvia the brand, and for them to move away from the stuffy connotations of worthiness and yogurt weaver fashion slow mo remit of most ethical labels. Really interesting to me as I’m often moaning to my fashion friends that most ethical fashion I’ve come across, offends my style sensibilities.

As I’m on a fashion tip today I wanted to share this beautiful print on my new Echo scarf. I was out scouring with my fashion friend The Forbes, last Saturday and we came across a load of gorgeous scarves in local boutique Sirene. Echo are a family company based in NY, and these prints are from their archives from the 1920s.

Accessories are brilliant for updating an outfit without spending very much money, so it’s no surprise given the current climate that scarves are going to be a big thing. Not everyone can afford an Hermes so a find like this ‘lovely’ from Echo makes my day.