{"title":"The Good, the Bad and the Disney: Employing princesses to examine Hungarian tweens’ understanding of gender","authors":"Anna Zsubori","doi":"10.1177/13675494231159332","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494231159332","url":null,"abstract":"By relying on diverse scholarly works within several fields – such as communication, cultural, feminist media, film and tweenhood studies – on the one hand, and conducting audience research with Hungarian informants on the other, this interdisciplinary study, as part of a bigger project, examines Hungarian tweenagers’ negotiation of gender. It does so by investigating the concept of ‘the’ princess, including but not limited to Disney Princesses, while offering unique contributions on both theoretical and methodological levels. Theoretically, it shines a light on the limitations of applying Western, post-feminist, liberal theories in a non-Western, post-socialist and ‘illiberal’ environment, and it discusses complexities of the Princess Phenomenon which have been overlooked in academia. From a methodological perspective, it presents innovative short-term ethnographic approaches, specifically in terms of conducting a gender-centred audience study with young people in an anti-gender milieu. To achieve these objectives, this work first introduces the historical, social and political contexts in contemporary Hungary. This is followed by a discussion of the theoretical and methodological approaches which it was necessary to consider before undertaking the fieldwork in Hungary. The article then analyses Hungarian children’s notions of gender by discussing their ideas about ‘the’ princess as a concept. Finally, as a summary, this study outlines its contributions to diverse academic disciplines.","PeriodicalId":47482,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44082668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Analyzing the Justice and Development Party’s changing discourse on the headscarf issue as the constitutive part of its drift toward authoritarian politics in Turkey","authors":"Betül Yarar","doi":"10.1177/13675494231153692","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494231153692","url":null,"abstract":"Despite its long history since the late Ottoman period in Turkey, this article focuses on the headscarf issue within a particular period; since 2002, when the Justice and Development Party has been in power. Women’s issues have always occupied a large space in the Justice and Development Party’s project(s), which articulate diverse narrative lines ranging from conservatism to liberalism. The article aims to unravel this diverse insight into the Justice and Development Party’s politics within the context of its recent political drift toward authoritarianism while particularly focusing on its headscarf discourses. It argues that the Justice and Development Party’s political drift toward authoritarianism resulted in the replacement of the earlier politics of consensus/‘non-defiance’, which refers to a conservatism that denies radicalism and avoids emphasizing controversial issues like the headscarf, with the politics of dissensus/defiance that reveal social tensions and political conflicts such as those between Islamic and secular sectors, through revitalizing the old debate on the headscarf issue. In this sense, the lifting of the headscarf bans in public institutions in 2008 can be read as a symptom, not of the Justice and Development Party’s earlier liberal stand, but of the beginning of its shift toward authoritarianism based on its religious-nationalist project, which made use of this liberal right of pious women in enhancing the gaps between oppositional groups and in consolidating its social basis. This earlier attempt has been followed by continuous use of the headscarf as a symbol drawing a border between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and signifying outrages and moral crisis for which the Justice and Development Party blamed the oppositional groups. Within this context, the article questions the ways in which the headscarf as a political symbol along with other conservative policies targeting female bodies and sexualities took a part in the constitution and consolidation of the Justice and Development Party’s radical right alliance and its authoritarian regime.","PeriodicalId":47482,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43249947","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Mapping the music of migration: Emergent themes and challenges","authors":"A. Gardner, Kai Arne Hansen","doi":"10.1177/13675494231156120","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494231156120","url":null,"abstract":"This article adds to existing scholarship on music and migration by presenting and reflecting on the work undertaken in the project ‘Mapping the Music of Migration’ (2019–2021, www.mamumi.eu ), which comprised partners from seven European countries and focused on storytelling about music and its potential to enable intercultural exchange and counter negative stereotypes. The key activities of the project involved the collection of migrants’ ‘Song Stories’ – personal stories about music – which were made publicly available through an interactive app. The article outlines the background and findings of the project and presents critical reflections on the various circumstances that shaped our process and results. The main objective is to give readers an insight into the key challenges and outcomes of the project, thereby calling attention to a range of themes and tensions that are