Du Gay Research Articles

AMERICAN WOMEN WRITERS AND THE POWER OF REPRESENTATION

The paper focuses on the representation of women in several short stories by American women writers with a special emphasis on the notion of symbolic power or the power of representation. The theoretical framework is based on the works of cultural theorists such as Stuart Hall and Paul du Gay and their explanation and development of the notions of symbolic power and representation practices understood as the expressions of the power of words. Furthermore, Edward Said’s and Homi Bhabha’s considerations of the relationship between power and representation are juxtaposed with the feminist critics’ (Cixous, Irigaray, Gilbert and Gubar, Rivers, Gill) views on the importance of acquiring one’s own voice in the process of (self-)representation and (self-)empowerment via written narratives. The corpus consists of three short stories by important American women writers – Kate Chopin, Mary Wilkins Freeman and Susan Glaspell – written and published towards the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. The selected short stories are not only written by female authors but also feature main female characters and touch upon the issues of male/female power relations and the female voice and self representation, i.e. the power of words in the female narrative of the self. The analysis of the proposed corpus reveals common themes and narrative strategies used by female authors to address the issues of symbolic power and (self-)empowerment in line with some of the contemporary feminist debates and concerns.

The Decline of Negative Stereotype on Chinese Brand Smartphone

People’s preferences for particular brands of smartphones are inextricably linked to the variety of smartphones available in the market. As the emerging power of the world economy, China also has many smartphone brands which are highly distributed in the global market, including in Indonesia despite the negative stigma which attached to the brands. The study examines this phenomena from the scope of cultural studies using the theoretical basis of the circuit of culture (du Gay et al., 1997). The study aims to enrich the perspective on how the consumption of Chinese smartphone brands among Indonesian are regulated, produced, consumed, and represented, which further constructs the perception of how the brands’ images are perceived by the Indonesian customers. The study is conducted based on qualitative approach by observing the interaction enacted in two Facebook groups about smartphones. The analysis of the circuit of culture reveals the development of the Chinese products’ image in Indonesia. The study found that the negative image on the Chinese brands smartphones is declining among the customers. Despite the existing negative comments, the group members often recommend the Chinese brand smartphones when it comes to the functional need with affordable price. Thus, the negative perspective on Chinese brand smartphones which believed that the phones are low quality low price is promisingly shifted into worth price to performance The findings shows that Chinese smartphone brands are gaining more acceptance and positive perception among Indonesian consumers based on their affordable prices and improved quality.

“My Little Influencer”

“My Little Influencer”

From rag market to creative economy: interview with Angela McRobbie

ABSTRACT In this interview, Angela McRobbie reflects on her intellectual and professional trajectory from the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, amid her associations with Stuart Hall and the emerging cultural economy agenda at the Open University. The interview expands on, and incorporates elements from, her contribution to a 2020 workshop marking two decades since Paul du Gay and Michael Pryke convened a ‘Workshop on Cultural Economy’ at the OU in Milton Keynes. The interview forms part of a special issue, titled What Was Cultural Economy?

Public administration and politics meet turbulence: The search for robust governance responses

Public administration and politics meet turbulence: The search for robust governance responses

Cultural revolutions: interview with Paul du Gay and Michael Pryke

Cultural revolutions: interview with Paul du Gay and Michael Pryke

Broadening the Collective Turn in Marketing: From Consumer Collectives to Consumption Agencements

Broadening the Collective Turn in Marketing: From Consumer Collectives to Consumption Agencements

Influencers, Brands, and Pivots in the Time of COVID-19

Influencers, Brands, and Pivots in the Time of COVID-19

La literatura de masas como artefacto cultural en la era postfeminista

El artículo analiza la visión de la mujer en novelas de gran éxito en el panorama nacional e internacional de los últimos años. Partiendo del método analítico del circuito de la cultura (Paul du Gay et al., 1997), exploramos los distintos agentes del proceso editorial, así como las tendencias literarias con más filón en la actualidad; deteniéndonos en el modelo de identidad femenina que reflejan las protagonistas de obras como Millennium (Stieg Larsson), Cincuenta sombras de Grey (E. L. James) o Crepúsculo (Stephenie Meyer). Nuestro principal objetivo es revisar las principales alternativas que se están aportando al respecto. Los resultados evidencian ciertos avances, sobre todo en la novela de fantasía; sin embargo, la creación de heroínas continúa estando supeditada al amor romántico.

