title: Back to the future: The re-emergence of authentic lifestyles in response to the alienating effects of contemporary capitalism

authors: Galbraith, Debra

subjects: alienation

abstract: This project was written to identify the social forces that were behind the emergence of eco-locally based grass-roots initiatives that have emerged in recent times. It was found that they were formed in response to the alienation inherent in contemporary capitalism, without attempting to directly challenge its dominance. The project begins by identifying alienation as the predominant negative effect of capitalist societies, focussing on its beginnings, meanings and development through to contemporary times. While alienation was originally associated with factory production and waged work, over time it has come to colonise and expand its reach to include consumption as well as production activities. There is particular attention paid to enclosure, as the mechanism by which people are alienated, that is, the way are dispossessed of their physical and social resources. Attention has also been given to how the alienating and dominating tendencies of capitalism have been intensified by the ascendency of neo-liberal capitalism and the societal focus on economic expansion. Alienation related to food production and consumption are also studied in some depth because of the centrality of food in individuals’ alienated experience and the priority placed on food provision by those who choose to adopt an alternative lifestyle. Since the impact of the capitalist system on contemporary human social relationships is so pervasive, the focus turns to pre-industrial societal structure as a comparison. While the structure of society in this era was strictly hierarchical, there was great value put on interdependent social relationships, with much effort put into forging and maintaining social bonds. The discussion shows that compared to contemporary society there was also much less emphasis given to the separation between different aspects of everyday life, such as work and leisure. Since both work and leisure activities were typically labour intensive, time spent by community members working and playing together served to strengthen and reaffirm authentic community relationships. With the rise of capitalism such authentic lifestyles were to diminish and capitalism came to dominate in both the social and economic systems. The recent constructs of localism and eco-localism are investigated, with particular notice given to eco-locally based initiatives which are alleviating alienation and in the process, are moving into the mainstream consciousness of capitalist society. This discussion demonstrates that there are linkages and strong resemblances between them and the authentic social and productive relationships of pre-industrial society and that they have arisen as a result of the increasingly alienating effects of globalised capitalism.

text: Back to the future: The re-emergence of authentic lifestyles in response to the alienating effects of contemporary capitalism This project was written to identify the social forces that were behind the emergence of eco-locally based grass-roots initiatives that have emerged in recent times. It was found that they were formed in response to the alienation inherent in contemporary capitalism, without attempting to directly challenge its dominance. The project begins by identifying alienation as the predominant negative effect of capitalist societies, focussing on its beginnings, meanings and development through to contemporary times. While alienation was originally associated with factory production and waged work, over time it has come to colonise and expand its reach to include consumption as well as production activities. There is particular attention paid to enclosure, as the mechanism by which people are alienated, that is, the way are dispossessed of their physical and social resources. Attention has also been given to how the alienating and dominating tendencies of capitalism have been intensified by the ascendency of neo-liberal capitalism and the societal focus on economic expansion. Alienation related to food production and consumption are also studied in some depth because of the centrality of food in individuals’ alienated experience and the priority placed on food provision by those who choose to adopt an alternative lifestyle. Since the impact of the capitalist system on contemporary human social relationships is so pervasive, the focus turns to pre-industrial societal structure as a comparison. While the structure of society in this era was strictly hierarchical, there was great value put on interdependent social relationships, with much effort put into forging and maintaining social bonds. The discussion shows that compared to contemporary society there was also much less emphasis given to the separation between different aspects of everyday life, such as work and leisure. Since both work and leisure activities were typically labour intensive, time spent by community members working and playing together served to strengthen and reaffirm authentic community relationships. With the rise of capitalism such authentic lifestyles were to diminish and capitalism came to dominate in both the social and economic systems. The recent constructs of localism and eco-localism are investigated, with particular notice given to eco-locally based initiatives which are alleviating alienation and in the process, are moving into the mainstream consciousness of capitalist society. This discussion demonstrates that there are linkages and strong resemblances between them and the authentic social and productive relationships of pre-industrial society and that they have arisen as a result of the increasingly alienating effects of globalised capitalism.

year: 2011

title: Boarders, Babes and Bad-Asses: Theories of a Female Physical Youth Culture

authors: Thorpe, Holly Aysha

subjects: Youth culture

abstract: Young women occupy unprecedented space in contemporary society. Their professional ambitions, educational achievements, practices of cultural consumption, and participation in sport and leisure all offer evidence of a new position for young women. This thesis analyzes female snowboarders as exemplars of young women in contemporary society and popular physical culture. Many young women today play sport and engage in physical activity with a sense of enthusiasm and entitlement unknown to most of their mothers and grandmothers. Against this background the female snowboarder is an excellent barometer of the nature of contemporary youth and popular culture, of the changes in those cultures including the development of niche female cultural industries, and of the emerging opportunities available to middle-class women in Western society.

