Work Of Boltanski Research Articles

The trajectory of linked data in late capitalism

PurposeThe aim of this article is to analyze the trajectory of library linked data in light of the ideological machinations of late capitalism. This is accomplished in order to understand how and why its development currently occupies a place of contradiction and provide avenues for examining how this tension can be resolved.Design/methodology/approachOur approach relies on the work of Boltanski and Chiapello's “new spirit of capitalism” to understand the rise of the network and situate linked data within that history by examining various technologies, projects and agents involved in its development. We use this history to outline the growth of contradictory tensions within linked data necessitated by capitalistic growth.FindingsLibrary linked data has found itself in a contradictory position because of the nature of late capitalist expansion, but this development has been facilitated largely by hegemonic agents within libraries and related institutions. We suggest that a counter-hegemonic lens be applied to envisioning linked data's future and its infrastructures.Originality/valueTo our knowledge this article represents one of the first attempts to provide a critique of late capitalist designs on linked data with a particular emphasis on hegemonic control over library technology and infrastructures.

Recognising Children’s Citizenship in the Social Care System

AbstractSocial work understanding of children’s citizenship has received little analysis and traditional models tend to view children as passive recipients of care or welfare, rather than as active meaning makers. This is particularly so for looked after children. In contrast, we draw upon the work of Pierre Bourdieu to develop a model of understanding children’s citizenship that on the one hand accounts for the structural flow of governance from modern welfare states that shape children’s lives, while recognising the agency and capacity for action among children. This article applies the model to those in the care system. To capture the everyday agency of children, we build upon Bourdieu’s notion of habitus with ideas of lived citizenship, as defined by Delanty and Lister, and recognition theory classically outlined by Honneth. Furthermore, we contribute to the existing work on habitus to develop a model adapted from the pragmatism associated with the work of Boltanski. In so doing, analysing the critical and justificatory account making of children themselves, social workers are able to engage positively with all children by drawing on a variety of their social worlds.

What’s in an App? Investigating the Moral Struggles Behind a Sharing Economy Device

In recent years, the sharing economy (SE) has attracted considerable attention, both scholarly and popular, relating to its capacity to enforce or undermine extant economic conventions. However, the process through which technological developments can effectively have this outcome of altering extant conventions on what is morally acceptable or desirable is still unclear. In this paper, we draw on the work of Boltanski and Thevenot (On justification: economies of worth. Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2006) and the notion of agencement to investigate the moral and performative dimension of controversies related to the SE. The research stems from a qualitative case-based study of the controversy following Uber’s implementation in Montreal’s taxi market. We contribute to the literature on the SE through an empirical study of the moral debates entailed in the unfolding in situ of a SE device. We also add to the literature using the ‘Orders of Worth’ framework (2006) by showing how a compromise is solidified. We find that beyond discursive strategies, it is the concrete recomposition of laws, conventions, devices, persons, etc. that harmonised different definitions of the common good. Finally, we contribute to the literature on the relationship between technology, ethics, and social change by capturing the specific values that legitimise Uber, and by following their unfolding throughout a controversy.

Orders of worth and the moral conceptions of health in global politics

The article analyzes the contested concept of global health through the lens of orders of worth. Drawing on pragmatist political and social theory, especially the work of Boltanski and Thévenot, I conceptualize orders of worth as moral narratives that connect visions of universal humankind to ideas about moral worth and deficiency. They thereby differ from the self/other narrative of political identity that is emphasized in International Relations scholarship. Orders of worth do not pitch a particularistic identity against foreign identities, but tie collective identity to a higher common good. They provide tools for moral evaluation and the justification of hierarchy. I use this heuristic to reconstruct four main conceptions of health in global politics: The order of survival, the order of fairness, the order of production, and the order of spirit. Each of them articulates a distinct political identity, as ‘we species’, ‘we liberals’, ‘we bodies’ and ‘we souls’, and implies different notions of virtuous and selfish conduct in the global community. These orders are derived from scholarly writings and the policies of global health institutions. Finally, I discuss the nature of compromises between the four orders regarding contested issues such as health emergencies or digital medicine.

