[csaa-forum] CALL FOR EOI: Robert Foster Workshop, University of Queensland, 26 - 27 May 2011

[Fergus Grealy]

Call for Expressions of Interest
 
MARKETS, MATERIALITY AND CONSUMER PRACTICES
 
An Interdisciplinary Research Workshop with Professor Robert J. Foster
(Professor of Visual and Cultural Studies, Department of Anthropology,
University of Rochester). 
 
Organised by Professor Gay Hawkins and Dr Anna Pertierra, Centre for
Critical and Cultural Studies, University of Queensland, May 26 and 27,
2011.
 
Background
 
Market formations and processes are attracting growing interest in the
social sciences. For so long represented as autonomous and
self-regulating, markets are now being recognized as complex hybrid
arrangements demanding close empirical investigation. Innovative
research into markets is currently being conducted by anthropologists,
economic sociologists and those working in science and technology
studies. This work focuses on the multiple ways in which markets can be
organized; the social, material and technical devices used to construct
them; the variety of interactions between political and economic
processes; and the logics of what Callon (1998) calls 'calculative
agency'.  
 
While markets have only recently attracted the attention they deserve,
consumption, consumers and commodities have a much longer and richer
history of analysis. Work on the social life of commodities, on consumer
practices, on cultures of circulation and commodity chain analysis, has
documented the myriad ways in which products have become central to
everyday life and to the generation of complex sociospatial connections
between spaces of production and consumption. The interactions between
the consumer and the commodity loom large in much of this work sometimes
obscuring exactly how markets are implicated in connecting them.
Increasingly, however, analyses of the role of branding, advertising and
marketing, distribution networks, regulation, and the materiality of the
commodity are beginning to fill in this gap. Showing how the
organization of markets is central to the constitution of consumers and
commodities, and to generating dynamic and always contingent relations
between them.   
 
Professor Robert J. Foster's most recent book, Coca-Globalization:
following soft drinks from New York to New Guinea (Palgrave 2008) has
been a key text in this emerging area of interest. An historically and
ethnographically rich account of how a market in soft drinks was
developed in Papua New Guinea, the study expands upon Professor Foster's
research interests in commodity chain analysis, globalization,
consumption, branding, nationalism and transnationalism. 
 
Format
 
The aim of this workshop is to develop an extended investigation of the
interactions between markets, consumption and the materiality of
commodities. Professor Foster will present a paper in the first session
outlining his current research. Following that, participants will talk
to their draft, pre-circulated papers and explore discussants' and
other's feedback. 
   
Key issues we invite participants to address include: 
 
*	the social, technical and economic processes that constitute
markets;
 
*	how consumers shape and contest markets;
 
*	markets as hybrid arrangements, new market forms; 
 
*	the role of the materiality of products in constituting distinct
market arrangements;
 
*	the values of commodities and the values of markets;
 
*	transnational and national dimensions of commodity chains.
 
 
Application Process
 
We are interested in generating a lively community of inquiry at this
event. To this end we invite expressions of interest from scholars at
all stages of their careers and working in any relevant field. The
workshop is open to twelve participants. There will be some funding
support for early career researchers. 
 
To express interest in this workshop, please email a 300 word abstract
of your proposed paper along with a brief curriculum vitae to 
admin.cccs at uq.edu.au by 31st January, 2011. NB Please put 'Foster
Workshop' in the subject line of your email.
 
Workshop participants will be expected to attend the entire workshop,
and papers presented will be considered for subsequent publication. 
 
If there are any issues you wish to clarify before you submit an
abstract please feel free to contact us. 
 
Gay Hawkins and Anna Pertierra
g.hawkins at uq.edu.au  and a.pertierra at uq.edu.au
 
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