Women's snowboarding, however, is a complicated and multidimensional phenomenon interwoven with numerous political, cultural, social and economic events and processes. In this thesis I set out to capture the complexity of female snowboarding by systematically contextualizing and interrogating the lived experiences of female boarders through drawing upon six critical social theoretical perspectives: Marxist political economy, post-Fordism, feminism, hegemonic masculinity, Pierre Bourdieu's theory of embodiment, and Foucauldian theorizing. In applying these theories, I select key concepts and engage them in conversations with my insider cultural knowledge of snowboarding, numerous periods of fieldwork, and an extensive base of artifacts and sources collected over five years.

In this thesis I extend academic understandings of female youth culture via the case study of women in snowboarding, and offer a valuable critique of contemporary social theories used to explain many different social phenomena that involve tensions and power relationships between the genders. While no single theory or concept proved adequate to deal with the multidimensional phenomenon of the female boarder, each having its shortcomings and offering quite different insights, several reveal important commonalities in relation to some key concepts in critical sociology, viz, structure, agency, culture, the body and embodiment, gender and power. These commonalities, I argue, offer future directions for theorizing about, and advancing our understanding of, young women in popular physical culture.

text: Boarders, Babes and Bad-Asses: Theories of a Female Physical Youth Culture Young women occupy unprecedented space in contemporary society. Their professional ambitions, educational achievements, practices of cultural consumption, and participation in sport and leisure all offer evidence of a new position for young women. This thesis analyzes female snowboarders as exemplars of young women in contemporary society and popular physical culture. Many young women today play sport and engage in physical activity with a sense of enthusiasm and entitlement unknown to most of their mothers and grandmothers. Against this background the female snowboarder is an excellent barometer of the nature of contemporary youth and popular culture, of the changes in those cultures including the development of niche female cultural industries, and of the emerging opportunities available to middle-class women in Western society.

Women's snowboarding, however, is a complicated and multidimensional phenomenon interwoven with numerous political, cultural, social and economic events and processes. In this thesis I set out to capture the complexity of female snowboarding by systematically contextualizing and interrogating the lived experiences of female boarders through drawing upon six critical social theoretical perspectives: Marxist political economy, post-Fordism, feminism, hegemonic masculinity, Pierre Bourdieu's theory of embodiment, and Foucauldian theorizing. In applying these theories, I select key concepts and engage them in conversations with my insider cultural knowledge of snowboarding, numerous periods of fieldwork, and an extensive base of artifacts and sources collected over five years.

In this thesis I extend academic understandings of female youth culture via the case study of women in snowboarding, and offer a valuable critique of contemporary social theories used to explain many different social phenomena that involve tensions and power relationships between the genders. While no single theory or concept proved adequate to deal with the multidimensional phenomenon of the female boarder, each having its shortcomings and offering quite different insights, several reveal important commonalities in relation to some key concepts in critical sociology, viz, structure, agency, culture, the body and embodiment, gender and power. These commonalities, I argue, offer future directions for theorizing about, and advancing our understanding of, young women in popular physical culture.

year: 2007

title: Young people, technology and the future of te Reo Māori

authors: Keegan, Te Taka Adrian Gregory

abstract: After decades of neglect and, in some instances, suppression, te reo Māori has achieved a degree of recognition and support from the Government and people. Language strategies have been written, schooling is available in both languages, and since 1987 the language has had official status. However, despite demonstrable progress in some areas, it remains a small-minority language. Within New Zealand there are 157,000 speakers of te reo Māori, about 4.1 percent of the population (Statistics New Zealand: Te Tari Tatau, 2007), and the language is classified as 'vulnerable' by UNESCO (Mosley, 2010). The language continues to face considerable pressure from English, not just because English is a majority national language but because it is an increasingly global language, with a significant presence in culture, science, media and technology. This chapter considers the relationships between young people, technology and te reo Māori. It argues that technology is an important domain of use for te reo Māori, particularly the continued use of the language by young people.

text: Young people, technology and the future of te Reo Māori After decades of neglect and, in some instances, suppression, te reo Māori has achieved a degree of recognition and support from the Government and people. Language strategies have been written, schooling is available in both languages, and since 1987 the language has had official status. However, despite demonstrable progress in some areas, it remains a small-minority language. Within New Zealand there are 157,000 speakers of te reo Māori, about 4.1 percent of the population (Statistics New Zealand: Te Tari Tatau, 2007), and the language is classified as 'vulnerable' by UNESCO (Mosley, 2010). The language continues to face considerable pressure from English, not just because English is a majority national language but because it is an increasingly global language, with a significant presence in culture, science, media and technology. This chapter considers the relationships between young people, technology and te reo Māori. It argues that technology is an important domain of use for te reo Māori, particularly the continued use of the language by young people.

year: 2014