Book Review: Climate Change, Capitalism, and Corporations. Processes of Creative Self-Destruction by Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg

Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg Climate Change, Capitalism, and Corporations. Processes of Creative Self-Destruction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2015; 254 pp. 9781107435131, 21.99 [pounds sterling] (pbk). In December 2015 world leaders gathered to proclaim climate change was a threat that they were (finally) going to do something about. After two weeks of speeches and haggling, the deal was done, the world saved. Never mind that the text was silent on fossil fuels, and that in the following week the UK government expanded fracking, the US rescinded a forty year old ban on oil exports and Australia gave new permits for coal mines. Those are minor pesky details; corporate capitalism has the best interests of everyone--rich, poor, black, white, the unborn generations to come, other species--at heart. I jest, of course. Gallows humour is all one can muster after reading this excellent and alarming book, which clearly lays out the processes of creative self-destruction and the myths we choose to believe and propagate. The authors start as they mean to continue --on page one they state We are destroying ourselves. It is as simple as that. Economic growth and the exploitation of nature have long gone hand--in-hand, but they now constitute the most ill-fated of bedfellows. In line with the work of Naomi Klein (2014) (whom Wright interviewed on her recent Australian tour) they argue that 'the particular neoliberal variant of late capitalism that now dominates the global economy places humanity at a strategic disadvantage in responding to the threat of climate change' (p. 4), given its demand for ever-higher levels consumption. Wright and Nyberg are not however, misty-eyed hippies dreaming for a return to social democracy of the post-war period, but rather business professors with many years of research into the corporate world under their belts. Through nine chapters they set out their case, which involves 'revoking Schumpeter's concept of 'creative destruction' as a source of economic and social dynamism' and instead characterising 'the link between economic growth, corporate innovation, and environmental destruction as a process of 'creative self-destruction' in which economic expansion relies on the continued exploitation of natural resources' (p. 6). They give clear descriptions of climate change, corporate capitalism, the successful incorporation of mainstream environmental critique in the 80s and 90s via the win-win rhetoric of 'ecological modernisation' through the success of corporate political activity (coalition-building and doubt-mongering), to the present impasse. The book has many strengths. Its third chapter, on 'Climate change and the corporate construction of risk' would be a useful reading for undergraduates, as would the fifth chapter on 'justification, compromise and corruption, which uses the work of Boltanski and Thevenot (2006) on 'legitimate orders of worth' around to great effect. The same could be said of the eighth chapter, which skewers three myths--corporate environmentalism, corporate citizenship and corporate omnipotence. The empirical meat of the book, based on extensive interviews with 'sustainability managers' in large Australian corporations, is fascinating. The authors illustrate their main theoretical points, while also letting people speak for themselves. …

From the society of the spectacle to the society of the machinery: Mutations in popular culture 1960s–2000s

When Guy Debord wrote The Society of the Spectacle in 1967, he was criticizing a society that was saturated by mass media and the endless stream of representations they crank out. This article argues that the society of the spectacle as described by Debord has mutated into a new form, best described as the society of the machinery. In it, the focus on representations is complemented by an obsession with the machinery that produces said representations. The mechanism can be seen at work in phenomena as diverse as America’s Next Top Model, the by-now obligatory Director’s Commentary on DVD releases, or the success of Hollywood and television tourism. In the society of the machinery, the dominant ideological form is the debunking mode that combines a hermeneutics of suspicion with a conservative refusal of utopianism, making it a particularly effective ideological tool for pacifying society. The second part of the article traces how the change from spectacle to machinery has occurred. Drawing on the work of Boltanski and Chiapello, the article contends that the society of the machinery is a by-product of the Situationist critique of the spectacle. Contemporary capitalism has split the Debordian critique into the artist critique and the social critique, and has incorporated the former while neutralizing the latter.

Framework for understanding misleading information in daily shopping

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of disagreement between companies and consumers with respect to misleading information and to make suggestions as to how the conflict might be resolved.Design/methodology/approachBased on qualitative research methods, the authors discuss possible grounds for controversies with respect to product information and present a possible framework, inspired by the work of Boltanski and Thévenot, for examining these controversies.FindingsAn analysis of arguments shows that consumer representatives and companies, not surprisingly, agree on general moral principles as, for instance, the importance of not lying about the product; however they tend to disagree about where the boundaries between acceptable and misleading information should be drawn in practice. The findings point to the fact that the differences might partly be explained by Boltanski and Thévenots' “orders of worth” and that this classification would seem to provide a fruitful tool for identifying the character and basis of differences of opinions regarding whether or not product information is deemed to be misleading and hence form the basis for a new tool in the management toolbox for testing potentially misleading information.Research limitations/implicationsThe data behind the analysis are limited and retrieved in a Danish environment, for which reason more research should be carried out in order to broaden the perspectives of the research.Practical implicationsTo reduce controversies the paper proposes a reciprocal recognition of the particular order of worth from which an assessment is made.Originality/valueQualitative methods, in this case the combination of qualitative interviews combined with an analysis of arguments, shed light on the core problem concerning misleading information.