of relevance to future studies of music and migration.","PeriodicalId":47482,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44848511","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book Review: Diaspora as Revolution – Book review of Stuart Hall’ Familiar Stranger: a Life between Two Islands, Stephanie Kaczynski","authors":"Stephanie Kaczynski","doi":"10.1177/13675494231156555","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494231156555","url":null,"abstract":"In Familiar Stranger: A Life Between Two Islands ,","PeriodicalId":47482,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"611 - 616"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42057986","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The (de-)radical(-ising) potential of r/IncelExit and r/ExRedPill","authors":"Joshua Thorburn","doi":"10.1177/13675494231153900","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494231153900","url":null,"abstract":"This article introduces two forums, r/IncelExit and r/ExRedPill, that have organically emerged in recent years to provide a pathway out of the manosphere for men and boys. Based upon preliminary findings from a broader digital ethnography project, this piece highlights the potential benefits these spaces can offer individuals engaging with them. Furthermore, this article flags opportunities that exploring these forums can offer to academic inquiry on the nature of (de-)radicalisation within the manosphere, along with theoretical issues debated within the critical studies of men and masculinities field. It is also proposed that such forums could serve as an alternative space to provide socially alienated young men and boys with information emphasising the importance of consent and respectful relationships, away from formal school curricula. Finally, this article also discusses the potential effects that neoliberalism may have in shaping how young men approach dating.","PeriodicalId":47482,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"464 - 471"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43899261","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From London to Bali: Raymond Williams and communication as transport and social networks","authors":"Rianne Subijanto","doi":"10.1177/13675494231152886","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494231152886","url":null,"abstract":"This article unearths Raymond Williams’ approach to communication as transport and social networks. Existing literature argues that the field of communication’s withdrawal from the study of transport leads to at least two setbacks: media presentism and a narrowed meaning of communication and culture. This article excavates Williams’ concept of ‘communication as transport and social networks’ by first revisiting his larger method of cultural materialism that sees communication as a whole complex assemblage of different modes of communication to facilitate connection. This is then followed by a discussion on the use of this concept in his various works and, more intensively, in The Country and the City. To emphasize Williams’ relevance to contemporary contexts, the next part of the article deals with an analysis of how digital media and contemporary transport networks facilitate the reproduction of Bali as a paradise. This article calls for a more dialectical understanding of communication that includes the inextricable relations between mobility and sociality, the material and the symbolic, and the transmission and the ritual in shaping human lives.","PeriodicalId":47482,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43456775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Enduring inequalities: Fifty years of gender equality talk in the media and cultural industries","authors":"M. Edmond","doi":"10.1177/13675494221145307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494221145307","url":null,"abstract":"This article provides a critical overview of gender equality talk within the media, arts and cultural industries, focusing on a case study of Australian cultural policy discourse from the 1970s to 2020s. It aims to expand on existing understandings of postfeminism and popular feminism by exploring how these sensibilities have been taken up and expressed within arts and cultural policy discourse. How has the problem of the cultural gender gap previously been understood? And how has that changed in light of increased public attention to feminist concerns? While there are important differences across the decades there are also recurring notions of pragmatism, self-empowerment, resilience, vigilance and trickle-down logics – which cultivate a sense of movement without progress. By looking at policy discourses and gender equality talk through a longer lens, considering situations of feminist visibility and invisibility, acceptance and repudiation, and inequalities that are speakable and unspeakable, we see how inequalities in the creative and cultural industries come to be both enduring and endurable.","PeriodicalId":47482,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"428 - 445"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49655897","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Trash, dirt, glitch: The imperfect turn","authors":"E. Rutten, Ruby de Vos","doi":"10.1177/13675494231152371","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494231152371","url":null,"abstract":"‘Trash, dirt, glitch’ offers an introduction to a cluster devoted to trash, dirt and glitch – concepts that, in aesthetic and artistic domains, firmly merit joint