Profit, poverty and public care: austerity’s charity work

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore empirically the dynamics by which austerity, a “moment” of neoliberal policy reform enacted through strategies of market-driven governance (MDG), provides the conditions for the insertion of capitalist-market logics into the charity sector. Demonstrating altered funding structures permits a political and socioeconomic reconfiguration of poverty, it asks what this means for charity work.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws upon data from 12 months ethnographic fieldwork in a charity in England. It explores the permeation of competition and profit as logics of capitalist-markets.FindingsThe paper finds that capitalist-market rationales are enacted within the organization. Charity is subordinated to business and profit permeates the site, thus changing the way that poverty is acted upon. In this context, workers are engaged in “labors of negotiation” which ultimately impede a reconfiguration of poverty into profit via their everyday situated labor. This reveals the symptomatic activities of upholding an ethos of public care in the production of charity work and within a context of MDG.Originality/valueThis paper makes an empirical contribution to the debate on contemporary charity working under austerity. It makes an important conceptual contribution by adding to the emerging literature on MDG (Varga, 2016); by repositioning du Gay’s (2003) analysis of public reform into alternative empirical and analytical conditions; and by building upon Adams’ (2013) work around the replacement of an ethos of public care with one of private profit.

Games without Frontiers: A Framework for Analyzing Digital Game Cultures Comparatively

Currently in game studies there is a gap in frameworks for comparatively researching game cultures. This is a serious shortcoming as it ignores the transcultural and transnational aspects of games, play and their cultures. Based on Hepp’s (2009) transcultural framework, and Du Gay, Hall, Janes, Mackay and Negus’s (1997) circuit of culture, this article proposes a structure to comparatively analyze game cultures. This procedural method comprises several steps determining specific contexts of game culture and their categories for comparison. Each step is illustrated with a case example. Finally, we recommend placing game cultures on a transnational spectrum, which helps in suggesting that many digital games express both local and international characteristics.

Reading Bauman and Retrotopia

The work of Zygmunt Bauman, insofar as it addressed the organizational world, saw it initially as a total institution, one in which the organization, as a specific entity defined by those activities it envelops, was focused on the central task of liquidation (Bauman, 1989). du Gay (2002) critically interrogated the bureaucratic character of this total institution in an influential thesis that ‘praised’ bureaucracy as a normative ideal of modernity. It is not, however, this debate with the ghost of Max Weber that has been of most concern to contemporary management and organization studies. Rather, it a later image of organization as decomposing, fragmenting, opening, reforming and deforming. In a word, organization is becoming more ‘liquid’, such that boundaries, choices and control are shifting in the direction of increasing fluidity and plurality. Key themes that are identified are those of liquid society, composing liquid ethics, liquid dynamics, liquid selves and liquid spaces and aesthetics. There are, however, outer limits to liquid modernity as they are enacted in terms of myths that Bauman refers to as leading to Retrotopia: a sickly nostalgia for an imagined past as a source of inspiration, a mythical utopia, where things were better managed and organized. Thus, the outer limit of a liquid society becomes a retrospective and backward looking utopia: Retrotopia, a myth whose contours are outlined and whose implications for management and organization studies are expounded.

Book Review: Paul du Gay and Signe Vikkelsø For Formal Organization: The Past in the Present and Future of Organization Theory

Book Review: <i>Paul du Gay and Signe Vikkelsø For Formal Organization: The Past in the Present and Future of Organization Theory</i>

Intersecting David Bowie

We had three intentions in mind when employing the circuit of culture model (du Gay et al. 1997) to ‘intersect’ the cultural significance of David Bowie. First, we felt that by traversing the five ...

Architecture as Commodity, Architects as Cultural Intermediaries: A Case Study

This paper examines the ways in which architectural authority and authorship were successfully commodified by an Australian homebuilder, Pettit & Sevitt, in the 1960s when the Royal Australian Institute of Architect’s Code of Professional Conduct still prohibited the advertising of an architect’s services. Drawing on the theories of Pierre Bourdieu and Paul du Gay, it argues that the independent architects who worked with Pettit & Sevitt assumed the role of “cultural intermediaries” within the company’s culture of production, facilitating the process of identification between product and target market while managing to avoid the issue of commercial “advertising.”

