[csaa-forum] CFP: Lifestyle culture and social transformation in Asia

[Fran Martin]

*Apologies for cross-posting*:


Lifestyle culture and social transformation in Asia
A special issue of Media International Australia (2013) co-edited by Tania Lewis (RMIT), Fran Martin (University of Melbourne) and John Sinclair (University of Melbourne)

If there is one trend that could be said tocharacterise Asian late modernities, it is the shared experience of hyper-accelerated social, cultural and economic transformation. Consumer culture is playing an increasing role in countries once dominated by socialism. Neoliberal economic and social policies are increasingly being adopted by authoritarian statist regimes, with liberalization processes restructuring national economies and, to varying degrees, transforming state structures. More and more, governments in Asia are addressing their citizens as individualised, sovereign consumers with reflexive ‘choices’ about their lifestyles and identities. One of the correlates of these processes of (neo)liberalisation has been the emergence of new formations of consumption-oriented middle classes with lifestyle aspirations that are shaped by national, regional and global influences. How are everyday conceptions and experiences of identity and citizenship being transformed by emerging and rearticulated cultures of modernity across the region?

This issue will examine the growing role of lifestyle media and culture in Asia, drawing upon the insights of existing research on lifestyle culture and consumption but extending its focus by relocating such concerns within the context of Asia and within a trans-national comparativeframe, thus shifting the study of lifestyle away from the Western-centric approach that has dominated the field to date.

The editors welcome the submission of abstracts proposing papers dealing with the following texts and concepts in Asian contexts (including but not limited to Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines):

-       Lifestyle media, from fashion magazines to makeover TV to Internet style guides
-       Food, celebrity chefs and the cultivation of taste
-       Therole of lifestyle experts and cultural intermediaries in Asian lifestyle media from ‘supernannys’ to dating advisors to style gurus
-       Transnational media and the emergence of regional style cultures
-       Green consumption and the LOHAS movement in Asia
-       Newidentities in lifestyle and consumer culture
-       Constructing lifestyles in home design and real estate marketing
-       Theplace of religion in life advice media
-       Health and fitness discourses in lifestyle media
-       Travel advice and lifestyle tourism
-       Historical accounts of the development of lifestyle media in Asia


Please submit 200-word abstracts to Dion Kagan: dkagan at unimelb.edu.au<mailto:dkagan at unimelb.edu.au> by April 15 2012.


Dr Fran Martin
Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies
School of Culture and Communication
University of Melbourne 3010
Australia
f.martin at unimelb.edu.au
+ 613 8344 5486

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