exploration. In fashion and urban design, music, art and other aesthetic practices, the trashy, the dirty and the glitchy interconnect in complex choreographies, in discourses and practices where they are framed as benefit rather than bother. For this cluster, the authors asked four scholars in media, design and fashion to examine the interconnections between trash, dirt and glitch as affirmatively charged categories. They do so through in-depth studies of ‘dirt(y)’ and glitch-based sound-making practices and media art in Australia (Caleb Kelly); German electronic and glitch music (Jakko Kemper); dirt and trash aesthetics in sneaker fashion and (especially but not only) US-based grunge subcultures (Ekaterina Kulinicheva); and discourses of dirt and disorder in the creative industry in Russia (Margarita Kuleva). This introduction contextualizes their findings and offers tools to theorize the present-day interest in dirt-, trash-, and glitch-based aesthetics as an imperfect turn. This turn we envision not as an unprecedented shift, but as the latest in a series of socio-technologically motivated historical imperfect turns. The imperfect turn that we witness today is not without its flaws – but, as we argue below, it can facilitate important social interventions.","PeriodicalId":47482,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"3 - 13"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41738194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Loving cultural work at Southbank Centre: Evolutions of emotional, embodied, collaborative labour","authors":"Kathy Williams","doi":"10.1177/13675494231152895","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494231152895","url":null,"abstract":"This article scrutinises a recent moment of cultural work at Southbank Centre, drawing on empirical research including 32 interviews carried out over a 4-year period. It supports the view that it is important to extend our historical understanding of cultural work and argues that cultural labour and affective economy debates need to be situated in longer institutional contexts. Focusing on what it describes as ‘emotional, embodied, collaborative labour’, it analyses these tropes in relation to both specific histories of Southbank Centre and to broader theories of cultural work and emotional labour. It also argues that by unpacking the changing forms of emotional labour required by cultural workers at Southbank Centre, we can develop our understanding of how and why cultural work evolves within specific contexts. During the period I researched Southbank Centre, the need for individualised, ‘appropriate’ emotional labour, and the ability to facilitate enjoyable visitor experiences was made key for cultural workers, and yet the adept demonstration of these personal attributes is not something which is equally available to all. Through analysis of both academic theory and findings from my research, the article therefore unpacks how collaborative working practices coexist with emotional labour, embodied work and the production of an affective visitor experience as well as being shaped by their cultural–political contexts.","PeriodicalId":47482,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":"26 1","pages":"446 - 463"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45933488","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Purging the neoliberal poison? Marina Diamandis and the cultural grammar of popular left politics","authors":"J. Dean","doi":"10.1177/13675494221151044","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494221151044","url":null,"abstract":"This article enquires into the discursive and affective texture of the intersections of popular culture and left/feminist politics in the current Anglo-American context. It does this primarily via a contextual reading of the recent work of Welsh/Greek pop singer Marina Diamandis (who performs under the mononym ‘Marina’), especially her 2021 single entitled ‘Purge the Poison’. Building on Sarah Banet-Weiser’s work on popular feminism, I suggest that recent years have seen the emergence within popular and commercial culture of a ‘popular left politics’ which includes – but is not limited to – popular feminism. I argue that Marina’s work – as well as its reception from fans and critics – can help us identify several constitutive features of what I call the cultural grammar of popular left politics. These include, first, a conception of knowledge as linked to the revelation of truth grounded in identity and experience; second, a projection of purity and perfectionism of self and, third, a projection of complicity onto others. I further suggest – drawing in particular on Akane Kanai’s recent work – that these features of the cultural grammar of popular left politics are testament to the centrality of neoliberalism in shaping the discursive, affective and subjective character of even ostensibly anti-neoliberal forms of politics and culture. Furthermore, in contrast to the familiar argument that neoliberalism blunts or co-opts oppositional discourses, I suggest that, in the current conjuncture, explicitly and overtly anti-neoliberal discourses are sometimes afforded a certain cachet and visibility, so long as the cultural grammar they adopt aligns with the competitive and individualistic logics of neoliberal hegemony.","PeriodicalId":47482,"journal":{"name":"European Journal of Cultural Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2023-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46501360","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}