A Ten-Year-Old’s Use of Creative Content to Construct an Alternative Future for Herself

A Ten-Year-Old’s Use of Creative Content to Construct an Alternative Future for Herself

NGOs as Norm Takers: Insider–Outsider Networks as Translators of Norms

Not-for-profit non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are often considered norm entrepreneurs, or norm carriers, that contribute to the spread of norms such as those prohibiting torture or violence against women—for example, in the context of transnational advocacy networks (TANs). However, their role as norm takers is rarely studied even though it deserves attention. Whether NGOs implement norms—either by carrying out related projects themselves or by monitoring norm compliance by other actors—or whether they promote norms and translate them for other actors, they must first internalize these norms themselves. In order to be considered internalized, norms must be “so widely accepted that they…achieve a ‘taken-for-granted’ quality that makes conformance with the norm almost automatic” (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 904). Norm internalization can be studied in terms of translation, assuming that new norms “have to fight their way into institutional thinking” whereby “[i]nitially reluctant actors are persuaded to incorporate the novel ideas into their mental world-views” (Elgstrom 2000, 458). Studying norm internalization within NGOs is a worthwhile and important endeavor. First, we cannot rely solely on existing studies of norm internalization within International Organizations (IOs) (Elgstrom 2000), because NGOs are a different type of organization. Their work is often based on moral grounds (Heins 2008, 1–14; Lang 2013, 12), and they value individual commitment and “personal moral enthusiasm” (du Gay, Salaman, and Rees 1996, 266). Therefore, changes affecting the constitutive principles of NGO action are often met with resistance within these organizations (Hopgood 2006). NGOs are not only “purposive actors with their own identities and interests” (Stroup 2012, 7), but also consist of different entities, located at different organizational levels, and have different interests and resources (Heyse 2013; Krause 2014; Suzuki 1998). Hence, support of and resistance to norms within NGOs can exist simultaneously, and the …

Discourse and identity in the Hong Kong comic magazine Teddy Boy

The discourse and cultural identity of Hong Kong media have long been of academic concern. Hong Kong media and the consumption of cultural products often reveal the process of local cultural identification formation and discourse practices. Based on the textual analysis of a local comic, Teddy Boy, this article attempts to explore and examine the discursive culture and nature of Hong Kong identity. Based on du Gay et al.’s concept of the circuit of culture, this article explores how the local discourse is formed and legitimized in the process of textual production and consumption by the representation of an idealized cultural hero. In the conclusion, we argue for a connection between local and global identity formations.

Plurality and continuity—Understanding self-identity of persons with intellectual disability

The objective of this article is to explore the complexity and continuity of self-identities of persons with intellectual disability. This is done by close reading of four life stories. The findings are that intellectually disabled people's self-identities are basically plural and fluid. A fruitful approach to understanding this plurality is given by “positioning theory” developed by Harré & Langenhove. We analyze the subject's sense of continuity in terms of our own concept of “inner dialogue”. Our point of departure is a review of literature with special focus on multiple identities. We distinguish between three strands of knowledge within this field: (1) sociological studies of other-defined, identities, which are hard to change; (2) psychological studies of dynamic, self-defined identities characterized by adaptation and continuity, and (3) discursive studies of fluid and plural self- and other-defined identities. The third strand has contributed significantly to the field of disability studies by transcending the classic dichotomy of normalcy or deviancy (of identity) of persons with intellectual disabilities. In our aim to probe deeper into the issues of plurality and continuity of self-defined identities, we turn to Stuart Hall's noteworthy text: ‘Who needs identity?’ (Hall & Du Gay, 1996). Hall proposes that a new direction for a theory of identity needs to build on input from discursive studies, but it should also embrace the question of how the subject maintains a sense of personal continuity.

Bureaucracy, neoliberalism and perversion

This paper examines the undermining of formal processes and their necessary supporting structures in the light of the psychoanalytic theories of Chasseguet-Smirgel, in particular her use of the concepts of the ego ideal and perversion. It is argued that, in a perverse process, formal structures and procedures may be undermined, bypassed or dismantled. The author suggests that this is common in the contemporary culture of organisational life and is underpinned by neoliberal ideology. This argument is considered with reference to the work of the sociologist Paul du Gay, which focuses upon bureaucracy and a reading of the ideas of Max Weber. The impact of perverse processes on public bureaux in the UK is explored.