[URBANTH-L]CFP: The Lived Experiences of Public Consumption

[Angela Jancius]

[x-posted from SEA-L at listserv.albany.edu]

From: Richard Wilk <wilkr at indiana.edu>

Call For Papers on
"The Lived Experiences of Public Consumption"

Dan Cook, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Editor

Markets are lived experiences. They are created, informed, sustained and
transformed
through the activities of people engaging in the interlaced processes of
material,
economic, symbolic and social exchange. The meanings of markets and market
activity are
thereby socially formed, informed and constructed in a multiple ways. From
investigations
of public consumption-which refers to the encounters of buyers and sellers,
of observers
and participants, in marketplaces-come key insights about how commercial
meanings emerge,
what forms these meanings embody, and how these formations and embodiments
change.

Manuscripts are now being solicited for an edited book that examines lived
experiences,
meanings and politics as they are situated in markets, marketplaces and
commercial
activity. Relevant sites include malls, retail stores, street fairs,
commercial strips,
festival marketplaces, theme parks as well as the Web, but are not limited
to them. The
focus on "lived experiences" of markets, consumption and retail settings,
while clearly
inviting ethnographic research does not preclude other methodologies or
forms of analysis
such as historically or textually based investigations, among others.

Contributions are welcome from a variety of perspectives, approaches and
academic
disciplines. Especially welcome are those projects which address or are
situated in
non-Western contexts or, if in Western contexts, those which address ethnic,
"non-Anglo"
traditions and themes.

Among the many topics and subjects that papers might address:
.       the gendered and gendering facets of market transactions
.       racial and racialized contexts of inclusion and exclusion
.       ethnic clashes of value and meaning in exchange
.       local constructions and uses of global products and icons
.       symbolic struggles over value and meaning in marketplaces, both
terrestrial and virtual
.       alternative markets and networks; anti-consumption consumption
.       child- and youth-scapes of retail settings
.       ritual, enchantment, carnival and spectacle

Deadline  First drafts are due by May 1, 2006 in Word format. Recommended
chapter length
is 8,500 words. One-page proposals should be sent to Dan Cook by Dec 1, 2005
to
dtcook at uiuc.edu.

About the Editor Dan Cook is Associate Professor at the University of
Illinois,
Urbana-Champaign. He is author of The Commodification of Childhood (2004,
Duke) and
numerous articles and book chapters on consumption. He is editor of several
special issues
of journals addressing consumption, leisure and childhood and of Symbolic
Childhood (2002,
Peter Lang). For more information, visit
http://www.comm.uiuc.edu/faculty/Cook.html.

--
Prof. Richard Wilk  Gender Studies and Anthropology ---- Indiana University
Office phone: 812 855 3901 Fax: 855-3901
"Things are more like they are now than they've ever been before."
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