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<TITLE>Re: [csaa-forum] Re: wanting to be effluent</TITLE>
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<FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>Hi All,<BR>
<BR>
I must admit I wonder if many of these “reasons” aren’t, despite their reality as phantoms, phantoms nevertheless.<BR>
<BR>
Perhaps it is difficult to talk about the current economies of fear (all concerning “security” - economic, territorial, the family – I would add “cognitive security”) because this fear stalks the academic world as much as anywhere and we could no longer point fingers elsewhere in blame, but would have to challenge ourselves at this level. Fear – and a whole complex machinery surrounding its production and maintenance - seemed to me to be the clear election winner, the milieu of the election, and Howard’s singular achievement in office. I mean he’s made himself the button to push whenever he likes, and the content is just an afterthought. Fear provides the reasons most things were said or not said, done or not done – or maybe I’m just a scared-y cat and everyone else is thinking clearly ...<BR>
<BR>
If it’s not just me, ... the importance of new, alternative economies of affect that some in the list have mentioned – Bifo mentioned “love” recently. I must say I was shocked.<BR>
<BR>
A<BR>
<BR>
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<BR>
On 14/10/04 12:41 PM, "Brett Neilson" <b.neilson@uws.edu.au> wrote:<BR>
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>Yes francis - I see no necessary direct link at all - things are <BR>
>Incidentally my comment re houses was about people in general be they in<BR>
>Liverpool, Balmain, Bankstown or wherever - after all people are just <BR>
>trying to make lives for themselves, and why shouldn't they? ( and I don't <BR>
>believe they are all 'dupes' ( or dopes)).<BR>
>Jeannie<BR>
>BTW I have the latest Freedom catalogue if anyone wants a quick rundown<BR>
<BR>
>---- Original Message -----<BR>
>From: "Francis Maravillas" <Francis.Maravillas@uts.edu.au><BR>
>To: "CSAA discussion list" <csaa-forum@lists.cdu.edu.au><BR>
>Sent: Tuesday, October 12, 2004 6:54 PM<BR>
>Subject: Re: [csaa-forum] RE: wanting to be effluent<BR>
><BR>
><BR>
>I agree, Jeannie. There seems to be a perception that people who have nice <BR>
>a house can't be critical, progressive or 'leftish'. Class/cultural <BR>
>capital distinctions do not necessarily correlate with political <BR>
>positionalities (or voting behavior) - and even Bourdieu acknowledges that.<BR>
><BR>
>Francis<BR>
<BR>
<BR>
Hey Jeannie,<BR>
<BR>
I agree with Francis too and strongly so. But shouldn't this point be <BR>
pushed a little more to say that class cannot be reduced to consumption, <BR>
taste, or cultural capital. Not that anyone on the list has made that <BR>
conflation but the discussion did drift immediately to consumption, an <BR>
important topic but not the only one at stake.<BR>
<BR>
If the category 'aspirational' has any analytical grip in the wake of the <BR>
election (and I'm open to the suggestion that we have to invent new <BR>
concepts) it is in the intersection between complex processes of social <BR>
recomposition (based partly, as Melissa notes, in the changing relations <BR>
between work and non-work) and an ossified geography of political <BR>
representation. Where are the marginal seats? That is a key question in <BR>
analysing the election. And, at that point, there is a need to reintroduce <BR>
an argument about the spatial order of the city (recognising the passage of <BR>
that order beyond simple centre/periphery distinctions). Not to isolate the <BR>
processes of class recomposition to certain areas but to understand how <BR>
they intersect the zero-sum game of representative democracy.<BR>
<BR>
I am impressed by what Amanda says about the need for a politics of <BR>
empathy/affect within and between changing class relations/conflicts. For <BR>
me the starting point for this would have to be the distrust of politicians <BR>
and the disengagement with representative democratic processes (watching <BR>
Idol instead of the debate, etc.). Perhaps there is room for opening and <BR>
dialogue with those of us trying to understand how democratic processes <BR>
might operate beyond (or even underneath) representation. But this will <BR>
have to involve multiple engagements, through ethnic communities perhaps or <BR>
everyday practices on particular sites.<BR>
<BR>
Often this may be prepolitical but it can also involve a different kind of <BR>
politics, a politics of relation. Either way it is important to understand <BR>
how the political emerges. And how it functions in a complex media <BR>
environment with a multiplication of channels and possibilities for <BR>
connection. But here I feel we are reaching the limits of cultural analysis.<BR>
<BR>
Brett<BR>
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_______________________________________<BR>
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discussion list of the cultural studies association of australasia<BR>
<BR>
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<BR>
</SPAN></FONT></FONT><FONT FACE="Verdana, Helvetica, Arial"><SPAN STYLE='font-size:12.0px'>-- <BR>
"I thought I had reached port; but I seemed to be cast<BR>
back again into the open sea" (Deleuze and Guattari, after Leibniz)<BR>
<BR>
Dr Andrew Murphie - Senior Lecturer<BR>
School of Media and Communications, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, 2052<BR>
web:<a href="http://media.arts.unsw.edu.au/homepage/Staff/Murphie/">http://media.arts.unsw.edu.au/homepage/Staff/Murphie/</a><BR>
fax:612 93856812 tlf:612 93855548 email: a.murphie@unsw.edu.au<BR>
room 311H, Webster Building<BR>
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