Organic food and the plural moralities of food provisioning

The aim of this paper is twofold. The first aim is to unfold the moral complexity of organic food consumption as part of household food provisioning. By acknowledging this complexity, and the difficulty of determining what is ‘good’ and ‘right’ in food provisioning, the idea is to allow for a better understanding of how organic food may, or may not, fit in with the various concerns of food provisioning. The second aim is to analyse how food provisioners handle this complexity so that food provisioning can proceed as an ordinary everyday activity.The paper analyses empirical material from a study of household food provisioning in Denmark. Theoretically, it draws on French pragmatic sociology as represented by the work of Boltanski and Thévenot on moral conventions and regimes of engagement. The analysis illustrates that food provisioning involves several competing sets of moral conventions and that the status of organic food in relation to these is often uncertain and contested. However, it also identifies among provisioners different strategies for handling this moral complexity in ordinary everyday life. The paper calls for some modesty in trying to change consumer behaviour in favour of organic products. Providing consumers with more information about organic food may not make it easier to determine what is ‘good’ and ‘right’ when buying food. It may only add to the complexity of food provisioning and thus to the need for compromise and pragmatism.

"In the Long Run We Are All Dead": Imaginary Time in Financial Market Narratives

"In the Long Run We Are All Dead"Imaginary Time in Financial Market Narratives Andreas Langenohl (bio) Introduction Contemporary narratives about the financial markets, from manuals to press conferences to the evening news, replay the idea of a distinct financial market temporality. This idea can be found in the explanation that "what matters" at the stock market is not the past but the future—that future developments of stocks are "priced in" the present stock market rates, or that "in the long run you can't beat the market" because it is efficiently tied to the development of the production-based economy. The famous title quotation, taken from John Maynard Keynes (Tract, 65), is an ironic commentary on the assumption that the market beats all in the long run. It takes issue with the stereotype of long-term rational and efficient markets: "Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again" (65). Beyond irony, however, it indicates the impact of time conceptions upon the financial markets in relation to or in contrast with societal reality. This early evidence of radical doubt over prevailing concepts of market temporality resembles a critique of informational capitalism avant la lettre. Luc Boltanski and Ève Chiapello have argued that capitalism in the twentieth century has appropriated various powerful arguments issued against it, most recently by the aesthetic critique of the 1960s. As a response to the then-widespread arguments that capitalized on the culturally alienating consequences of capitalist production and professional ethics, the symbolic structure of this ethics shifted towards a project-based view of one's own professional life that promoted autonomy, self-responsibility, and lifelong learning as [End Page 3] opposed to heteronomy, dependency, and hierarchical career channels. Current varieties of neoclassical theories, which manifest themselves in "neoliberal" political and economic programs but impact also on the education of financial professionals, share three basic assumptions: the efficient market hypothesis, which is guided by the assumption that prices generated by the free play of supply and demand reliably render the value of traded commodities; the fundamental welfare hypothesis, which states that markets are the most efficient—that is, least costly—way of organizing social security; finally, the rational expectations hypothesis, which claims that all market participants will eventually share one correct set of assumptions about economic developments (Best, 370). To sum up: "If the efficient market hypothesis tells us that markets are accurate and the fundamental welfare theorem that they are good, the rational expectations hypothesis states that they are the only game in town" (371). Just as the managerial complex in contemporary capitalism, reacting to criticisms issued against it, has incorporated the changed criteria of legitimacy and success in the economy, it is as if neoclassical theorists have incorporated Keynes's critique of long-term considerations into their program, in that they rigorously abstract agency and leave the subjects, as it were, dead. The paper at hand explores the institutional and imaginary dimension of time in professional narratives about the financial markets. Keynes noted that a long-term professional orientation on the stock market is an improbable strategy, not least because "it is the long-term investor, he who most promotes the public interest, who will in practice come in for most criticism. . . . For it is in the essence of his behaviour that he should be eccentric, unconventional and rash in the eyes of average opinion" (General Theory, 157). There seems to be a special relationship between professional orientations and the perceptions of time on the financial market. Moreover, as the work of Boltanski and Chiapello shows, one of the basic points about the cultural dimension of capitalism obviously has to do with some sort of professional ethics. Tracing back their approach to Max Weber's work on the role of Protestant asceticism for the emergence of capitalism, their point is that the "spirit" of capitalism and its ability to appropriate criticism and turn it into a resource of legitimacy resides in professional ethics. That is, it can be discerned in interpretive patterns and [End Page 4] frames of reference held by...

Understanding the new management ideology: a transdisciplinary contribution from critical discourse analysis and new sociology of capitalism

Our aim in this article is to explore how one might approach the language of new capitalism working in a transdisciplinary way, bringing together new sociology of capitalism (Chiapello) and critical discourse analysis (Fairclough). We focus upon `new management ideology', and in particular on a recent book by a highly influential management `guru' (Rosabeth Moss Kanter). The article begins with a discussion of new management ideology based particularly upon the work of Boltanski and Chiapello, followed by an outline of the version of critical discourse analysis we draw upon, and an analysis of a number of extracts from the book. In the conclusion we consider the implications of the analysis for transdisciplinary research.